Krittika (कृत्तिका) is the third of the 27 nakshatras, spanning 26°40' to 40°00' of the nirayana zodiac. It is ruled by Sun, its deity is Agni, the fire and its symbol is a razor; a flame. Krittika nakshatra spans two rashis, with pada 1 in Mesh (Aries) and padas 2 to 4 in Vrishabh (Taurus). Children born with the Moon here are traditionally named with the syllables A, E, U, Ea.
Krittika is sharp. Agni is its deity and the razor its symbol, and the nakshatra is read as cutting through pretence: critical, purifying and not always comfortable to be around. It spans Mesha and Vrishabha, so its first pada burns and the rest builds.
Tradition sums Krittika up as “the one that burns away”. A person whose Moon is here begins life in the Sun mahadasha, and the nakshatra's Rakshasa gana is read as the fierce, independent temperament that does not yield easily. Its symbol, a razor; a flame, and its deity, Agni, the fire, 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 Krittika those syllables are A, E, U, Ea.
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 Antya (kapha): partners who share a nadi score zero on the largest koota, worth 8 of the 36 points. Its yoni animal is the sheep, 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 Krittika 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. Krittika nakshatra spans two rashis, with pada 1 in Mesh (Aries) and padas 2 to 4 in Vrishabh (Taurus). 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 Krittika: its lord, rashi, name letters, symbol and gana.
Your own birth star takes a date, a time and a place.
Find my nakshatraSun is the lord of Krittika nakshatra. The nakshatra lord decides which Vimshottari mahadasha a person is born into, so someone with the Moon in Krittika begins life in the Sun mahadasha. How far the Moon had already travelled through the nakshatra sets how much of that first period is left.
Krittika nakshatra spans two rashis, with pada 1 in Mesh (Aries) and padas 2 to 4 in Vrishabh (Taurus). 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 Krittika nakshatra are A, E, U and Ea, 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 Krittika nakshatra is a razor; a flame and its presiding deity is Agni, the fire. Tradition sums the nakshatra up as "the one that burns away", and the symbol and deity are the starting point for reading its nature. Its yoni animal, the sheep, is a separate classification used in marriage matching.
Krittika is Rakshasa gana and Antya (kapha) nadi, and its yoni animal is the sheep. 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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