The eight kootas
Tara Koota and the Nine Taras: How Birth Stars Are Counted
By Match Kundli Editorial Team · Updated · 4 min read
Tara koota is worth 3 points and compares the two birth stars by counting. Starting from one person's nakshatra, you count forward to the other person's, reduce the number to one of nine taras, and repeat the count in the opposite direction. Each direction that lands on a favourable tara earns 1.5 points, so the koota can score 0, 1.5 or 3.
It is the most arithmetical of the eight kootas, and once the counting is clear, the result is easy to check by hand.
Twenty-seven stars in a cycle of nine
The 27 nakshatras run in a fixed order from Ashwini to Revati, each covering 13°20′ of the zodiac. Because 27 is three times nine, the nine taras repeat three times around the circle: the 1st, 10th and 19th stars from any starting point share the same tara, as do the 2nd, 11th and 20th, and so on.
Counting is always inclusive. The starting star itself counts as 1, the next as 2, and the count wraps from Revati back to Ashwini. To find the tara, subtract 9 until the number is between 1 and 9. A count of 18, for example, becomes 9, and a count of 11 becomes 2.
The nine taras and what they mean
Each tara has a name that hints at its traditional character. The last column shows how this site scores each one.
| Tara | Name | Traditional meaning | Points per direction on this site |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Janma | Birth | 0 |
| 2 | Sampat | Wealth | 1.5 |
| 3 | Vipat | Danger | 0 |
| 4 | Kshema | Well-being | 1.5 |
| 5 | Pratyari | Obstacle | 0 |
| 6 | Sadhana | Achievement | 1.5 |
| 7 | Vadha | Destruction | 0 |
| 8 | Mitra | Friend | 1.5 |
| 9 | Parama Mitra | Close friend | 1.5 |
Vadha is also called Naidhana, and Parama Mitra is sometimes written Ati Mitra.
Counting it out with a real example
Take Example 3 from our calculation engine, built from fictional birth details. The boy's Moon is in Mrigashira, the 5th nakshatra, and the girl's is in Shravana, the 22nd.
- Boy to girl. Counting from Mrigashira to Shravana inclusive gives 22 − 5 + 1 = 18. Reducing 18 gives 9, Parama Mitra, which earns 1.5 points.
- Girl to boy. Counting from Shravana onwards, past Revati and round to Mrigashira, gives 11. Reducing 11 gives 2, Sampat, which earns another 1.5 points.
- Total. 1.5 + 1.5 = 3, the full score.
Example 1 shows the opposite pattern. The boy's Moon is in Uttara Bhadrapada (the 26th star) and the girl's in Shravana (the 22nd). From his star to hers the count is 24, which reduces to 6, Sadhana, worth 1.5. From hers to his the count is 5, Pratyari, worth nothing. The koota scores 1.5.
Both results match what the matching tool reports for these pairs. If you are unsure which nakshatra your Moon is in, this guide to Moon sign and nakshatra explains how it is found.
Why the count runs both ways
The two directions do not mirror each other. Because the circle has 27 stars, whenever the two nakshatras differ, a count of n in one direction becomes 29 − n in the other, so a favourable tara one way can be unfavourable the other way. Tradition reads each direction as how one person's star relates to the other's, and the koota combines both into a single score.
Working through every possible gap shows how this plays out on this site. Of the 27 possible distances between two stars, 18 give exactly 1.5 points, 6 give the full 3, and only 3 give zero. Those three are the cases where both counts land on Janma, which leads to the next point.
The Janma tara question
The first tara, Janma, is where published methods part company. This site gives it no points, which means two people born under the same nakshatra score 0 in Tara, because both counts equal 1. The same applies to counts of 10 and 19, the stars sometimes called Anujanma and Trijanma.
Many classical sources take a different view and treat only the 3rd, 5th and 7th taras as unfavourable. Under that rule, Janma would earn points, and a same-nakshatra pair would score the full 3 in Tara. If you compare this site's report with another calculator and see a gap of up to 3 points, check whether the two people share a nakshatra or sit 10 or 19 stars apart; this difference is the likely reason.
A shared nakshatra also affects other kootas. It always means the same Nadi, and therefore Nadi Dosha, which is discussed in Nadi koota and Nadi Dosha.
What Tara is said to influence
Tara is traditionally linked with general well-being and the ease with which life flows for the couple: health, everyday fortune and freedom from repeated setbacks. The detailed report on this site reads a full score as a favourable sign for shared health and everyday ease, and a zero as a gentle suggestion to look after well-being as a couple rather than as a judgement on the relationship.
At 3 points it carries modest weight. It rarely decides a match on its own, but because it depends on the nakshatra it can change if the birth time is uncertain, as explained in Kundli matching without a birth time. The overview of the eight kootas shows how Tara fits with the other nakshatra-based kootas.