Meaning
Pushya means "nourishment" and lies in the dim stars of the Crab, gamma, delta and theta Cancri; the Taittiriya Samhita calls it Tishya.
The tradition counts it among the most benign of the 27: a place of care, devotion and support, and a favoured nakshatra in the choosing of times for beginnings. Modern books read its people as nurturing and protective, and our chart's text adds that care for oneself keeps such nourishment going.
Its lord in the Vimshottari order is Shani, Saturn, with nineteen years, an old pairing of the most benign mansion with the slowest of the grahas. In one common teaching the four padas also stand for the four aims of life, an idea we report as a teaching, not a rule.
Deity and emblem
Brihaspati, the teacher of the gods, is Pushya's deity in the Taittiriya Samhita (where the nakshatra is Tishya) and today.
The modern emblem is a cow's udder. The medieval lists give a quite different figure, a crescent and an arrow, so the udder is the modern tradition's.
In the chart
Pushya runs from 3°20′ Karka to 16°40′ Karka of the sidereal zodiac, the eighth of 27 equal parts of 13°20′. It lies wholly within Karka (Cancer). 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 Pushya the Moon has yet to cross. In 2026 the same stretch of sky is about 27°33′ Cancer to 10°53′ Leo 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
- Brihaspati, teacher of the gods sourced
- Deity in the Taittiriya Samhita (iv.4.10)
- Brihaspati (listed as Tishya) sourced
- Symbol, the modern tradition's
- cow's udder; no dated source found disputed
- Figure in the medieval lists (Burgess, 1860)
- a crescent and an arrow sourced
- Themes in modern readings, our summary
- care, devotion, support; a favoured nakshatra for beginnings our construction
How the schools read it
- The Vedic lists (Taittiriya Samhita iv.4.10, Keith 1914)
- Brihaspati (listed as Tishya), as today; the Taittiriya list begins with Krittika.
- The medieval lists (Burgess and Whitney, 1860)
- The figure of the asterism: a crescent and an arrow, after the Ratnamala and the Muhurta Chintamani.
- Modern Jyotisha
- Care, devotion, support; a favoured nakshatra for beginnings; its symbol: cow's udder.
- 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: "Pushya, ruled by Shani, takes its name from nourishment and is often regarded as one of the most supportive nakshatras. Its energy is caring, devoted and protective, and tending to oneself as faithfully as to others keeps that nourishment sustainable." Our words.
Claims about it
-
Pushya's deity and symbol are one fixed set handed down from the Vedas.
disputedWhat the record shows: The deity, Brihaspati, 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, cow's udder, is the modern tradition's and has no dated source we found; the medieval lists give a crescent and an arrow.
-
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.
-
Each pada corresponds by mathematics to one of the four aims of life.
unverifiedWhat the record shows: A teaching convention that follows from the elements of the navamsa signs; not universal and not in the oldest texts as far as we found. We say "in one common teaching".
