Svātī (Nakshatra)

Svātī

Grammar: feminine noun, also written Svāti; the name of the nakshatra.

Meaning: one of the twenty-seven nakshatras (the lunar mansions), lying in the rāśi Tulā.

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 navel, called “the path of the sky”, is Tulā, the second house of Śukra, made of the third and fourth pādas of Citrā, Svātī and three pādas of Viśākhā (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 Svātī is his row of teeth. The vrata begins with Mūla on Caitra śukla ashṭamī; its seventeenth step is Svātī. On the day the moon is joined with Svātī, one worships the row of teeth, offers vaḍas made of sesame as naivedya, and, for the pleasure of Śrīvallabha, feeds brāhmaṇas (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 54).

The Vāmana Purāṇa uses the word in these places as well:

• The boy Upamanyu, who has once tasted milk-rice, refuses everything else his mother gives and cries for milk, like the cātaka bird waiting for a drop of the Svātī rain (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 56).

Related terms: Nakshatra · Tulā · Citrā · Viśākhā · Kālarūpī · Naivedya

Sources

• Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 5, 54, 56