Nakshatra
Nakshatra, “star, lunar mansion”
Grammar: neuter noun: a star.
Meaning: (1) a star; (2) one of the twenty-seven nakshatras (the lunar mansions), the groups of stars through which the moon passes, each of four pādas (quarters); the moon’s joining with one is a nakshatra-yoga.
In the scriptures: Bhagavān Śiva came to Nārāyaṇa at Badarikāśrama as a great kāpālika asking alms, and at Nārāyaṇa’s word struck his left arm with the triśūla. From the wound came three streams. One went to the path of the sky and settled there, adorned by the nakshatras (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 2).
Bhagavān Vishṇu, praising Vārāṇasī to Śaṅkara, says that its faults are found there only in a second sense of their names: akulīnatva (being not merged in the earth, and also low birth) is found only in the stars, and vṛtta-cyuti (falling from metre, and also from good conduct) only in prose (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 3).
When Bhagavān Śiva pursued the devatā of Daksha‘s yajña into the sky as Kālarūpī, the form of Time, Pulastya Maharshi describes that body to Nārada limb by limb: each limb is a rāśi with its nakshatras and their pādas, from Mesha with Aśvinī, Bharaṇī and the first pāda of Kṛttikā on the head, to Mīna with Uttarābhādrā and Revatī on the feet (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 5). In their teaching on conduct to the rākshasa king Sukeśī, the ṛshis give rules by nakshatra: no meat is eaten on Mūla, Mṛgaśira and Bhādrapadā, and a man does not go to his wife on Maghā, Kṛttikā and Uttarā (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 14).
In the Nakshatra Purusha vrata, by which Purūravas worshipped Vāsudeva, the twenty-seven nakshatras are the limbs of Śrī Hari, the nakshatra-purusha form of Śrīman Nārāyaṇa, from Mūla on his feet to Ārdrā on his hair. On each nakshatra-yoga one worships the limb that belongs to it. Because the imperishable Janārdana is nakshatramaya (made of the nakshatras), brāhmaṇas are honoured at every nakshatra-yoga in the order of the pūjā (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 54).
Related terms: Rāśi · Pāda · Kālarūpī · Nakshatra Purusha · Tithi · Graha
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 2, 3, 5, 14, 54