शतभिषा
Śatabhiṣā Nakṣatra
Shatabhisha belongs to Varuna, king of the waters and keeper of the law the whole world runs by. Its name means a hundred healers, and its symbol is an empty circle. The Nakshatra Suktam says Varuna and his star hold a thousand medicines between them and lengthen life.
At a Glance
The Name
Shatabhisha joins shata, a hundred, and bhishaj, a healer. The Taittiriya Brahmana reads the name exactly that way, as the place where the gods healed a hundred. Its other common name is Shatataraka, the hundred stars, and Varahamihira usually calls it by its god, Varuna. In Tamil the star is Sadayam and in Malayalam Chathayam.
The star's shakti is given in modern books as bheshaja, the power to heal. The Brahmana's own picture for the star is wider: the all-embracing sky above and the place where all things live below. Varuna's work in the Veda fits both. He holds the whole world in its order, and he can loose what he has bound.
Where the Star Stands
Shatabhisha lies wholly inside Aquarius, from 6 degrees 40 minutes to 20 degrees. Saturn rules the sign, and the first twenty degrees of Aquarius are his mulatrikona, the part of the sign where he is strongest. So the whole star sits in Saturn's mulatrikona. Rahu rules the star, and several writers give Rahu a share in Aquarius as well. No planet's exact point of exaltation or fall lies inside it.
The star has no bright stars. It is a wide scatter of faint ones in the water flowing from the Water-bearer's jar, which is why the old books count a hundred of them. The brightest marker, lambda Aquarii, stands at Aquarius 17 degrees 43 minutes on the Lahiri reckoning, in the fourth quarter. Aditya on Dr Arjun Pai's panel gives the same place. It lies almost exactly on the Sun's path.
Inside Panchaka
All of Shatabhisha lies inside panchaka, the five stars from the second half of Dhanishta to the end of Revati, so the rules for that time apply to the whole star. Dr Pai says South Indian priests hold special shanti rites for a death while the Moon is in these stars.
Two things in the tradition do not agree. The Taittiriya Brahmana's list of star gods (1.5.1.5) gives Shatabhisha to Indra, while the same Brahmana's star hymn (3.1.2.7), Varahamihira and every later list give it to Varuna. Neither is an error; the Brahmana keeps both. The table also carries values that only the modern tables give: the guna, the dosha, the element, the gender and the colour. Vata follows from the Adi nadi, but no classical text states it, or the neuter gender.