Tara koota — counted in both directions

What this tool computes

Tara measures a distance between two birth stars, counted in whole nakshatras rather than degrees. Begin at one person’s star, count forward around the circle of twenty-seven to the other’s, divide by nine and keep the remainder. Nine, because the taras run in a cycle of nine, and three of them — the third, fifth and seventh — are the ones the tradition marks as adverse. The koota is worth 3 points. This tool counts in both directions and awards half to each, which is the mainstream rule, and prints Raman’s one-directional rule beside it.

Why the convention changes the answer

Counting bride to groom and counting groom to bride give two different numbers. They must: the circle is twenty-seven long, so the two counts sum to twenty-nine, and only a couple sharing a birth star gets the same figure both ways. Tara is asymmetric by construction. The mainstream rule counts both directions and splits the points; Raman and several South Indian panchangas count one direction only and treat the koota as all or nothing. A third convention, carried by widely used commercial software, counts both but weights them two and one. Three answers, one pair of birth stars. If a result does not name the convention, the number alone cannot show which rule produced it.

Two people who share a birth star take full marks on tara under two documented rule sets and nothing at all under three.

What the result does and does not mean

The figure is arithmetic on two integers plus a decision about which rule to apply. It does not describe either person and it does not forecast anything. Read in context, tara is generous: full marks go to 33.3% of all nakshatra-pada pairings, the mean award is 2 out of 3, and a flat zero reaches 0% of them under the both-directions rule. Those are exhaustive counts over the whole population of pairings, not a sample, so no margin of error attaches to them.

Why does my report show one and a half points?

Because it used a both-directions rule with an even split — one and a half for the groom read from the bride, one and a half for the reverse. Under a single-direction rule that score does not exist; the result is three or nothing. The presence of a half point tells you which family of rules produced your number.

We were born under the same nakshatra. Why do we see two verdicts?

Sharing a star always produces remainder one, Janma tara, in both directions, and that is the single most disputed case in the koota. Two of the five documented rule sets accept it; three treat it as inauspicious. Raman’s own worked example rejects a couple on exactly this remainder, so the stricter reading is sourced and defended rather than eccentric.

Tara is only three points. Does the rule choice matter?

It matters when the total sits on the boundary. Losing 3 points out of thirty-six sounds survivable until the number you were given is seventeen and the line you were held to is eighteen. Whether it matters in your case is checkable: change the rule and see whether the total crosses.