Kanyā (Rāśi)
Kanyā, “the maiden”
Grammar: feminine noun: “maiden, unmarried girl”.
Meaning: the maiden; and the sixth of the twelve rāśis (the signs through which the Sun and the planets move), the second house of Budha, named for its form as a maiden.
In the scriptures: when the devatā of Daksha‘s yajña fled into the sky in the form of a deer, Bhagavān Śiva pursued it as Kālarūpī, the form of Time, and occupied the sky. Pulastya Maharshi describes that body to Nārada limb by limb, each limb a rāśi with its nakshatras. The belly of Kālarūpī, who is here called Kāla, is Kanyā, the second house of Budha, made of the remaining three pādas (quarters) of Uttaraphalgunī, Hasta and two pādas of Citrā (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 5).
Nārada then asks the form and marks of the twelve rāśis, and Pulastya Maharshi tells each in turn. Kanyā is like a maiden seated in a boat, holding ears of grain in one hand and a hand-lamp in the other, and the places where men and women meet, and thickets of reeds, lie under its influence. Pulastya Maharshi closes by saying that what he has told of the rāśis is very secret and ancient, not to be told to anyone (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 5).
In the dvādaśa-patraka yoga, the yoga of the twelve leaves that Brahmā (Pitāmaha) teaches Sanatkumāra, each leaf has a syllable, a place on the body, a rāśi and a month. The sixth leaf is the syllable va, placed as the kavaca (armour), with Kanyā and the month Āśvayuja. The twelve leaves make the cakra of Keśava Vāsudeva, the Paramātmā, and for those who know it there is no more death (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 35).
Related terms: Rāśi · Kālarūpī · Uttaraphalgunī · Hasta · Citrā · Budha
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 5, 35