रेवती
Revatī Nakṣatra
Revati belongs to Pushan, the herdsman of the Veda, the god who knows every road and never loses an animal. It is the twenty-seventh star and the last in the circle. Every planet's round is counted as ending here before it starts again at Ashwini. Varahamihira gives it pearls, gems, perfumes and the helmsmen who steer ships.
At a Glance
The Name
Revati comes from rayi, wealth, and means the rich one or the wealthy one. The Rigveda uses revati all the time as a plain adjective for waters and cows, the rich waters and the rich herds. So the star's name already holds the thing its god looks after. Dr Arjun Pai calls it the wealthy star for this reason.
The star has other names. Paushna means Pushan's, and that is how Varahamihira usually writes it. Antya means the last. Abhigya Anand gives four names from the old lists, Revati, Pausha, Antya and Pushan, and all four point either to the god or to the star's place at the end of the circle.
The Brahmana's line for the star is two words about cattle: cows above, calves below. The wealth in Revati's name is a herd like this one, on its way home with the young kept safe. Revati's shakti is usually given as kshiradyavi, the power to nourish as with milk. The name comes from the modern writer David Frawley, who took it from this same picture of cows and calves. The Brahmana itself names no shakti.
Where the Star Stands
Revati covers the last 13 degrees 20 minutes of the zodiac, from Pisces 16 degrees 40 minutes to Pisces 30 degrees. Jupiter rules the sign and Mercury rules the star. Mercury is at his weakest in Pisces, and his exact point of fall, Pisces 15 degrees, lies just before Revati begins. So the star's own lord is weak in the star's own sign.
Venus does the opposite. His exact point of exaltation, Pisces 27 degrees, lies inside Revati's last quarter. The last quarter is also vargottama, Pisces in both the sign and the navamsha. Dr Pai calls it the moksha pada, the quarter of release.
The main star is zeta Piscium, a faint star at about Pisces 26 degrees on the Lahiri reckoning. The Surya Siddhanta gives its latitude as kham, zero, which means it sits right on the path of the Sun. Dr Pai's team point out the same thing on the sky map.
The Last Star
The Surya Siddhanta counts a planet's full round as complete when it reaches the end of Revati. The next round starts at Ashwini. The Sun crosses that line each year on about 14 April, at Mesha Sankranti. That day is the solar new year across much of India: Vishu in Kerala, Puthandu in Tamil Nadu, Baisakhi in Punjab, Bohag Bihu in Assam and Pohela Boishakh in Bengal. The old year ends as the Sun leaves Revati.
The same line is one of the three gandanta points of the zodiac, where a water sign gives way to a fire sign. The last quarter of Revati and the first of Ashwini make the knot. Births and beginnings there are handled with care.
Revati's element and direction come from later reference lists, and the lists disagree. Most give ether for the element, with nothing in the classical texts behind it. The direction given here, south, follows Pushan's seat in Varahamihira's house plan, the first place on the south side after the south-east corner. The varna is also split. The popular tables make Revati Shudra, while Brihat Samhita 15.28 puts it with the cultivators.