In this episode of “5 Minutes,” Dr. Robert Svoboda explores Nakshatras and their traditional role as lunar constellations in Jyotisha.

Nakshatra is an excellent word, probably emerging from the root nsh, which means to approach. This is possibly because the Moon, as it moves through the sky, approaches the various nakshatras. A nakshatra is a different way of dividing the zodiac and the stars and patterns within it. This is different from the method used to divide the zodiac into the twelve constellations familiar in modern astrology, such as Aries, Taurus, Gemini, and so on.

It is the same zodiac and the same 360-degree circle of the sky, but those twelve divisions are made roughly according to the twelve months that the Sun covers in one year. The Sun moves through roughly one solar constellation each month. In India, these are called rashis, the solar constellations. The nakshatras are lunar constellations. The Moon moves through roughly one of these constellations each day.

Originally, during the Vedic period, there were twenty-eight nakshatras. This made sense because, at that time, Jyotisha was primarily focused on the Moon. The Sun played a much smaller role in the astrological system of that period. Later, during the classical period, perhaps two thousand five hundred to three thousand years ago, when solar astrology became more influential, the solar and lunar perspectives were brought together to create the lunisolar Jyotisha system that we have today. At that time, for ease of calculation, the number of nakshatras was standardized at twenty-seven.

During the Vedic period, there was no concern about the exact size or measurement of the nakshatras. What mattered was the energy and quality of the nakshatras, rather than the precise location of the Moon or other planets within them. When the solar and lunar aspects of astrology were combined, it became useful to have twelve standardized solar constellations of thirty degrees each and twenty-seven standardized lunar constellations of thirteen degrees and twenty minutes each.

This allowed the nakshatras and the constellations to be connected mathematically. One quarter of a nakshatra is called a pada, or charana, both of which mean a foot. A portion of a constellation is also known as a navamsha. Each nakshatra has a traditional interpretation that developed from the Vedic period into classical astrology. Some qualities of a nakshatra may correspond with the solar constellation where it is located or near which it is located, while sometimes there is no connection at all.

Some Western astrologers have attempted to interpret nakshatras simply as variations of the twelve familiar constellations. This does not fully represent their nature. Nakshatras are their own subject and deserve to be understood according to the teachings and interpretations that have developed around them over thousands of years.