Uttara Phalguni nakshatra, 26°40' Leo to 10°00' Virgo.

Uttara Phalguni (Sanskrit uttara phalguni meaning the latter lucky one) is the 12th of the 27 nakshatras and a border mansion, running from 26°40' Leo across the cusp into 10°00' Virgo on the sidereal lattice. The presiding deity is Aryaman (the god of contracts, hospitality, dharmic union), the ruling planet is Sun (6-year mahadasha in Vimshottari) and the symbol is the hammock back, also read as bed legs or fig tree, giving a macro register of stable union and structured prosperity. It is the only one of this trio to split two signs: its first pada holds the last of Leo where Purva Phalguni's Venusian ease still lingers, and its remaining three padas move into Virgo where Hasta's craft register begins, so Uttara Phalguni carries the settled contract that follows courtship. Sources: Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra Chapter 3, Phaladeepika Chapter 7, Sarvartha Chintamani.

Range, ruler, deity and classical attributes

Mythology and meaning

Aryaman the presiding deity is one of the Adityas, the god of contracts and hospitality, the patron of dharmic union (marriage). Where Purva Phalguni is the social-pleasure register, Uttara Phalguni is the structured-stable register that follows. The latter-bed register reflects settled partnership rather than initial attraction.

The classical reading walks the presiding deity, the symbol and the ruling planet together to derive the nakshatra's full register. Uttara Phalguni's register is shaped by all three: the deity sets the thematic register, the symbol provides the visual-mnemonic and behavioural anchor and the ruling planet anchors the Vimshottari major-period framework and the broader chart-side reading whenever the chart owner runs the ruler's mahadasha.

What Moon in Uttara Phalguni reads as

Natives born with the natal Moon in Uttara Phalguni carry stable partnership and contract-keeping as dominant register. The chart forms durable agreements, builds organised structures and operates within established frameworks. The Moon as the mental and emotional register absorbs the nakshatra's signature directly: the chart owner thinks, feels and habitually responds through the Uttara Phalguni register.

Classical professional registers commonly associated with this nakshatra include contract law and dispute resolution, business administration and corporate roles, marriage counselling and dharmic-union work, organised charity and institutional hospitality, structured creative production. The professional list is illustrative rather than deterministic. The nakshatra produces structural capacity; the chart owner's specific application depends on the broader chart, the dasha sequence and the natal house position of the Moon within the chart.

The four padas and per-pada navamsa signs

Each nakshatra divides into four padas of 3°20' arc each, mapping to the four navamsa signs starting from the position of the first pada. Pada-level reading qualifies the broad nakshatra register with the navamsa sign that the chart owner's Moon (or natal point) actually occupies. The four padas of Uttara Phalguni.

• Pada 1. Sagittarius / Jupiter: dharmic contract through wisdom register.
• Pada 2. Capricorn / Saturn: institutional structure, corporate-axis stability.
• Pada 3. Aquarius / Saturn: progressive structured work, reform-axis organisation.
• Pada 4. Pisces / Jupiter: compassionate union, dharmic hospitality register.

The classical practice reads the pada-level register together with the natal Moon's navamsa sign for full nakshatra reading. The pada determines which navamsa sign the chart owner activates; the navamsa lord then participates in the broader chart reading as a parallel signature alongside the natal lord.

Sun rulership and the 6-year mahadasha

A native born with the natal Moon in Uttara Phalguni opens life in the Sun mahadasha. The 6-year window foregrounds Sun's karaka register: Sun's natural signification activates as the broad thematic frame for the opening phase of the life.

Combined with Uttara Phalguni's contract register, the opening Sun mahadasha period often produces early-life leadership-axis formation, dharmic-public-role recognition and the institutional authority for which this nakshatra is renowned.

The exact degree of the Moon within Uttara Phalguni fixes how much of the opening Sun mahadasha remained at birth. Moon at 0° of the nakshatra inherits the full 6-year period from birth. Moon at the closing degree of the nakshatra inherits only the residual fraction before the next mahadasha begins. The classical computation reduces this to days from the precise degree of Moon within the nakshatra range.

Born under Uttara Phalguni: what it sets in motion

A natal Moon in Uttara Phalguni opens life inside the Sun mahadasha, the 6-year major period the Vimshottari table assigns to the Sun and the shortest of the nine after Ketu and Mars. This is the load-bearing fact of the placement. The Moon's nakshatra selects the first mahadasha and the elapsed fraction of the arc sets how much of that Sun period is left to run at birth, which is why this border nakshatra is the entry point of the whole 120-year map for such a chart.

