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What is Nadi Dosha?
In short
What is Nadi Dosha?
Nadi dosha occurs when both people's birth nakshatras fall in the same nadi — Adi, Madhya or Antya. It costs all eight points of the Nadi koota, the largest single weight in the 36-point scheme. The nadis correspond loosely to the three doshas of Ayurveda: Vata, Pitta and Kapha.
How nadi is assigned
Each of the 27 nakshatras belongs to one of three nadis, assigned in a repeating pattern. Nine nakshatras fall in each. Because the assignment is by nakshatra and not by rashi, two people can share a rashi and still have different nadis — and can have different rashis but the same nadi.
The traditional concern is physiological rather than temperamental: sharing a nadi is read as an excess of the same constitution, and the classical texts connect it to difficulty with children and with health in the marriage.
The traditional exceptions
Several exceptions are recognised. If both people share the same nakshatra but different padas, if the moon rashis are different while the nakshatra is the same, or if the rashi lords are the same planet, the dosha is often treated as cancelled.
How strictly Nadi dosha is applied varies a great deal by region and by family. It is worth knowing what the calculation says and then discussing it with someone whose tradition you actually follow, rather than treating a calculator's output as final.