Meaning
Anuradha means "following Radha", the nakshatra after Vishakha, whose older name was Radha; its stars are in the Scorpion's head, beta, delta and pi Scorpii.
Its god is Mitra, the friend, the god of alliance and of keeping faith, and modern readings follow him: devotion and cooperation, loyalty that lasts across distance, and success reached together with others. They add the lotus that blooms in hard ground, and our chart's text says the same of steady effort, adding that loyalty stays balanced when one's own needs are honoured too.
Shani, Saturn, is its lord in the Vimshottari order, with nineteen years; Anuradha lies wholly within Vrishchika, 3°20′ to 16°40′.
Deity and emblem
Mitra is Anuradha's deity in the Taittiriya Samhita and today.
The modern emblem is a lotus. The medieval lists give a bali, which Colebrooke rendered "a row of oblations", so the lotus is the modern tradition's image.
In the chart
Anuradha runs from 3°20′ Vrishchika to 16°40′ Vrishchika of the sidereal zodiac, the seventeenth of 27 equal parts of 13°20′. It lies wholly within Vrishchika (Scorpio). Its four padas of 3°20′ fall in the navamsas of Simha, Kanya, Tula and Vrishchika, so a graha in its first pada stands in Simha in the D9.
Its Vimshottari lord is Shani, whose period is nineteen years. When the Moon stands here at birth, the reckoning opens in Shani's period and counts only the part still to run, in proportion to the part of Anuradha the Moon has yet to cross. In 2026 the same stretch of sky is about 27°33′ Scorpio to 10°53′ Sagittarius in the tropical zodiac, by the Lahiri measure; another ayanamsa moves the edges, and a Moon or lagna within a few minutes of arc of an edge can fall in the neighbouring nakshatra in another tool.
Correspondences
Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.
- Deity, as used today
- Mitra, god of friendship sourced
- Deity in the Taittiriya Samhita (iv.4.10)
- Mitra sourced
- Symbol, the modern tradition's
- lotus; no dated source found disputed
- Figure in the medieval lists (Burgess, 1860)
- a bali, which Colebrooke renders 'a row of oblations' sourced
- Themes in modern readings, our summary
- devotion and cooperation, loyalty, friendship across distance our construction
How the schools read it
- The Vedic lists (Taittiriya Samhita iv.4.10, Keith 1914)
- Mitra, as today; the Taittiriya list begins with Krittika.
- The medieval lists (Burgess and Whitney, 1860)
- The figure of the asterism: a bali, which Colebrooke renders 'a row of oblations', after the Ratnamala and the Muhurta Chintamani.
- Modern Jyotisha
- Devotion and cooperation, loyalty, friendship across distance; its symbol: lotus.
- The 28-nakshatra scheme
- Abhijit, in the stars of Lyra, stands between Uttara Ashadha and Shravana in the older lists; the equal division into 27 leaves it out.
- Western sidereal (Fagan-Bradley)
- The same 27 divisions, about 0°53′ further on than Lahiri's; Western siderealists rarely use them.
- EsoTerrier
- Our chart's text for a Moon here: "Anuradha is ruled by Shani, and like the lotus it can bloom in difficult conditions through devotion and steady effort. Its energy is cooperative, loyal and friendly, and honoring one's own needs keeps that loyalty balanced." Our words.
Claims about it
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Anuradha's deity and symbol are one fixed set handed down from the Vedas.
disputedWhat the record shows: The deity, Mitra, is the same in the Taittiriya Samhita (iv.4.10) and today, but five other nakshatras have different deities in different Vedic lists. The symbol, lotus, is the modern tradition's and has no dated source we found; the medieval lists give a bali, which Colebrooke renders 'a row of oblations'.
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The nakshatra is a constellation, 13°20′ wide.
falseWhat the record shows: The nakshatras began as star groups of unequal size, 28 in the Atharvaveda with Abhijit. The equal division into 27 parts of 13°20′ is a later convention; the name points at stars, the division is arithmetic.
