Nakshatra 1 of 27
Ashwiniఅశ్విని
The first light — quick, healing, impatient to begin.
- Ruling planet
- Ketu
- Deity
- The Ashwini Kumaras, twin physicians of the gods
- Symbol
- A horse's head
- Gana
- Deva (divine)
- Nature
- Kshipra — light and swift
- Sidereal span
- Mesha 0° 00′ – 13° 20′
About Ashwini
Ashwini opens the zodiac at the start of Mesha, and everything about it is beginnings. Its deities are the Ashwini Kumaras, the twin horsemen who ride ahead of the dawn and who are the physicians of the gods — which is why this nakshatra carries an old association with healing, medicine and swift rescue. The horse's head is its symbol, and speed is its temperament: things started under Ashwini tend to move fast, sometimes faster than they were thought through.
What it traditionally favours
Beginning medical treatment, travel, buying vehicles, short journeys, anything that should start quickly and finish quickly.
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.
- 1Chu0° 00′ →
- 2Che3° 20′ →
- 3Cho6° 40′ →
- 4La10° 00′ →