This page groups nakshatras by the class of auspicious timing, or muhurta, each one is read as favoring. Wikipedia notes "nakshatra is one of the five elements of a Pancanga," the traditional Hindu almanac used to judge which activities suit which day. Browsing by nature-muhurta-class lets a visitor find every nakshatra sharing the same timing class.
Facts
Status
Status TodayLiving tradition: the naksatras still govern electional timing, naming and compatibility matching in South Asia. 4 Standing as a Comparative CategoryThe Indian naksatras, the Chinese xiu and the Arabic manazil are demonstrably parallel twenty-seven and twenty-eight-fold schemes, but no direction of derivation between them is established. The question has been argued since the nineteenth century and is open. 1 Overview
What Defines This GroupingTwenty-seven equal arcs of 13 degrees 20 minutes of the ecliptic, each named for an asterism: the Indian member of the lunar-mansion family, reckoned from the Moon's position alone. 1 Size of the Traditional Set Attestation
Era of AttestationNamed lists of naksatras appear in the Vedic samhitas. 3 Comparison
Cultural Origin Era of Origin Learn More
The twenty-seven lunar mansions
The twenty-seven nakshatras divide the ecliptic into equal arcs of thirteen degrees and twenty minutes, each named for an asterism and ruled by a deity and a graha. They are older in the Indian tradition than the twelve rashis, appearing already in the Vedas, and they remain central to Jyotisha, especially for timing, compatibility and the finer reading of the Moon.
Each nakshatra has a presiding deity, a ruling planet, a symbol, and a set of qualities, and is further subdivided into four padas. The Moon's nakshatra at birth is particularly important and is the basis of the naming and the dasha calculation in much Indian practice.
Use across the tradition
The nakshatras run through Indian religious and astrological life: they set the starting planet of the Vimshottari dasha, underlie the gana temperaments used in marriage matching, and time auspicious moments in the muhurta tradition. Their antiquity and their link to the Moon's daily motion connect them to the lunar-mansion systems of the Arabic and Chinese worlds.
The atlas gives each nakshatra its arc, deity, ruling graha, symbol and qualities. The ganas built from them, and the Vimshottari dasha they anchor, are treated in their own categories.
Nature (Muhurta class)
Sources
1. Jyotihsastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature
2. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra
3. History of Dharmasastra, Volume V
4. Encyclopedia of Hinduism
Denise Cush, Catherine Robinson and Michael York (eds.), Routledge, 2008s.v. NaksatraView the Source 5. Wikipedia: Nakshatra
WikipediaNakshatra, textual origin sentenceQuote, Nakshatra, textual origin sentence
The first astronomical text that lists them is the Vedanga Jyotisha.
6. Wikipedia: Vedanga Jyotisha
WikipediaVedanga Jyotisha, dating sectionQuote, Vedanga Jyotisha, dating section
The extant text is dated to the final centuries BCE, but it may be based on a tradition reaching back to about 700-600 BCE.
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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