Famous people born in Mula and Revati nakshatra, and how to check a name

Most of the well known names offered as Mula or Revati nakshatra celebrities do not check out. Take the public birth date, compute where the Moon actually was on it, and of the eight names that circulate most widely, six are impossible at any hour of that day, one is settled the other way by a recorded birth time, and exactly one is left genuinely open.

That is worth knowing on its own. It matters more if you landed here because someone told you that being born in Mula, sometimes spelled Moola, is a problem for your family. There is a straight answer to that below.

Why a birth date almost never settles a nakshatra

The Moon covers about 13 degrees and 10 minutes of the zodiac in a day, and a nakshatra is 13 degrees and 20 minutes wide. So the Moon spends roughly a day in each nakshatra, and a boundary falls somewhere inside almost every calendar date.

That rule of thumb is worth checking rather than repeating. Across the 1,500 days from 1 January 2020, counting a day as settled only when the Moon is in the same nakshatra at both midnights, Indian time, it was settled on 63 of them, about one day in twenty-four. On the rest, the answer depends entirely on the hour of birth.

And the hour of birth is the one thing about a public figure that is almost never public. Birth dates are documented. Birth times are quoted from memory, rounded to the nearest hour, or taken from an old interview, which is why serious collections of birth data rate the reliability of every time they hold. A page that names twenty celebrities and gives no times and no sources is not reporting anything. It is copying an earlier page.

The positions below use the Lahiri ayanamsa, the reckoning Indian panchang follows. Boundary times shift by a few hours under a different ayanamsa, but the Moon travels a whole nakshatra in a day, so a name that misses by several nakshatras misses under every system.

The Revati names

Alia Bhatt, born 15 March 1993. The Moon was in Jyeshtha until about 8:14 in the morning Indian time, and in Mula for the rest of the day. Revati is eight nakshatras away from either. No birth time on that date produces it.

Drew Barrymore, born 22 February 1975. Ardra until about 4:13 in the morning California time, then Punarvasu. Not Revati at any hour.

Steve Jobs, born 24 February 1955, San Francisco. Usually offered as the strong case, and the one name here whose time is genuinely on record rather than remembered: 19:15 in the evening, from a documented source. At that hour the Moon was in Uttara Bhadrapada, about two degrees short of the Revati boundary, which it crossed at 22:54 that night. The recorded time settles the question, and it settles it against Revati.

Three names from almost every Revati list, and not one survives.

The Mula names

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, born 1 November 1973. Purva Ashadha until about half past six in the evening Indian time, then Uttara Ashadha. Mula had ended before that day began.

Bill Gates, born 28 October 1955, Seattle. Purva Bhadrapada for the first two hours of the day, Uttara Bhadrapada afterwards.

Anne Hathaway, born 12 November 1982. Hasta until mid afternoon, then Chitra.

Rajnath Singh, born 10 July 1951. Purva Phalguni until about half past four in the morning, then Uttara Phalguni.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, born 30 July 1947, Thal, Austria. The one genuinely open case in the set. The Moon was in Mula until roughly ten in the morning local time and in Purva Ashadha after that, so the claim holds if he was born in the morning and fails if he was born later, and there is no birth time here worth trusting either way.

One arguable name out of five, with an irony attached. Alia Bhatt, whom the same sites file confidently under Revati, was born on a date when the Moon entered Mula at about a quarter past eight in the morning. If she was born after that hour she is a Mula birth. Neither list checked.

What Mula actually is

Mula is the nineteenth nakshatra, covering the first 13 degrees 20 minutes of Sagittarius. Ketu rules it, its deity is Nirriti, its symbol is a bunch of roots tied together, and the word means root.

Everything tradition says about it sits on that image: going to the bottom of a thing, taking apart an inherited arrangement to find out whether it was ever true. Classical descriptions of a Moon here speak of directness, of an unwillingness to accept a comfortable surface answer, and of a life that usually contains one clean break from what came before. The same quality pointed the wrong way is pulling up what was doing fine.

What Revati actually is

Revati is the twenty-seventh and last nakshatra, from 16 degrees 40 minutes to 30 degrees of Pisces. Mercury rules it, its symbol is a fish, and its deity is Pushan, who in the older texts looks after travellers and sees them safely to where they are going.

Being last carries most of its meaning. Revati sits where one cycle finishes and the next has not started, and tradition associates it with gentleness, with care taken over other people, and with an instinct for finishing things and handing them on properly. Its standing difficulty is boundaries, which is to say absorbing what other people are feeling until there is nothing left over.

Both descriptions are a grain, not a forecast. No nakshatra makes a person famous.

About the fear attached to Mula

Mula begins where Jyeshtha ends, at one of the joints of the zodiac where a water sign meets a fire sign. Tradition treats those joints as sensitive and prescribes a shanti, a settling ritual done in the early weeks, for a child born in the opening part of Mula. Some families are also told that such a birth is dangerous for the father.

The prescription is genuinely in the tradition and no website invented it. It is a ritual of settling, of the same family as the rituals done at other thresholds in a life. What it is not is a verdict on a child, and it was never meant to be delivered as one. Telling a family that their newborn is a danger to them does real damage, and nothing in the texts licenses it. If you want the shanti done, have it done, in the ordinary way, and then get on with raising the child.

How to check any name, including your own

You need the date, the time and the place of birth. Two of those are usually easy and the third is the whole problem. With all three, compute the chart and read the Moon's nakshatra: the free kundli on this site does it, and so does any calculator set to the Lahiri ayanamsa. With only the date, compute the Moon at the start and the end of that day in the right time zone. If both fall in the same nakshatra the time does not matter, and if they differ the honest answer is that it is one of two and which one cannot be said.

Many people who have been told they are Mula natives are not, because whoever told them worked from the date alone and guessed the wrong side of a boundary.

If the chart you actually care about is your own rather than a celebrity's, the Moon's nakshatra is one line of it. The house that Moon sits in, the rest of the placements, and the long period running at the time all say more about a given stretch of life than the nakshatra does by itself. Reading those together is what a reading is for. If your question is marriage, the 7th lord in Revati nakshatra covers what a nakshatra on that house can and cannot say.

Questions people ask

Was Alia Bhatt born in Revati nakshatra?

No. On 15 March 1993 the Moon was in Jyeshtha until about 8:14 in the morning Indian time and in Mula afterwards, and Revati is eight nakshatras from both. The claim seems to have been copied from list to list without anyone computing it.

Which celebrities are actually born in Mula or Revati?

No list here would be worth standing behind, because the answer needs birth times and those are rarely public. Of the eight names checked above, six are ruled out by the date alone and one by a recorded time. Only Arnold Schwarzenegger's date leaves the question open.

Do I need my birth time to know my nakshatra?

Almost certainly. On about twenty-three days out of twenty-four the Moon changes nakshatra somewhere inside the day, so the date alone leaves two candidates. Compute the Moon at both ends of your birth date in your own time zone and see whether it stays in one.