A Mula-born person's gun milan rests on a rakshasa gana, the dog yoni and the Adi nadi, plus four kootas read from Sagittarius, the only sign Mula occupies. In the table above, Mula's totals run from 9 to 29.5 out of 36 as the groom and from 9.5 to 28.5 as the bride, and no pairing crosses into the excellent band.
Those are modest ceilings, and the reason is structural rather than personal. This note walks through the arithmetic behind our kundli matching engine so the Mula row reads as a set of rules, not as a forecast.
The points Mula settles by itself
Mula opens Sagittarius. Its lord is Ketu and the sign lord is Jupiter. Four of the eight kootas, worth 21 points together, are decided by the nakshatra:
- Tara (3): the count between Mula and the partner's nakshatra.
- Yoni (4): the dog, male. Ardra is the other dog; the sworn enemy is the deer of Anuradha and Jyeshtha.
- Gana (6): rakshasa, the fierce temperament.
- Nadi (8): Adi.
Varna, vashya, graha maitri and bhakoot, 15 points in all, come from Sagittarius. All four padas of Mula stay inside that sign, so Mula never turns a cell into a range on its own. Where you see a range in the Mula row, the partner's nakshatra is the one crossing a boundary.
How the Mula row spreads out
As the groom, 12 of Mula's usual scores fall below 18, 9 sit between 18 and 24.5, 6 reach 25 to 32, and none go higher. As the bride the count is 12, 8 and 7, again with nothing above 32.
The best figure comes from Dhanishta: 29.5 with Mula as the groom and 28.5 with Mula as the bride. Its cell reads 21–29.5 because Dhanishta is split between Capricorn and Aquarius, and the sign-based kootas change on each side. Next is Mula with Mula at 28, then Chitra at 27 (26 the other way round), Vishakha at 27 with a range of 22.5–27, and Revati at 27.5 when Mula is the bride.
Purva Ashadha, which shares Sagittarius with Mula, reads 27 with a narrow range of 27–28. That small wobble has nothing to do with sign boundaries. Sagittarius changes its vashya class at 15°, and that point falls inside Purva Ashadha, so a single point of vashya depends on where its Moon lies.
At the bottom, an Ashwini bride gives a Mula groom 13, and Rohini and Uttara Phalguni give 14 each. Ashwini and Uttara Phalguni share Mula's nadi; Rohini and Uttara Phalguni are manushya.
Gana decides much of the row
Look at the top of the list again: Dhanishta, Chitra and Vishakha are all rakshasa, like Mula, and so collect the full 6 for gana. Interestingly, all three also fall on unfavourable taras from Mula (pratyari for Dhanishta and Chitra, vadha for Vishakha). Tara costs at most 1.5 from one direction, so it barely dents them.
The scoring table is far less kind in the other direction. Rakshasa with manushya scores 0 of 6 whoever is the groom, and there are nine manushya nakshatras: Bharani, Rohini, Ardra, Purva Phalguni, Uttara Phalguni, Purva Ashadha, Uttara Ashadha, Purva Bhadrapada and Uttara Bhadrapada. With a deva partner, gana gives only 1. That is most of the reason 12 cells sit in the low band. Some regional manuals relax a gana mismatch when the Moon-sign lords are friendly; our engine scores the table as it stands and leaves that judgement to the reader.
Because the gana table treats rakshasa pairings the same from either side, the small groom and bride differences in Mula's row come mostly from varna, which is read from the groom.
Dog, deer and the tara count
Dog and deer are sworn enemies, so Mula with Anuradha or Jyeshtha scores 0 of 4 on yoni. With Ardra, the other dog, yoni is full, though Ardra's manushya gana and shared nadi keep that pair from climbing.
Counted from Mula, the vipat taras fall on Krittika, Uttara Phalguni and Uttara Ashadha; pratyari on Mrigashira, Chitra and Dhanishta; vadha on Punarvasu, Vishakha and Purva Bhadrapada. Some schools count tara only from the bride's nakshatra, while ours counts both ways.
Nadi: Mula's Adi companions
Mula shares the Adi nadi with Ashwini, Ardra, Punarvasu, Uttara Phalguni, Hasta, Jyeshtha, Shatabhisha and Purva Bhadrapada. Each of these gives nadi 0 of 8, and none of the standard exceptions can apply, since none of them is Mula or sits in Sagittarius. For Mula with Mula, the "same nakshatra, different padas" exception can apply.
The tradition treats a shared nadi seriously, which is why it carries the most points. The texts also list exceptions, and astrologers do not agree on how far those exceptions ease the finding. Our nadi dosha guide lays out the rule without alarm.
What the score leaves out
Mula's reputation in some families, tied to its position at the start of Sagittarius, is a separate question and plays no part in the 36 points. A full matching also weighs manglik status, the seventh house, the navamsa and the running dasha, and South Indian porutham systems read the same pair differently again. Two people talking honestly about how they want to live still counts for more than any cell. To compare other rows, open the nakshatra compatibility chart or go straight to Dhanishta.