Meaning
Shatabhisha means "a hundred healers" or "a hundred physicians", and its star is faint lambda Aquarii, in the Water Bearer.
Modern readings make it the nakshatra of hidden things: research and secret knowledge, independence, solitude and a certain mystery, and the healing its name speaks of. Our chart's text calls it independent and searching, and adds that letting others in can ease a habit of solitude. The tradition's reading here is a theme, not a statement about anyone's body or recovery.
Rahu is its lord in the Vimshottari order, with eighteen years; it is the last of Rahu's three nakshatras. It lies wholly within Kumbha, 6°40′ to 20°.
Deity and emblem
Today's books give Shatabhisha to Varuna, the lord of the waters; the Kathaka Samhita and the Taittiriya Brahmana's offerings give Varuna too, as Weber reported. The Taittiriya Samhita, which calls the nakshatra Shatabhishaj, gives Indra.
The emblem is an empty circle, and the medieval lists give a circle too.
In the chart
Shatabhisha runs from 6°40′ Kumbha to 20°00′ Kumbha of the sidereal zodiac, the twenty-fourth of 27 equal parts of 13°20′. It lies wholly within Kumbha (Aquarius). Its four padas of 3°20′ fall in the navamsas of Dhanu, Makara, Kumbha and Meena, so a graha in its first pada stands in Dhanu in the D9.
Its Vimshottari lord is Rahu, whose period is eighteen years. When the Moon stands here at birth, the reckoning opens in Rahu's period and counts only the part still to run, in proportion to the part of Shatabhisha the Moon has yet to cross. In 2026 the same stretch of sky is about 0°53′ Pisces to 14°13′ Pisces 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
- Varuna, lord of the waters sourced
- Deity in the Taittiriya Samhita (iv.4.10)
- Indra disputed
- Symbol, the modern tradition's
- empty circle sourced
- Figure in the medieval lists (Burgess, 1860)
- a circle sourced
- Themes in modern readings, our summary
- healing and secrecy: research, hidden knowledge, independence and solitude our construction
How the schools read it
- The Vedic lists (Taittiriya Samhita iv.4.10, Keith 1914)
- Indra, where today's lists have Varuna; the Taittiriya list begins with Krittika.
- The Kathaka Samhita (after Weber, 1860)
- Varuna, the deity the later lists and today's books keep.
- The medieval lists (Burgess and Whitney, 1860)
- The figure of the asterism: a circle, after the Ratnamala and the Muhurta Chintamani.
- Modern Jyotisha
- Healing and secrecy: research, hidden knowledge, independence and solitude; its symbol: empty circle.
- 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: "Ruled by Rahu, Shatabhisha means a hundred healers and carries an independent, searching and somewhat mysterious energy. It is often drawn to research and hidden knowledge, and letting others in can ease a tendency toward solitude." Our words.
Claims about it
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Shatabhisha's deity and symbol are one fixed set handed down from the Vedas.
disputedWhat the record shows: The Vedic lists differ among themselves. For Shatabhisha the Taittiriya Samhita (iv.4.10) gives Indra; the Kathaka Samhita already gives Varuna, the deity used today. The symbol, empty circle, is the modern tradition's; here it matches the figure of the medieval lists, a circle.
-
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.
