Chitra (चित्रा) is the 14th of the 27 nakshatras, spanning 173°20' to 186°40' of the nirayana zodiac. It is ruled by Mars, its deity is Tvashtar, the celestial architect and its symbol is a bright jewel. Chitra nakshatra spans two rashis, with padas 1 to 2 in Kanya (Virgo) and padas 3 to 4 in Tula (Libra). Children born with the Moon here are traditionally named with the syllables Pe, Po, Ra, Ree.
Chitra means 'brilliant'. Tvashtar, who fashions forms, is its deity and Mangal rules it. It sits across Kanya and Tula, and is associated with design, architecture, and an eye for how things should look. The caution is preferring the appearance to the substance.
Tradition sums Chitra up as “the made thing that shines”. A person whose Moon is here begins life in the Mars mahadasha, and the nakshatra's Rakshasa gana is read as the fierce, independent temperament that does not yield easily. Its symbol, a bright jewel, and its deity, Tvashtar, the celestial architect, are the images the texts use to describe it. Read these as the nakshatra's character rather than a portrait of a person: the rest of the chart, the Moon's strength and the running dasha shape how it shows.
Each nakshatra is split into four padas of 3°20'. The pada a birth falls in decides the navamsa and, in the naming tradition, the first syllable of the child's name. For Chitra those syllables are Pe, Po, Ra, Ree.
The baby name letters calculator marks the syllable for a chosen pada, and the rashi by name calculator works the other way, from a name to its rashi.
Guna Milan reads three of this nakshatra's classifications directly. Its gana is Rakshasa, compared with the partner's for temperament. Its nadi is Madhya (pitta): partners who share a nadi score zero on the largest koota, worth 8 of the 36 points. Its yoni animal is the tiger, compared for instinctive compatibility. The South Indian nakshatra porutham reads the two birth stars in its own ten tests, and kundli milan gives the full 36-point match.
Only if the Moon was in Chitra when you were born. The Moon crosses a nakshatra in about a day, so a birth date narrows it to two candidates at best and the birth time settles it. Chitra nakshatra spans two rashis, with padas 1 to 2 in Kanya (Virgo) and padas 3 to 4 in Tula (Libra). That is why two people can share a nakshatra and have different Moon signs. Find your birth nakshatra, check your Moon sign, or make the full kundli.
Short answers about Chitra: its lord, rashi, name letters, symbol and gana.
Your own birth star takes a date, a time and a place.
Find my nakshatraMars is the lord of Chitra nakshatra. The nakshatra lord decides which Vimshottari mahadasha a person is born into, so someone with the Moon in Chitra begins life in the Mars mahadasha. How far the Moon had already travelled through the nakshatra sets how much of that first period is left.
Chitra nakshatra spans two rashis, with padas 1 to 2 in Kanya (Virgo) and padas 3 to 4 in Tula (Libra). A nakshatra is 13°20' wide and a rashi 30°, so most nakshatras cross a sign boundary and the pada decides which Moon sign applies. The pada is fixed by the birth time, which is why two people with the same nakshatra can have different rashis.
The name letters for Chitra nakshatra are Pe, Po, Ra and Ree, one for each pada in order. Traditional namkaran gives the child a name beginning with the syllable of the pada the Moon occupied at birth, so the pada is needed as well as the nakshatra.
The symbol of Chitra nakshatra is a bright jewel and its presiding deity is Tvashtar, the celestial architect. Tradition sums the nakshatra up as "the made thing that shines", and the symbol and deity are the starting point for reading its nature. Its yoni animal, the tiger, is a separate classification used in marriage matching.
Chitra is Rakshasa gana and Madhya (pitta) nadi, and its yoni animal is the tiger. All three are used in Guna Milan, the 36-point marriage match. Nadi carries the most weight at 8 points, and partners who share a nadi score zero on it; gana carries 6 points and yoni 4.
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