The arithmetic runs across the 26°40' Leo to 10°00' Virgo span. A Moon at the very start, near 26°40' Leo, inherits close to the full 6 years of the Sun. A Moon at the midpoint, near 3°20' Virgo, has crossed half the arc, so 3 years of the Sun remain before the 10-year Moon mahadasha begins. A Moon three-quarters through, near 6°40' Virgo, keeps one quarter of the period, about 1 year and 6 months. A Moon in the final degrees carries only a few months of the Sun before the handover. Because the Sun window is short, an Uttara Phalguni birth moves early into the long Moon period that follows, and the full Sun mahadasha reading follows from where the Moon fell in the arc.

Transit reading: when slow planets cross Uttara Phalguni

Beyond the natal-Moon reading, the Uttara Phalguni nakshatra carries reading-significance whenever slow planets transit through its 13°20' arc. Saturn at approximately 2.5 years per sign passes through Uttara Phalguni once every 29.5 years. Jupiter at approximately 13 months per sign passes through annually within each 12-year cycle. Rahu and Ketu at approximately 18 months per sign pass through every 18 years.

Transit Jupiter through Uttara Phalguni provides a benefic overlay on the nakshatra's themes for the duration of the Jupiter transit. Transit Saturn through Uttara Phalguni provides a structural-pressure overlay, often producing the consolidation or restructuring of the nakshatra's themes in the chart owner's life. Transit Rahu or Ketu through Uttara Phalguni provides an amplification or dissolution overlay depending on which node is transiting and which house the nakshatra occupies on the chart.

Computed windows, 2024 to 2040

Every pass of Saturn, Jupiter and Rahu through Uttara Phalguni's 13°20' span in this period. Sidereal positions from the Swiss Ephemeris with the PVRN Rao True Pushya ayanamsha and the mean node, the same engine that computes every chart on this site. Separate rows are separate passes, produced by retrograde motion.

This span in the 2026 to 2028 sky

Because Uttara Phalguni straddles the Leo-Virgo boundary, its two halves catch different traffic across 2026 to 2028. The first pada, the last 26°40' to 30°00' of Leo, sits in the sign Ketu transits until 27 December 2026 and in the sign Jupiter reaches for its taste window from 23 October 2026 to 3 February 2027 and again for its full stay from 19 June 2027, so the Leo edge of the nakshatra draws both the node and the benefic in this window. The remaining three padas, the first 10°00' of Virgo, wait for Jupiter's move into Virgo, which begins as a taste from 18 November 2027 to 9 March 2028 and settles into a full stay from 17 July 2028, laying the benefic overlay across the Virgo contract degrees a year after the Leo pass.

Saturn holds in Pisces then Aries through this window and never touches either half, and the Rahu head stays opposite in Aquarius then Capricorn, so no ringed-planet pressure crosses the span. Underneath the Jupiter passes the Moon returns to Uttara Phalguni for about one day every 27.3 days and the Sun, the nakshatra's own ruler, crosses it for roughly a fortnight once a year. Each is a transit over a fixed arc and each carries the same limitation: the overlay marks the window while the natal chart decides the result. The neighbouring Hasta span, the next Virgo nakshatra, receives that same Jupiter-in-Virgo taste from 18 November 2027 as it moves deeper into the sign.

Compatibility attributes and Ashtakoota implications

Uttara Phalguni carries gana classification manushya (the temperamental class layer, with three values: deva for divine, manushya for human, rakshasa for intense), varna classification kshatriya (the functional class layer), yoni classification cow (the animal-axis compatibility marker) and nadi classification pitta (the Ayurvedic constitutional axis). These attributes feed Ashtakoota compatibility scoring used in classical Vedic matchmaking. The cluster documents these for reference, not as a forward-call mechanism.

Where Uttara Phalguni sits in the 27-step sequence

In the fixed 27-step sidereal nakshatra sequence, Uttara Phalguni is the 12th nakshatra. The Moon traverses one nakshatra in approximately 24 hours (the lunar daily motion of approximately 13°10' per day matched against the 13°20' nakshatra arc). The nakshatra boundaries are therefore time-sensitive at the daily and even hourly level: birth time accuracy is the prerequisite for accurate nakshatra identification.

Calibration status

The article documents the classical Uttara Phalguni-nakshatra reading as set out in BPHS Chapter 3 (nakshatra significations), Phaladeepika Chapter 7 and Sarvartha Chintamani. The presiding-deity reading, the symbol-interpretation, the four-pada-per-navamsa framework and the gana-varna-yoni-nadi compatibility attributes are presented as the tradition's own framework. The Tempora calibrated signature library (Note 005) does not currently include nakshatra-specific event signatures. Calibrating nakshatra placements against a labelled chart-corpus is open work.

FAQ

This article was prepared by Tempora Research as an informational piece in the Nakshatra cluster. Methodology, calibrated lift figures and reconciliation entries are documented in Tempora's research-publishing standards and reproducible against the public engine. Internal audit log maintained. This article does not constitute medical, financial, legal or professional advice. First published 2026-05-29 by Tempora Research.