Vishakha Pada 4 (Cancer Navamsa)

Vishakha Pada 4 at a Glance

Pada

4th of 4 — navamsa 64 of the zodiac's 108

Sidereal span

Scorpio 0°00′ – 3°20′ — 210°00′ – 213°20′ sidereal

Rashi (Moon sign)

Scorpio — Vishakha straddles Libra and Scorpio, and the pada decides which

Navamsa (D-9)

Cancer, ruled by Moon

Navamsa from the rashi

9th from Scorpio — a trikona, the other of the two fortunate angles

Jupiter in Cancer

exalted — the strongest of the six grades

Name syllable

To

Jupiter dasha balance

none to 4 years of the 16-year period

What Pada 4 Settles About a Vishakha Birth

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

The pada is fixed by the Moon’s exact longitude, so it needs the birth time and place rather than the date: a Vishakha Moon anywhere in Scorpio 0°00′ – 3°20′ 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 Vishakha, and with it the Cancer navamsa and how much of the Jupiter mahadasha was left.

Cancer Navamsa: What the D-9 Adds

The fourth pada of Vishakha is the Cancer navamsa, lorded by the Moon — the 9th sign from Scorpio, a trikona, the other of the two fortunate angles. Scorpio and Cancer are different signs, so the D-9 shifts the reading rather than confirming it. They share an element — both water — while differing in mobility, Scorpio being fixed and Cancer movable. Pada 4 is not the vargottama one and neither are the other three: Vishakha has no vargottama pada at all, which it shares with 17 other nakshatras.

Two grahas carry this pada: Jupiter, which lords Vishakha, and the Moon, which lords the Cancer navamsa. Between Scorpio 0°00′ – 3°20′ and the Cancer D-9 that arc points to, Jupiter counts the Moon a natural friend, so the two pull together. Reading Vishakha pada 4 in a particular chart means reading both Jupiter and the Moon.

Where Jupiter Stands in This Pada

Jupiter lords Vishakha, and in the Cancer navamsa Jupiter is exalted — the strongest of the six grades. 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 across Vishakha the grade runs from Jupiter exalted in Cancer at pada 4 down to Jupiter in an enemy’s sign at padas 2 and 3 — pada 4 is the strongest of the four on this test.

Vishakha pada 4 is one of only 9 padas in the 108 that exalt their nakshatra lord. The Moon matters separately, since a pada is a Moon position: in Cancer the Moon is in its own sign, which is about the mind a Vishakha pada 4 birth starts with rather than about what Jupiter can deliver.

Vimshottari: The Jupiter Balance a Pada 4 Birth Starts With

A Moon in Vishakha means life begins inside a Jupiter mahadasha, 16 years long. The pada fixes how much of it is left: pada 4 of Vishakha runs from none to 4 years remaining — the shortest of the four, and a Moon on the last minute of Vishakha begins with the Jupiter period already spent, so the next mahadasha starts at birth — where knowing only that the Moon was somewhere in Vishakha leaves the whole 16 years open. Inside Scorpio 0°00′ – 3°20′ it takes the exact longitude to place a birth within that range, and the pada is as far as a nakshatra reading gets.

Jupiter rules three of the 27 nakshatras, so Vishakha shares that 16-year opening with Punarvasu and Purva Bhadrapada — and pada 4 of Vishakha shares the range above with pada 4 of those two, because the balance turns on the quarter rather than on which Jupiter nakshatra it is. Pada 3 of Vishakha carries a different one. The dasha calculator takes the Jupiter balance a Vishakha pada 4 birth starts with and lays out what follows it: Saturn for 19 years, then Mercury.

The Syllable To

A child born with the Moon in Vishakha pada 4 is traditionally named from To. The other three quarters of Vishakha give Tee for pada 1, Too for pada 2 and Te 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 Vishakha

Vishakha is Libra 20°00′ – Scorpio 3°20′, ruled by Jupiter, Rakshasa gana, tiger 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 — Scorpio 0°00′ – 3°20′, Cancer, To:

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

Frequently Asked Questions