Nakshatra 1 of 27
Ashwiniअश्विनी
0°00' Aries – 13°20' Aries sidereal
The first nakshatra, and the one most associated with speed. Its deities are physicians, and the symbol is a horse's head — the tradition reads it as the impulse to act before deliberating, which is both its gift and its cost.
Classical attributes
Used directly in compatibility scoring
- Ruling planet
- Ketu
- Deity
- Ashwini Kumaras
- Symbol
- Horse's head
- Gana
- DevaTemperament group
- Yoni
- Horse (male)
- Nadi
- AdiConstitutional humour
- Varna
- Vaishya
- Element
- Earth
- Nature
- Swift
The four padas
Each quarter falls in a different navamsha sign
- Pada 1
- Aries0°00' Aries – 3°20' Aries
- Pada 2
- Aries3°20' Aries – 6°40' Aries
- Pada 3
- Aries6°40' Aries – 10°00' Aries
- Pada 4
- Aries10°00' Aries – 13°20' Aries
What this nakshatra decides in a chart
If the Moon sits here at birth, Ashwini is the birth nakshatra — and it fixes the entire Vimshottari dasha sequence. The first mahadasha is Ketu's, and how far the Moon had travelled into these 13.33° decides how much of it had already elapsed before birth. Every dasha date in the chart follows from that one number.
The gana, yoni and nadi above are not decorative. They are read directly in Ashtakoota matching, where nadi alone carries eight of the thirty-six points.