Krittika
The third of the 27 lunar mansions, the layer of the Vedic sky that Western astrology does not have. Krittika is the nakshatra of the cutting edge: its deity is Agni, the fire that cooks and purifies, its symbol is a razor, and its stars are the Pleiades, the cluster the six nurses of the god of war. The name means the cutter.
What the tradition says
Krittika's image is of fire used with precision: the blade that cuts clean and the flame that cooks rather than burns. The classical texts read it as sharpness of perception, a high standard, and a protective fierceness; the Pleiades nursed Kartikeya, the warrior, and something of the nurse and something of the warrior are both here. The Sun rules the mansion, which gives the sharpness its authority.
The honest shadow in the sources is the blade turned the wrong way: criticism that wounds where it meant to clean, a temper like a flare, and a pride that does not easily admit a fault. The texts say Krittika people must learn that what cuts can also cut them.
A Krittika Moon
A Krittika Moon describes a mind that sees the fault and says so: feelings that are clear and quick to heat, a protective instinct towards the people counted as one's own, and little patience with pretence. Anyone born with the Moon here begins life in a Sun period, and the sequence of their planetary seasons runs from there.
The four padas
Krittika crosses a sign boundary: its first pada falls in sidereal Aries and the other three in Taurus. The tradition reads the Aries pada as the fiercest, the fire of Mars under the fire of Agni, and the Taurus padas as the same sharpness put to steadier use, in craft, in food, in the keeping of a home. Two Krittika Moons either side of that line share the edge and differ in what it is for.
In degrees: pada 1 from 26°40′ Aries to 0° Taurus with a Sagittarius navamsa, pada 2 from 0° Taurus to 3°20′ Taurus with a Capricorn navamsa, pada 3 from 3°20′ Taurus to 6°40′ Taurus with a Aquarius navamsa and pada 4 from 6°40′ Taurus to 10° Taurus with a Pisces navamsa.
Why your Western chart never mentions this
There is no Western equivalent of Krittika.
Western astrology divides the sky into twelve signs and stops. The Vedic system lays 27 mansions of 13°20′ over its twelve signs, a finer grain with its own deities, symbols and timing system. There is no Western equivalent of Krittika, which is why a person can know their "big three" thoroughly and still meet something new the first time their Vedic chart is calculated. It is not that one system is finer-grained and therefore truer; they are answering different questions, and we show you both so you can see where they agree, and where they argue.
The Sun passes through Krittika from about 11 May to 25 May each year, which Western astrology calls Taurus and Gemini. A Moon can be here on any day of the year, since the Moon crosses a mansion in about a day, and it is the Moon the tradition reads first.
About 60 seconds · needs your birth date, time and place · unknown time handled honestly
Questions people ask
Is Krittika a good nakshatra?
The tradition does not rank the mansions as good and bad; each carries a capacity and a cost, and Krittika's are the gift of clean sight and the tax of a sharp tongue. Readings that call nakshatras lucky or unlucky are selling something.
What if my Moon is right on the Aries to Taurus boundary?
Then your pada matters more than usual, and your birth time matters more than usual, since the Moon moves about 13 degrees a day. The calculator shows your exact degree and flags it when a placement sits near an edge.
I am a Aries in Western astrology. Is Krittika the same thing?
No. Your Western sign comes from the tropical zodiac; Krittika is a sidereal mansion that partly overlaps sidereal Aries. You can be a Western Aries with no Krittika placements at all, and a Western Taurus with a Krittika Moon. The free chart shows your actual pair.
We read charts for pattern and coherence, not prediction. Nothing here tells you what will happen, and nothing here tells you who you are; it shows a structure and leaves the judgement with you.