What degrees does Mula nakshatra cover?

240° to 253.33° of the sidereal zodiac — mansion number 19 of 27. In the tropical zodiac used in the West those degrees fall about 24° earlier, which is the ayanamsa.

Which planet rules Mula?

Ketu, which gives it a 7-year Vimshottari dasha period. If the Moon was in this mansion when you were born, that is the period your life opened with.

What are the four padas of Mula?

Each pada is 3°20′ wide: pada 1 from 240°, pada 2 from 243.33°, pada 3 from 246.67°, pada 4 from 250°. The pada determines the navamsa placement.

Mula Nakshatra: Degrees, Padas, Ruler and Dasha Length

The classification

Symbol A bundle of roots

Presiding deity Nirriti, goddess of dissolution

Gana — temperament Rakshasa

Yoni — animal Dog

Caste Butcher

The arithmetic

Sidereal degrees 240° – 253.33°

Ruling planet Ketu

Vimshottari dasha length 7 years

Mean time the Moon spends here 24.12 hours

Rank by duration 16 of 27

The four padas

Each pada is exactly 3°20′ wide and decides the navamsa placement. Most calculators give you the nakshatra and stop — the pada is where the reading actually narrows.

Pada 1 240° – 243.33°

Pada 2 243.33° – 246.67°

Pada 3 246.67° – 250°

Pada 4 250° – 253.33°

How long the Moon really stays

Every source rounds this to “about a day”. Computed over 48,205 sampled positions between 2020 and 2030, the Moon spends an average of 24.12 hours in Mula — against a mean of 24.29 hours across all 27, making this the 16th longest mansion of the cycle.

The mansions are equal in space and unequal in time, because the Moon moves faster near perigee. The ordering shifts slowly as the line of apsides rotates, on a cycle of about 8.85 years — so read this as a current figure, not a fixed property.

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Reading Mula

The traditional reading centres on digging to the root, including the roots that were holding things up. The symbol — A bundle of roots — carries most of the interpretive weight, and the presiding deity, Nirriti, goddess of dissolution, sets the register in which it is read.

Its gana is Rakshasa, which in the classical matching system describes temperament rather than character: fierce, read as blunt and effective, and traditionally the hardest to match. The yoni, Dog, is used for compatibility between two charts, where certain animal pairings are held to be hostile regardless of anything else in the reading.

Where this comes from. These attributes are recorded in the classical texts and passed down; they are traditional classifications, not observations, and no part of them has been tested. The one element with mechanical consequence is the ruler, Ketu, because it sets a 7-year dasha — and that is arithmetic you can check on the calculator.

Also ruled by Ketu

The nine rulers repeat every nine mansions, so each governs three — and each gives the same 7-year dasha.

Ashwini A horse's head Magha A throne room

← Jyeshtha The mansion before this one. All 27 mansions Plus the calculator, the ayanamsa and your dasha balance. Purva Ashadha → The mansion after this one.