In Indian astronomy — Jyotiṣa, "the science of light" — the sky is measured not by the Sun but by the Moon. Its monthly path is divided into 27 equal segments called नक्षत्र nakshatras, or lunar mansions: the 27 "homes" the Moon rests in, one each night.
Each nakshatra is a small patch of sky marked by a bright junction star (योगतारा yogatārā), and carries its own deity, symbol, temperament and ruling planet. Together they form a calendar, a compass and a system of meaning written across the stars.
Why twenty-seven? The Moon circles the stars in about 27.3 days. Rounded down, that gives 27 stations — so each night the Moon "lodges" in the next nakshatra, shifting roughly 13° eastward. (A 28th, Abhijit, near the star Vega, is sometimes added for ritual timing.)
Why nine lords? The 27 nakshatras cycle three times through nine planetary rulers (the नवग्रह Navagraha) — Ketu, Venus, Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury. This sequence sets the great Vimśottarī cycle of life-periods, the backbone of Indian astrology.
Tap a planet to light up the three nakshatras it rules — across the wheel, the sky map and the table below. The wheel runs in the Moon's order of travel, Aśvinī at the top.
← swipe the strip sideways →
| # | Lord | Nakshatra | Junction star | Deity · symbol | Stars |
|---|
Pick any nakshatra to see its full asterism drawn over the real stars — with its deity, symbol, ruling planet, and the matching Chinese mansion.
The same circle of sky is also split into 12 signs of 30° each. Since 27 into 12 doesn't divide evenly, each sign holds 2¼ nakshatras (9 quarter-steps called पद padas). Tap a sign to see which nakshatras fall inside it.
The plotted asterisms show each nakshatra's junction star (yogatārā) and, where the mansion is a well-known figure, its brighter members to about magnitude 5 (Jurong's practical city-sky limit), at Hipparcos J2000 positions. Junction-star identifications follow the standard yogatārā list (after the Sūrya Siddhānta and B. V. Raman), cross-checked to modern catalogues; deities, symbols, ganas and planetary lords follow classical Jyotiṣa (Parāśara tradition). Twenty-one of the 27 junction stars are shared with the Chinese mansions and use the same coordinates as The Chinese Sky. Sidereal longitudes use the Lahiri (Chitrapakṣa) ayanāṁśa. For a live view of tonight's sky see The Indian Sky Tonight.