Tara bala — the Moon and your birth star

A count, not a comparison

The zodiac is divided into 27 nakshatras of equal width, and every chart has a birth nakshatra — the one the Moon occupied at birth. On any later day the transiting Moon sits in some nakshatra too, and tara bala is the count from the birth nakshatra to that day's nakshatra, going forward around the circle inclusively (so counting the birth nakshatra itself as one).

Because 27 is a multiple of nine, that count cycles through nine named positions three times over as the Moon makes its monthly circuit: the remainder of the count when divided by nine — with a remainder of zero read as the ninth — names the tara. The nine names, in order, are Janma, Sampat, Vipat, Kshema, Pratyak, Sadhana, Naidhana, Mitra and Param Mitra.

Which taras are read as favourable

Of the nine, three are classically read as adverse: Vipat (third), Pratyak (fifth) and Naidhana (seventh) — a rough pattern of every-other-position starting from the birth star itself. Sampat, Kshema, Sadhana, Mitra and Param Mitra are read as favourable in varying degrees, and Janma — the count that lands back on the nakshatra structurally aligned with the birth star itself — is treated as mixed rather than clearly good or bad.

A separate check, the ghatak nakshatra, can override an otherwise favourable tara: a nakshatra can be structurally difficult for a given birth Moon sign for reasons unrelated to the nine-fold tara count, and when both are present they are counted independently rather than one cancelling the other.

A birth nakshatra of Bharani counting forward to a transiting Moon in Magha spans ten nakshatras inclusively; ten divided by nine leaves a remainder of one, which is Janma — the mixed reading, neither clearly favourable nor avoided.