Pushya is the eighth nakshatra, from 93 degrees 20 minutes to 106 degrees 40 minutes of the sidereal zodiac, within Cancer near the faint cluster Praesepe. Its Vimshottari ruler is Saturn, its presiding deity is Brihaspati, guru of the gods and lord of the planet Jupiter, and its symbol is a cow's udder or a lotus. The name means to nourish. Jyotisha holds Pushya to be among the most auspicious of all the nakshatras, a mansion of nourishment, care, and spiritual sustenance, classed as Deva gana. The combination of disciplined Saturn with the priestly wisdom of Brihaspati gives it a grounded, protective, teaching quality. These are traditional interpretations; the underlying stars are the modest group in Cancer that later Western astronomy knew as the Beehive.
Pushya's padas run through Cancer, Leo, Virgo and Libra. Brihaspati, guru of the gods, is also the Sanskrit name for the planet Jupiter, so the mansion's presiding deity and its Vimshottari ruler, Saturn, are read together as a study in contrast, teaching wisdom under disciplined restraint, which several classical commentators single out as the reason Pushya is judged auspicious for almost any undertaking except marriage, a traditional exception noted since at least medieval jyotisha compilations though the precise textual origin of the marriage exclusion is not uniformly traced by modern scholars. Praesepe, the star cluster underlying this segment, was recorded by Hipparchus and Aratus in the Greek tradition as one of the oldest cited nebulous objects in Western astronomy as well, an independent naming tradition for the same patch of sky.