The 27 Nakshatras: Names, Rulers, Deities and Degrees

The nakshatras are the 27 lunar mansions of Vedic astrology. The Moon takes a little over 27 days to go round the sky, and the tradition divides its path into 27 equal parts of 13° 20′, one for each night of the journey. Each part has a name, a ruling planet, a deity, a symbol and a character. Your janma nakshatra is the one the Moon was in when you were born. It gives the starting point of your Vimshottari dasha, the first sound of a traditional name and a large part of the way two charts are compared for marriage.

All 27 nakshatras

All degrees are sidereal, counted from 0° of Aries, and the rulers and deities are the ones used by the site’s calculators. Each name opens a full guide to that star.

How the table is arranged

The 27 stars run in order from Ashwini at the start of Aries to Revati at the end of Pisces. Nine planets rule them in a fixed order, Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury, and the order repeats three times. That is why Ashwini, Magha and Mula all have Ketu as their lord, and why the table shows the same nine rulers three times down the list. This is the Vimshottari lordship, and it is the basis of the 120-year dasha cycle. You can see a chart’s current periods in the Vimshottari dasha timeline.

The four padas

Every nakshatra has four padas, each 3° 20′ wide, which makes 108 padas in the zodiac. Each pada has a naming syllable and falls in one navamsa sign, so the pada gives a finer picture than the star alone. Nine padas make one sign, which is why a star often spans parts of two signs: Krittika, Mrigashira, Punarvasu, Uttara Phalguni, Chitra, Vishakha, Uttara Ashadha, Dhanishta and Purva Bhadrapada each cross a sign boundary. The navamsa sign of any placement is in the navamsa calculator.

What each guide covers

Every guide follows one plan: the span in degrees and signs, the ruling planet, the deity and symbol, the gana, yoni, nadi and varna, and the four naming syllables. Then comes the myth of the deity as the tradition tells it, the temperament the classical texts describe, a reading of each pada, and notes on matching. Each also links to the pages on every planet placed in that star. Where traditions differ, the guide says so, and nothing in it is a prediction or a promise.

Nakshatras in matching and names

Three of the groupings in the guides are used when two charts are compared. Gana is a temperament group (Deva, Manushya or Rakshasa), yoni is an animal that stands for natural temperament, and nadi is one of three types, Adi, Madhya and Antya. The nakshatra compatibility calculator scores the eight kutas of Ashtakoota for any two stars. For naming, the baby names by nakshatra pages list the four syllables of each star with boy and girl names.

Find your nakshatra

Your nakshatra depends on the birth time, because the Moon changes star roughly once a day and changes pada about every six hours. The nakshatra calculator gives it from a date, time and place, and the nakshatra at date and time calculator shows where the Moon stood at any moment. For what each planet means in each star, see the nakshatra articles.

Frequently asked questions