Nakshatra
Ashvini
अश्विनी · Having horses
Vimshottari lord: Ketu. A dasha is one planetary period in that scheme, a pada is a quarter of a nakshatra, and a navamsa is a ninth of a sign.
This page reports what named books say and what a calculator computes. It is not a statement about you or about anything to come, and it cannot decide health, money, law, marriage or children.
About this entry
Ashvini is the first of the 27 nakshatras, the lunar mansions, and the sidereal zodiac starts at its first point, which is also 0 degrees of Aries. Like every nakshatra it spans 13 degrees 20 minutes. Its four padas, or quarters, of 3 degrees 20 minutes each match four navamsas, or ninth parts of a sign, those of Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer. Counting from here, the Vimshottari timetable of 120 years opens with Ketu, whose period is 7 years.
Chapter XVI of the Brihat Jataka, Varahamihira's book on horoscopes, goes through the nakshatras one by one. For a person born while the Moon crosses Ashvini, Iyer's translation lists a fondness for ornaments, a fine appearance, popularity, skill at work and intelligence. The 1885 and 1905 editions give the same line.
Where this text comes from
Statements credited to an older text follow the scanned or typed text named here. Statements about the calculator describe its own rules, and modern practice is labeled as modern.
- The Brihat Jataka of Varaha Mihira, tr. N. Chidambaram Iyer (1885)
Retrieved 2026-11-09
- The Brihat Jataka of Varaha Mihira, tr. N. Chidambaram Iyer, 2nd ed. (1905)
Retrieved 2026-11-09
Our own plain wording. Quoted lines keep the spelling of the scanned source.