What is Stree Deerkha Porutham?
Stree Deerkha (ஸ்திரீ தீர்க்கம்), also written Stree Deergham or Sthree Dheergam, means "long life and wellbeing of the woman". In matching, it is traditionally linked to the bride's happiness and security in her new home, and to the steady prosperity of the family.
On Manavizha it appears as "Stree Deerkha (Prosperity & Longevity)". Like Dina and Mahendra, it is worked out from the distance between the two birth stars.
How Stree Deerkha is calculated
Count forward from the bride's birth star to the groom's birth star, counting the bride's own star as 1. The 27 stars run from Ashwini to Revathi and wrap around.
The principle is that the groom's star should be well ahead of the bride's. On Manavizha, Stree Deerkha matches when the count is more than 13 — that is, when the groom's star is the 14th to the 27th star from the bride's.
Where traditions differ
Stree Deerkha is one of the poruthams where the threshold varies between astrologers and regions. The most common readings are:
- More than 13 stars: considered a full match. This is the rule Manavizha uses.
- Between about 7 and 13 stars: treated by some astrologers as a middling (Madhyamam) result rather than a mismatch.
- Fewer than about 7 stars: generally considered not matched.
Worked examples
Example 1: The bride is Ashwini (1st star) and the groom is Uthiram (Uttara Phalguni, 12th star). The count is 12 — not more than 13, so Manavizha shows Stree Deerkha as not matched. An astrologer who uses the middling band might call this Madhyamam.
Example 2: The bride is Ashwini and the groom is Chithirai (14th star). The count is 14, which is more than 13, so it matches.
Example 3: The bride is Moolam (19th star) and the groom is Rohini (4th star). Counting forward from Moolam and wrapping past Revathi, Rohini is the 13th star. That falls just short, so it is not a match under the 13-star rule.
Example 4: The bride is Visagam (16th star) and the groom is Revathi (27th star). The count is 12, so it does not match. If the groom were Ashwini instead, the count would be 13 — still not more than 13. With Bharani it becomes 14, and Stree Deerkha matches.
Commonly cited exceptions
Some families accept a Stree Deerkha mismatch when Dina, Mahendra and Rajju are favourable, because they see these as covering similar ground. Others give Stree Deerkha special importance because of its link to the bride's welfare.
As with the other star-count poruthams, the direction of counting matters. The count is always from the bride to the groom, never the other way.
How it fits with the other poruthams
Because Stree Deerkha uses the same star count as Dina and Mahendra, one count can satisfy more than one of them. For example, a count of 16 matches both Mahendra and Stree Deerkha, and a count of 18 matches both Dina and Stree Deerkha.
Manavizha shows Stree Deerkha as one line in the ten-porutham breakdown, as guidance for your family and your astrologer to read together with the full horoscope.
Quick ways to work out the count
Counting 14 stars forward by hand is easy to get wrong. A simpler check is to list the 13 stars starting from the bride's own star: if the groom's star is among them, Stree Deerkha does not match under the 13-star rule; if it is not, it does.
Remember that the bride's own star is counted as 1. So the 13 stars from Ashwini run from Ashwini to Hastham, and Chithirai, the 14th star, is the first that matches. Manavizha does this count for you automatically and shows the result in each profile's porutham breakdown.
Frequently asked questions
- Why should the groom's star be ahead of the bride's?
- It is a traditional principle of Tamil matching. The greater the distance from the bride's star to the groom's, the more favourable Stree Deerkha is considered.
- Is Stree Deergham the same as Stree Deerkha?
- Yes. They are different English spellings of the same porutham, ஸ்திரீ தீர்க்கம்.
- My astrologer says Stree Deerkha is Madhyamam, but Manavizha shows it as not matched. Why?
- Some astrologers use a middling band for counts between about 7 and 13. Manavizha's automatic check uses the stricter rule of more than 13.