Ashwini nakshatra
Ashwini (अश्विनी) is the first of the twenty-seven nakshatras, ruled by Ketu.
The facts
- Number
- 1 / 27
- Ruling graha
- Ketu
- Deity
- Ashwini Kumaras
- Symbol
- a horse's head
- Gana
- Deva (divine)
What Ashwini means
The first nakshatra, and the one that moves fastest. Its deity is the twin horsemen physicians of the gods, and its symbol a horse's head: speed, initiative, and the instinct to begin. Ashwini people are often the ones who start things - quick to act, quick to heal, and sometimes quick to move on before the thing is finished. Ruled by Ketu, so it carries a streak of the unworldly under all that motion.
Ashwini and gandmool
Ashwini 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.