The 27 Nakshatras of Vedic Astrology

The nakshatras are the 27 lunar mansions of Vedic astrology: 27 equal divisions of the zodiac, each spanning 13 degrees 20 minutes, that together map the Moon's monthly path across the fixed stars. Each nakshatra is named for a star or star cluster and carries its own presiding deity, symbol, and ruling planet. The Moon spends about one day in each. The nakshatra the Moon occupied at the moment of your birth is your janma nakshatra, your birth star, and Vedic astrology reads it as a signature of your inner nature. It also sets the starting point of the Vimshottari dasha, the planetary timeline of your life.

This page is the map of the whole system. It explains what a nakshatra is, why there are 27, how the padas and lords work, and gives you all 27 in one scannable table, each linking to its own full profile.

What is a nakshatra?

A nakshatra is a fixed segment of the sky, 13 degrees 20 minutes wide, tied to a real star or cluster you can find at night. The word is usually translated as lunar mansion, because the system marks the places where the Moon rests on each night of its monthly circuit. The Sanskrit name carries the sense of "that which does not decay": the unfading stars.

Where the 12 signs are pure slices of space, each nakshatra is anchored to something visible. Ashwini sits near the stars of the ram's head, Rohini around Aldebaran, Chitra at Spica. That anchoring is part of why the nakshatras are treated as the older layer of the two systems, and why classical texts such as the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra weave them through naming, timing, and the reading of the Moon.

Why are there 27?

The Moon circles the whole zodiac in about 27.3 days, returning to the same fixed star roughly every 27 nights. Early sky-watchers marked the Moon's resting place for each night of that cycle and settled on 27 equal divisions. Dividing the 360-degree circle by 27 gives each nakshatra its exact width of 13 degrees 20 minutes.

The arithmetic stays clean all the way down. Each nakshatra divides into four quarters, called padas, of 3 degrees 20 minutes each. Twenty-seven mansions times four padas gives 108 steps around the sky, the number that echoes through Indian tradition, from prayer beads to temple architecture.

All 27 nakshatras at a glance

The table below is the heart of this page. It lists every nakshatra in zodiac order with its ruling planet, presiding deity, symbol, and character in one line. Each name links to a full profile covering that nakshatra's padas, myth, and what it means as a birth star.

A note on reading the table: the deity and symbol form a small myth-and-picture pair that captures each star's flavour. Read them together and the character column starts to make sense on its own.

Nakshatras and rashis: two grids over one sky

The zodiac carries two grids at once. The 12 rashis (signs) are 30-degree divisions, the broad countries of the sky. The 27 nakshatras are the finer districts laid underneath, a little over two of them filling each sign. A planet always sits in one sign and one nakshatra at the same time.

Because 27 does not divide evenly by 12, nakshatras pay no attention to sign borders. Krittika begins in Aries and spills into Taurus; Punarvasu straddles Gemini and Cancer. Only a few, Rohini among them, sit entirely inside a single sign. In practice the signs give a chart its structure, while the nakshatras add resolution, especially for the Moon. Two people with the same Moon sign can have different birth stars, and the classical texts read them differently for it.

The four padas

Each nakshatra divides into four padas, or steps, of 3 degrees 20 minutes each. The pada refines the reading: the same nakshatra expresses itself differently in its first quarter than in its fourth, because each pada maps to a different sign of the navamsa, the ninth divisional chart used for marriage and inner life.

That mapping is the quiet bridge between the two systems. One pada equals exactly one navamsa division, which is why your birth star's pada determines your navamsa Moon. When you look up your nakshatra, note the pada too; the full profiles on this site, such as the Rohini page, cover what each quarter changes.

Nakshatra lords and the Vimshottari dasha

Every nakshatra is owned by one of nine planets, assigned in a fixed sequence that repeats three times around the zodiac: Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury. This ownership is the seed of the Vimshottari dasha, the 120-year timing system described in the Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra. The lord of your birth star sets which planetary period your life begins in.

The nine periods sum to 120 years, the full Vimshottari cycle. How far the Moon had travelled through your birth star fixes how much of that first period remained at birth, which is why the same calculation that finds your nakshatra also starts your dasha clock.

Your janma nakshatra, the birth star

Your janma nakshatra is the nakshatra the Moon was passing through at the moment you were born. The Moon, in Jyotish, is the mind: the receptive, feeling, inner self. So the birth star is read as a signature of your inner nature and the texture of your thoughts, in a way that complements what the Moon's sign says.

It also does practical work. Tradition draws the first syllable of a child's name from the birth star's pada. Muhurta, the choosing of auspicious times, weighs the day's nakshatra against yours. Compatibility matching counts koota points from the two birth stars. And as covered above, the star's lord opens your dasha timeline. One placement, several jobs. If you don't yet know yours, the find your nakshatra page calculates it from your birth details and explains the result.

Deities, symbols, and ganas

Beyond lord and position, the classical texts give each nakshatra a presiding deity, a symbol, and a gana, a temperament class. The deity names the energy the star answers to; the symbol pictures it; the gana sorts all 27 into deva (godly), manushya (human), and rakshasa (fierce) temperaments, a grouping that matters most in marriage matching.

These attributions are old and remarkably stable across texts such as the Brihat Jataka and the Phaladeepika. They are not fortunes. Treat each one as a compressed personality sketch: Ashwini's twin healers and horse's head speak of speed and mending; Bharani's bearer and its lord Yama speak of carrying hard things to completion. The individual profile pages unpack each sketch in full.

Abhijit, the 28th

Some traditions count a 28th nakshatra, Abhijit, "the victorious", carved from the last quarter of Uttara Ashadha and the opening sliver of Shravana. It appears in muhurta work, where the Abhijit moment near midday is prized as a window when undertakings succeed.

For birth charts, dashas, and matching, the working count is 27. If a calculator ever shows you Abhijit, it is using the muhurta convention, and your janma nakshatra under the standard system will be Uttara Ashadha or Shravana.

Where to go next

Start with your own star: the calculator and guide takes your birth details and names your nakshatra and pada. Then read its full profile from the table above. If you are new to the wider system, the chart basics in the rest of the course explain how the Moon, the signs, and the houses fit around the nakshatras, and a free birth chart shows you all of it in one place.