Krittika Pada 4 (Pisces Navamsa)

Krittika Pada 4 at a Glance

Pada

4th of 4 — navamsa 12 of the zodiac's 108

Sidereal span

Taurus 6°40′ – 10°00′ — 36°40′ – 40°00′ sidereal

Rashi (Moon sign)

Taurus — Krittika straddles Aries and Taurus, and the pada decides which

Navamsa (D-9)

Pisces, ruled by Jupiter

Navamsa from the rashi

11th from Taurus — an upachaya house, and the plainest of the gaining ones

Sun in Pisces

in a friend’s sign — supported without being strong

Name syllable

Ay

Sun dasha balance

none to 1 year 6 months of the 6-year period

What Pada 4 Settles About a Krittika Birth

This is the pada that matters most on Krittika, because Krittika crosses a sign boundary and pada 4 lands in Taurus. The rest of the nakshatra divides differently — pada 1 is in Aries — so two people who both read Krittika as their birth star can have different rashis, different rashi lords and different monthly readings. Pada 4 shares Taurus with padas 2 and 3 of Krittika.

The pada is fixed by the Moon’s exact longitude, so it needs the birth time and place rather than the date: a Krittika Moon anywhere in Taurus 6°40′ – 10°00′ is pada 4, and the Moon crosses 3°20′ in roughly five to seven hours depending on how fast it is moving. A free kundli will say pada 4 rather than just Krittika, and with it the Pisces navamsa and how much of the Sun mahadasha was left.

Pisces Navamsa: What the D-9 Adds

The fourth pada of Krittika is the Pisces navamsa, lorded by Jupiter — the 11th sign from Taurus, an upachaya house, and the plainest of the gaining ones. Taurus and Pisces are different signs, so the D-9 shifts the reading rather than confirming it. They have neither element nor mobility in common: Taurus is earth and fixed, Pisces is water and dual. Pada 4 is not the vargottama one and neither are the other three: Krittika has no vargottama pada at all, which it shares with 17 other nakshatras.

Two grahas carry this pada: the Sun, which lords Krittika, and Jupiter, which lords the Pisces navamsa. Between Taurus 6°40′ – 10°00′ and the Pisces D-9 that arc points to, the Sun counts Jupiter a natural friend, so the two pull together. Reading Krittika pada 4 in a particular chart means reading both the Sun and Jupiter.

Where the Sun Stands in This Pada

The Sun lords Krittika, and in the Pisces navamsa the Sun is in a friend’s sign — supported without being strong. That is a statement about pada 4 specifically: the lord of a nakshatra sits in a different navamsa sign in each of its four quarters, and Krittika splits two ways rather than running down a scale: the Sun in a friend’s sign at padas 1 and 4, and the Sun in an enemy’s sign at padas 2 and 3. On that test pada 4 shares the top grade of the four.

Krittika pada 4 is one of 30 padas that put the lord in a friendly sign — the commonest of the six grades. The Moon matters separately, since a pada is a Moon position: in Pisces the Moon is in a neutral’s sign, which is about the mind a Krittika pada 4 birth starts with rather than about what the Sun can deliver.

Vimshottari: The Sun Balance a Pada 4 Birth Starts With

A Moon in Krittika means life begins inside a Sun mahadasha, 6 years long. The pada fixes how much of it is left: pada 4 of Krittika runs from none to 1 year 6 months remaining — the shortest of the four, and a Moon on the last minute of Krittika begins with the Sun period already spent, so the next mahadasha starts at birth — where knowing only that the Moon was somewhere in Krittika leaves the whole 6 years open. Inside Taurus 6°40′ – 10°00′ it takes the exact longitude to place a birth within that range, and the pada is as far as a nakshatra reading gets.

The Sun rules three of the 27 nakshatras, so Krittika shares that 6-year opening with Uttara Phalguni and Uttara Ashadha — and pada 4 of Krittika shares the range above with pada 4 of those two, because the balance turns on the quarter rather than on which Sun nakshatra it is. Pada 3 of Krittika carries a different one. The dasha calculator takes the Sun balance a Krittika pada 4 birth starts with and lays out what follows it: the Moon for 10 years, then Mars.

The Syllable Ay

A child born with the Moon in Krittika pada 4 is traditionally named from Ay. The other three quarters of Krittika give A for pada 1, Ee for pada 2 and U for pada 3, which is why a naming list keyed to the nakshatra alone gets it wrong three times out of four — the syllable follows the pada, and the pada follows the longitude.

The Other Three Padas of Krittika

Krittika is Aries 26°40′ – Taurus 10°00′, ruled by the Sun, Rakshasa gana, sheep yoni, Antya nadi, and pada 4 shares every one of those with the other three. What belongs to pada 4 alone is the arc, the navamsa and the syllable — Taurus 6°40′ – 10°00′, Pisces, Ay:

The rashi column is the one to read first on Krittika: it changes inside the nakshatra, which is true of only nine of the 27.

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