Ashlesha nakshatra
Ashlesha (आश्लेषा) is the ninth of the twenty-seven nakshatras, ruled by Mercury.
The facts
- Number
- 9 / 27
- Ruling graha
- Mercury
- Deity
- the Nagas
- Symbol
- a coiled serpent
- Gana
- Rakshasa (fierce)
What Ashlesha means
The coiled serpent, ruled by Mercury with the Nagas as deities. Ashlesha is penetrating: it sees what people are not saying. That makes for excellent insight and a tendency to hold things close. A gandmool nakshatra, which tradition marks with a shanti ritual - a junction, not a flaw.
Ashlesha and gandmool
Ashlesha is one of the six gandmool nakshatras - the ones sitting at the junctions between the elemental groups. Tradition holds that a birth here calls for a shanti ritual in the first month.
It is worth being plain about this, because it is one of the most reliable ways to frighten a new parent. Gandmool marks a JUNCTION, not a defect. The child is not cursed, the chart is not damaged, and anybody selling you an expensive remedy against it is selling fear. The ritual is traditional and inexpensive; the anxiety sold alongside it is neither.
What a nakshatra is
Before the twelve-sign zodiac, India divided the sky into twenty-seven lunar mansions of 13 degrees 20 minutes each - roughly one day of the Moon's travel. The nakshatras are older than the rashis and carry more specific meaning.
The nakshatra the Moon occupied at your birth is your janma nakshatra. It is the most important single fact in a Vedic chart after the lagna: it gives the traditional first letter for naming a child, and it decides where your entire Vimshottari dasha sequence begins.
The four padas
Every nakshatra divides into four padas of 3 degrees 20 minutes. Which pada the Moon falls in refines the reading and decides the naming syllable - two people with the same nakshatra and different padas are read differently.