Gand Mool Dosh: checked to the pada, because that is what the rule says

Six of the twenty-seven nakshatras are called Gand Mool: Ashwini, Ashlesha, Magha, Jyeshtha, Mula and Revati. They are not a random list - they are the nakshatras that sit at the junctions between signs, where one sign ends and the next begins, and all six belong to Ketu or Mercury. The classical reading is about that junction: a moment of transition rather than anything about a person.

Here is the part almost every page skips. The rule is not "born in one of these six nakshatras". The rule is about the pada - which quarter of the nakshatra the Moon occupied. Each nakshatra divides into four padas of 3°20' each, and the classical rule names one of them: the first pada for the nakshatras that begin a sign, the fourth for those that end one. A wider tradition extends it to two padas. Either way, most padas of these six nakshatras do not carry the finding at all.

So a great many people who have been told they have Gand Mool Dosh do not have it by the rule that was quoted at them. Someone checked the nakshatra and stopped. This page does not stop there - it computes the Moon to four decimal places, gives you the pada, and tells you what both the strict and the wider rule say about it.

And the arithmetic nobody prints. Six of twenty-seven nakshatras is roughly one birth in four and a half. One pada of four within those six is about one birth in eighteen. That is not rare. It is worth knowing about and it is not an emergency - and the gap between "one in four and a half" and "one in eighteen" is exactly where a nakshatra gets checked and a pada does not.

One more thing, and it is the reason this page exists. This finding is told to parents, about a newborn, often within days of the birth, and a shanti puja is quoted at thousands of rupees. No classical text sets that price. No classical text makes the observance a condition for anything. We sell nothing for this, and if you have been quoted a figure, the question worth asking is which text requires it.

Part I - Your Moon, to the pada

The Moon's exact longitude, its nakshatra, and the pada computed to four decimal places - with how far into the pada it sits and how many minutes of birth time separate it from the junction. The figure everything else follows from, printed so it can be checked.

Part II - All six, in full

Each of the six nakshatras described with its own classical passage, its junction, its lord, and the padas the strict and wider rules name. All twenty-seven nakshatras listed with their padas and lords, so any birth can be checked rather than only yours.

Part III - Your pada, and the three you are not in

What the classical texts say about your specific pada, and what they say about the other three in your nakshatra. Reading them together is how you find out whether the description is about your chart or would have fitted any of the four.

Part IV - Where the two rules come from

The strict reading names one pada; the wider names two. Both are in the literature, they come from different sources, and which one is used changes the answer for a great many births. We set out both rather than choosing the one that produces a finding.

Part V - The dasha balance, and what the junction means

Your Moon's nakshatra lord and the dasha balance at birth, dated. Plus what the classical texts actually describe when they talk about a junction birth - which is less dramatic and more specific than what gets said about it now.

Part VI - How common, and what gets sold

The arithmetic on frequency, printed in full. What the observances the tradition names actually are, what they cost, and how the modern shanti puja differs from them. Written for someone who has just had a child and has been told something is wrong.

Part VII - The limits, and the questions

What this cannot tell you, stated without hedging. Twenty questions answered from your own chart, a glossary, the full method, and a technical appendix an astrologer can reproduce.