Mula nakshatra: traits, lord, deity and name letters

Character

Mula is the nineteenth nakshatra and the first of the sidereal sign Dhanu: it begins at 0°00′ and ends at 13°20′, with all four padas inside that one Rashi. Jupiter rules Dhanu, and the Moon is neither exalted, own nor debilitated there. The nakshatra before it, Jyeshtha, closes Vrishchika at the very point where Mula begins, and Purva Ashadha follows.

A Moon in Mula is read as a probing, searching mind, one that wants to get down to the base of whatever it meets and is not satisfied with the surface. The bunch of roots makes the point: what lies underground holds everything above it up. The nakshatra is described as investigative and uncompromising, ready to question received answers and to strip a matter down to its foundations.

The sharp edge of that temperament is the other half of the picture. A mind used to digging can be hard on what it uncovers, and Mula, rakshasa in gana and sharp in nature, is read as capable of upheaval, of pulling up what others would leave planted.

Lord and dasha

Ketu is the lord of Mula. The same graha is lord of Magha and Ashwini, which come nine and eighteen places earlier in that order. All three open a sign, running from 0°00′ to 13°20′ of Mesha, Simha and Dhanu.

Ketu’s period is 7 years of the 120 in the Vimshottari cycle, and a birth with the Moon in Mula begins in it. How much is left depends on how far the Moon had gone through the 13°20′ of the nakshatra. Venus follows with 20 years, the longest period, so a short opening gives way to a long one.

Mula is where the third and last round of nine nakshatras starts, so it begins the sequence again at Ketu. Reading a Ketu period means finding Ketu in the birth chart, noting its sign and bhava, and then looking at the sign’s ruler.

Deity and symbol

The deity of Mula is Nirriti. The Muhurta Chintamani and the Brihat Samhita both give the Sanskrit name nirriti; Iyer’s printed table has Prajapati here, which is a slip, and the Sanskrit verse is followed on this site.

The symbol is a tied bunch of roots. The Muhurta Chintamani gives its shape instead as a lion’s tail. Roots gathered and bound together are a picture of the hidden and the basic, and the nakshatra is read as turned toward origins rather than appearances.

Gana, yoni and nature

Mula belongs to the rakshasa gana. Krittika, Ashlesha, Magha, Chitra, Vishakha, Jyeshtha, Dhanishta and Shatabhisha belong to the same class. The name is a class label of the matching scheme and not a character judgement. As kootas, gana carries 6 points and yoni 4.

Its yoni is the dog. In the Muhurta Chintamani the animal links Mula with Ardra, and in B. V. Raman’s Muhurtha Mula is the male of the pair, Ardra the female.

The nature of Mula is tikshna, sharp, as with Ardra, Ashlesha and Jyeshtha.

Padas and name letters

Mula begins at the point where Jyeshtha ends, 0°00′ of Dhanu, and it never leaves Dhanu. Mesha, Vrishabha, Mithuna and Karka, the zodiac’s opening signs, are its navamsas in turn, so the Moon in Mula changes navamsa every 3°20′ and finishes in Karka.

Naming custom is all this is, and no forecast comes with it. In Namakarana the first sound of a name follows the Moon’s pada at birth, which the kundli calculator shows. Mula’s four sounds are Ye, Yo, Bha and Bhi, two Y sounds and then two Bh sounds.

In Prashna and muhurta

A Moon in Mula can be read as a question about roots, causes or foundations, or about something that must be dug out before it can be settled. Picture someone asking why a long-standing problem keeps returning. The ascendant of the chart for that minute is the asker, and the Moon is at once their mind and the current of the matter. Dhanu is Jupiter’s sign, so Jupiter’s condition enters the reading.

For muhurta, the Muhurta Chintamani lists abhichara, the hostile rites, first among the works of the sharp class, followed by striking, fierce acts, sowing division and the breaking in of animals. That is how the text assigns the class to its works, not a recommendation.

AstroGPT’s Vedic mode takes a question about a returning problem as the moment of a sidereal chart, with the Moon wherever the sky puts her then; the horary astrology guide explains the method.