Nakshatra 15 of 27
Swatiస్వాతి
Independence — the reed that bends because it is not tied down.
- Ruling planet
- Rahu
- Deity
- Vayu, the wind
- Symbol
- A young shoot bending in the wind, coral
- Gana
- Deva (divine)
- Nature
- Chara — movable
- Sidereal span
- Tula 6° 40′ – 20° 00′
About Swati
Swati's symbol is a young plant swaying freely in the wind, and its deity is Vayu. Everything about it concerns independence, movement and the refusal to be fixed: it governs trade, travel, negotiation, and the self-made person who owes nothing to anyone. There is an old image of the Swati raindrop — the single drop that, falling into an oyster, becomes a pearl — which captures the nakshatra's belief that the right thing in the right moment is worth more than accumulation.
What it traditionally favours
Trade and business, travel, negotiation and diplomacy, starting out on one's own, and buying or selling.
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.
- 1Ru6° 40′ →
- 2Re10° 00′ →
- 3Ro13° 20′ →
- 4Ta16° 40′ →