Śatabhishā (Nakshatra)
Śatabhishā · śata-bhishaj, “having a hundred physicians”
Grammar: feminine noun, also Śatabhishak; śata (a hundred) and bhishaj (physician): “she who has a hundred physicians”.
Meaning: one of the twenty-seven nakshatras (the lunar mansions), lying in the rāśi Kumbha.
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 shanks of the Svāmī are Kumbha, made of the third and fourth pādas of Dhanishṭhā, Śatabhishak and three pādas of Pūrvābhādrā (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 5).
In the Nakshatra Purusha vrata, the twenty-seven nakshatras are the limbs of Śrī Hari, the nakshatra-purusha form of Śrīman Nārāyaṇa, and Śatabhishā, whose devatā is Varuṇa, is his jaws. The vrata begins with Mūla on Caitra śukla ashṭamī; its eighteenth step is Śatabhishā. On the day the moon is joined with Śatabhishā, one worships the jaws of Śrī Hari with care and offers Madhusūdana red rice and gavānna (rice cooked in cow’s milk) as the dohada (the special offering that fulfils the longing) (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 54).
Related terms: Nakshatra · Kumbha · Dhanishṭhā · Bhādrapadā · Kālarūpī · Dohada
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 5, 54