Nakshatra 6 of 27
Ardraఆరుద్ర
The storm that clears the air — grief that turns into clarity.
- Ruling planet
- Rahu
- Deity
- Rudra, the storm
- Symbol
- A teardrop, a diamond, a human head
- Gana
- Manushya (human)
- Nature
- Tikshna — sharp
- Sidereal span
- Mithuna 6° 40′ – 20° 00′
About Ardra
Ardra means 'moist', and its symbol is a teardrop. Its deity is Rudra, the howling storm-form of Shiva, and the nakshatra carries the whole arc of a storm: the oppressive build-up, the violence, and the washed clarity afterwards. It is associated with intense emotion, with sudden insight, and with the kind of destruction that is a precondition of renewal. Classed tikshna — sharp — it is not a soft placement, but it is a transformative one.
What it traditionally favours
Demolition and dismantling, confronting difficulty directly, research into hidden things, and rituals of propitiation. Avoided for beginnings meant to be pleasant.
The four padas
Every nakshatra is divided into four quarters called padas, each three degrees twenty minutes wide. The pada refines the reading: two people born under the same nakshatra but in different padas are held to differ meaningfully, because each pada falls in a different navamsa and so carries a different sub-influence.
The pada also decides the first syllable of a child's name. Where the moon stood at birth gives the nakshatra; which quarter of it gives the syllable. The four syllables below are in pada order — a child born in the first pada takes the first, and so on. This is the naming convention used at namakaranam across most of southern India.
- 1Ku6° 40′ →
- 2Gha10° 00′ →
- 3Nga13° 20′ →
- 4Chha16° 40′ →