Nakshatra, the Moon's mansion: tonight's station in Arabian astrology

A nakshatra is a lunar mansion

A nakshatra is a lunar mansion, a station the Moon passes through on her nightly round, and this page is about the lunar mansions of Arabian astrology: the twenty-eight manāzil al-qamar that Canopy reads. They are not the twenty-seven Indian nakshatras. The Arabian mansions are counted in the tropical zodiac, from the March equinox; the nakshatras are counted in the sidereal zodiac, from a point fixed among the stars.

In jyotish, Indian astrology, the nakshatras are the Moon's stations, read in a Vedic natal chart beside the rashi, the sign the Moon held at birth. The Arabic word for the same idea is manzil, a traveller's halting place, and the plural manāzil al-qamar means the stations of the Moon. Both traditions watched the same thing. The Moon is the fastest body in the sky, moving about thirteen degrees in a day, so each night finds her against a fresh stretch of stars, and her whole round of the zodiac takes a little over twenty-seven days. Divide that round into nightly lodgings and you have twenty-seven or twenty-eight of them. India kept twenty-seven, with a twenty-eighth, Abhijit, in some of the oldest lists; the Arabian tradition kept twenty-eight.

So if you came here looking for your nakshatra, what you will find is its Arabian counterpart: the mansion the Moon holds tonight, shown live above, and the mansion she held at your birth, which Canopy calculates from your birth data in the app. The two systems share an idea and a few stars, but they differ in count, in width and in where the count begins, and those differences are worth knowing before you set a reading from one beside a reading from the other. For the wider picture of how the Arabic tradition stands to jyotish, see Vedic astrology and the Arabic tradition.

Twenty-eight mansions and twenty-seven nakshatras

Set side by side, the two systems look like this. The Arabian column gives the figures Canopy uses; the Indian column is there only for comparison, since Canopy calculates no nakshatras.

The width is the smaller difference. Twenty-eight arcs of 12°51′26″ and twenty-seven arcs of 13°20′ each fill the whole circle of 360°, so a nakshatra is a little wider than a mansion and the Moon stays a little longer in it: about a day in a mansion, slightly more in a nakshatra.

The zodiac is the larger difference. The tropical zodiac begins Aries where the Sun stands at the March equinox; the sidereal zodiac begins it at a point among the stars. Through the precession of the equinoxes the equinox slips back against the stars by about a degree every seventy-two years, and the two starting points now stand about 24° apart by the most common sidereal reckoning. Neither choice moves the Moon, since both zodiacs look at the same sky. But because the count starts in a different place, the same Moon falls in a different station.

Same Moon, different name. Take a Moon at 0° Taurus in the tropical zodiac. Canopy places her in the third mansion, al-Thurayyā, which runs from 25°43′ Aries to 8°34′ Taurus. Take away about 24° and the same Moon stands near 6° of sidereal Aries, inside Ashvini, the first nakshatra, which covers the first 13°20′ of sidereal Aries. One body at one moment carries two names. This is an illustration of the arithmetic, not a conversion to rely on: the exact gap depends on the sidereal reckoning a jyotish reader chooses, and Canopy casts no sidereal chart.

Reading tonight's Arabian mansion

The panel at the top of this page answers "which nakshatra is the Moon in tonight?" in the Arabian count. It gives the mansion by its number out of twenty-eight, with its Arabic name and meaning, and says whether the tradition counts it Saʿd, fortunate, Naḥs, calling for caution, or mixed or neutral. Beneath that it shows the Moon's tropical degree and sign, the hour she entered the mansion and the hour she moves into the next, in your own time zone. Nothing is asked of you: the mansion depends only on the moment, not on where you stand, so every reader on Earth sees the same one.

If you keep a Vedic chart as well, the degree in the panel is the bridge between the two systems. Take about 24° from it and you have the Moon's approximate sidereal place, from which a jyotish reader can count stations of 13°20′. That is a rough conversion rather than a Vedic reckoning, and near a boundary it can fall on either side; Canopy itself stays with the tropical mansions.

These are the twenty-eight stations the panel reads from, each with its tropical span and its nature, as Canopy catalogs them.

What the mansion of the night favors

The Arabian mansions are read for action. Because the Moon presides over beginnings, the station she holds was taken to color whatever is started under it, and each mansion carries its own short list of works it favors and works it warns against. Canopy's mansion readings are drawn from the classical sources, among them the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm (the Picatrix) and al-Bīrūnī's al-Tafhīm.

Eighteen of the twenty-eight are Saʿd. Four are Naḥs: al-Dabarān, al-Ṭarf, al-Zubānā and al-Qalb. Five are mixed (al-Sharaṭān, al-Ghafr, al-Iklīl, Saʿd Bulaʿ and al-Fargh al-Awwal), and one, al-Buṭayn, is neutral.

A few examples show the range. al-Thurayyā, the mansion of the Pleiades, favors safety at sea, the seeking of love and the growth of wealth. al-Simāk, named for Spica, favors love, healing the infirm and safe sailing. Saʿd al-Suʿūd, remembered as the luckiest station of all, favors gain, goodwill and petitions to those in authority. Even a Naḥs mansion has its uses: al-Dabarān favors uncovering treasure hidden in the earth and warding off creatures that bite.

All twenty-eight readings, in order, are in the guide to what each Moon mansion favors. In the app each mansion also names what it warns against and the angel set over it, and Canopy's elections weigh the Moon's mansion alongside the planetary hours and the dignities when they search for a good time to begin.

How Canopy reads your birth mansion and tonight's

The tradition weighed the mansion the Moon held at a birth beside the sign she held. Canopy calculates that mansion from your birth data: once your birth date, time and place are in the app, your natal chart shows the station the Moon occupied when you were born. The time matters, because the Moon changes mansion about once a day, and a birth near a boundary can fall either side of it.

In the Chart tab, the Natal Lunar Mansion card gives that mansion's number and name, marks it Benefic (Saʿd) or Malefic (Naḥs), names its angel, and lists what it favors and what it advises you to avoid, with the talisman images the tradition pairs with it and a mansion card you can share.

Tonight's mansion lives in the Today reading, where the Lunar Mansion card gives the Moon's current station among the twenty-eight, with its Arabic name, its guidance and its angel. About once a month the Moon comes back to the mansion she held at your birth, and the Today screen notes the return. Notifications can mark each new mansion as the Moon enters it, and that monthly return. On the Home Screen, the Tonight's Mansion widget keeps the mansion's number and name, what it favors and a caution in view, with the phase of the Moon, without opening the app.

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