Mrigashira Pada 2 (Virgo Navamsa)

Mrigashira Pada 2 at a Glance

Pada

2nd of 4 — navamsa 18 of the zodiac's 108

Sidereal span

Taurus 26°40′ – 30°00′ — 56°40′ – 60°00′ sidereal

Rashi (Moon sign)

Taurus — Mrigashira straddles Taurus and Gemini, and the pada decides which

Navamsa (D-9)

Virgo, ruled by Mercury

Navamsa from the rashi

5th from Taurus — a trikona, the strongest place a supporting sign can fall

Mars in Virgo

in an enemy’s sign — working against the grain

Name syllable

Vo

Mars dasha balance

3 years 6 months to 5 years 3 months of the 7-year period

What Pada 2 Settles About a Mrigashira Birth

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

The pada is fixed by the Moon’s exact longitude, so it needs the birth time and place rather than the date: a Mrigashira Moon anywhere in Taurus 26°40′ – 30°00′ is pada 2, 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 2 rather than just Mrigashira, and with it the Virgo navamsa and how much of the Mars mahadasha was left.

Virgo Navamsa: What the D-9 Adds

The second pada of Mrigashira is the Virgo navamsa, lorded by Mercury — the 5th sign from Taurus, a trikona, the strongest place a supporting sign can fall. Taurus and Virgo are different signs, so the D-9 shifts the reading rather than confirming it. They share an element — both earth — while differing in mobility, Taurus being fixed and Virgo dual. Pada 2 is not the vargottama one and neither are the other three: Mrigashira has no vargottama pada at all, which it shares with 17 other nakshatras.

Two grahas carry this pada: Mars, which lords Mrigashira, and Mercury, which lords the Virgo navamsa. Between Taurus 26°40′ – 30°00′ and the Virgo D-9 that arc points to, Mars counts Mercury a natural enemy, so pada 2 asks for two things at once. Reading Mrigashira pada 2 in a particular chart means reading both Mars and Mercury.

Where Mars Stands in This Pada

Mars lords Mrigashira, and in the Virgo navamsa Mars is in an enemy’s sign — working against the grain. That is a statement about pada 2 specifically: the lord of a nakshatra sits in a different navamsa sign in each of its four quarters, and across Mrigashira the grade runs from Mars in its own sign in Scorpio at pada 4 down to Mars in an enemy’s sign in Virgo at pada 2 — pada 2 is the weakest of the four on this test.

Mrigashira pada 2 is one of 27 padas that put the lord in hostile ground. The Moon matters separately, since a pada is a Moon position: in Virgo the Moon is in a friend’s sign, which is about the mind a Mrigashira pada 2 birth starts with rather than about what Mars can deliver.

Vimshottari: The Mars Balance a Pada 2 Birth Starts With

A Moon in Mrigashira means life begins inside a Mars mahadasha, 7 years long. The pada fixes how much of it is left: pada 2 of Mrigashira runs from 3 years 6 months to 5 years 3 months remaining — 50% to 75% of the 7 years — where knowing only that the Moon was somewhere in Mrigashira leaves the whole 7 years open. Inside Taurus 26°40′ – 30°00′ it takes the exact longitude to place a birth within that range, and the pada is as far as a nakshatra reading gets.

Mars rules three of the 27 nakshatras, so Mrigashira shares that 7-year opening with Chitra and Dhanishta — and pada 2 of Mrigashira shares the range above with pada 2 of those two, because the balance turns on the quarter rather than on which Mars nakshatra it is. Pada 3 of Mrigashira carries a different one. The dasha calculator takes the Mars balance a Mrigashira pada 2 birth starts with and lays out what follows it: Rahu for 18 years, then Jupiter.

The Syllable Vo

A child born with the Moon in Mrigashira pada 2 is traditionally named from Vo. The other three quarters of Mrigashira give Ve for pada 1, Ka for pada 3 and Kee for pada 4, 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 Mrigashira

Mrigashira is Taurus 23°20′ – Gemini 6°40′, ruled by Mars, Deva gana, serpent yoni, Madhya nadi, and pada 2 shares every one of those with the other three. What belongs to pada 2 alone is the arc, the navamsa and the syllable — Taurus 26°40′ – 30°00′, Virgo, Vo:

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

Frequently Asked Questions