Shravana nakshatra: the Moon's star in Capricorn, what the texts say and how to check yours

Shravana is the twenty-second nakshatra, the middle stretch of Capricorn from 10°00' to 23°20', and the Moon rules it in the Vimshottari scheme. It is one of the three stars the Moon itself rules, so a Shravana Moon is the Moon in its own star, starting life in the Moon's own 10-year period. This page sets out what the classical books in this app's library say about Shravana, with chapter and page, including the way BPHS borrows its first fifteenth to make Abhijit, and every number on it comes from running the engine.

It is part of a 27-page series with one layout, so it can be read beside Uttara Ashadha before it and Dhanishta after it. The sign is described on the Capricorn (Makara) page. The engine's method is on the methodology page and the books on the sources page.

Where Shravana sits: the arc, the padas and the engine's facts

Shravana is the 22nd of the 27 nakshatras. Each nakshatra is 13°20' of the sidereal zodiac, 360 degrees divided by 27, and this app measures them from 0° Aries in the Lahiri (Chitrapaksha) frame. So Shravana runs from Capricorn 10°00' to Capricorn 23°20', wholly inside Capricorn. A planet is "in Shravana" when its sidereal longitude falls inside that arc. When someone says "my nakshatra is Shravana", they mean the Moon was there at birth: the Janma Nakshatra. The Moon moves about 13 degrees a day, so it crosses a nakshatra boundary inside most birth dates, and the nakshatra calculator reports the star at both ends of the birth date when no time is given. The difference between a rashi and a nakshatra is set out separately, as is why two apps can name two different stars for the same birth.

Shravana lies wholly inside Capricorn, so a Moon there is always a Capricorn Moon, with Saturn as sign lord and the Moon as star lord. The three Moon-ruled stars in the engine's table are Rohini, Hasta and Shravana, nine places apart as every lord's three stars are. None of BPHS's deep exaltation or fall degrees (Ch. 3 Sl. 49-50) falls inside Shravana: Jupiter's deepest fall at Capricorn 5° is in Uttara Ashadha, and Mars's deepest exaltation at Capricorn 28° is in Dhanishta.

Inside the star the engine draws nine unequal sub-divisions, one for each Vimshottari lord, each as wide as that lord's share of the 120-year cycle, and the first belongs to Shravana's own lord, Moon. These sub-lords matter most for points that move fast through the sky, above all the Ascendant, which is why the sub-lord needs a birth time to the minute. The sub-lord calculator prints this same table for your own Moon:

What the classical texts say about Shravana

Three books in this app's library speak about Shravana directly. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara (Rama R. Rao, 1994) gives every nakshatra a description in Ch. IV; the corpus copy is a scan with no text layer, so the pages cited below were read as images. Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS) uses Shravana as a counting point and a member of groups rather than describing it. Advanced Predictive Astrology places it in one of its humour groups; Saravali does not name it in the text read for this page. The readings are reported as the texts give them, with the same omissions the engine makes: the caste label each nakshatra carries in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara is not repeated, nor are its predictions about appearance and marriage.

Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara, Ch. IV (pp. 87-108)

Entry 22, spelt Sravana, describes the star as "in the form of an arrow composed of three stars", with Vishnu as presiding deity, and gives the Calotropis plant (Ekka) as its plant. The people associated with it "are bold, virtuous, god-fearing, truthful, of active habits, efficient in their work; they are public officials, priests or physicians." The body part the chapter assigns is the sexual organs (p. 91); like every body-part line in the chapter, it is offered for locating disease in a chart and is not medical advice.

The prose reading says the person "will be prosperous and learned, will have a liberal-minded wife, will be rich and of wide-spread fame"; the spouse clause is the kind of prediction the engine drops. The sloka and its translation: "interested in scriptures; he has numerous friends and many children. His sons are good and devoted to him and he conquers his enemies. He likes listening to puranas and he is accomplished." The engine's line, "drawn to knowledge and scripture, surrounded by friends and a devoted family", condenses it, keeping learning and friendship and folding the children into family.

Sravana is one of the five movable stars, with Dhanishta, Shathabhisha, Hasta and Swaathi (p. 90), and p. 91 makes the class a timing rule for any planet placed in the star during its period. It is the Sristi member of its triad (p. 88), with Dhanishta and Shatabhisha after it, so no durithamsa caution applies; it is not among the downward-looking or Gandanta stars.

The book returns to Sravana in Chapter V. Its Ashtottari table (p. 120) puts Sravana last in Saturn's group, after Pooravashada, Uttarashada and Abhijit, and p. 121 explains that Abhijit "has been added to the list after Uttarashada and before Sravana". The page does not give Abhijit's arc; for that, the source is BPHS.

BPHS: Shravana as a deity, a count and a group

BPHS lists Shravana twenty-second, and Ch. 6 Sl. 24-26 names the twenty-second deity Govinda. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara names Vishnu. This page reports both names as the books give them.

Ch. 46 Sl. 21-22 makes Abhijit partly out of Shravana. For Ashtottari, "the Dasha and calculations for Abhijit Nakshatr are done by taking the 4th Pad of Uttarashadha plus the 15th part of the beginning of Shravan. For Shravan the Bhabhog would be the total of its duration in Ghatikas minus the 1/15th part of the beginning of Shravan." A fifteenth of a nakshatra's 13°20' is 53 arc-minutes and 20 seconds, so in Ashtottari the first stretch of Shravana, Capricorn 10°00' to about 10°53', is counted as Abhijit. Vimshottari, which the engine computes, has no Abhijit, and all of Shravana belongs to the Moon; the app's Ashtottari does apply the Abhijit carve-out.

Shravana is also a counting point. Shat-trimshat-sama Dasha (Sl. 42-43) says: "Count from Shravan to the Janm Nakshatr and divide the number by 8"; its lords are the Moon, Sun, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Saturn, Venus and Rahu, with 1 to 8 years, and the text prefers it for a day birth with the Lagna in the Sun's hora or a night birth with the Lagna in the Moon's. A Shravana Moon counts 1 and starts with the Moon, 1 year. The app computes this system on the Alternate Dashas calculator and the Kundali screen, with the balance taken from the part of the birth star still to cross and every period dated.

Two group memberships complete the chapter's references. Shastihayani (Sl. 40-41) gives "Abhijit, Shravan, Dhanishtha" to Śani, 6 years. Kalachakra puts "Shravan, Dhanishtha and Shatabhisha in the Apsavya" (Sl. 56-58), and Sl. 71-72 says the Deha and Jiva for "Rohini, Magha, Vishakah and Shravan" are "as for Rohini"; the pada table uses the Rohini padas of Sl. 73-76.

For the Moon as a graha, see the Moon in Vedic astrology page.

Advanced Predictive Astrology

Advanced Predictive Astrology (Vol. II, p. 225) puts Sravana in its Kapha group of humour-producing asterisms, with Krittika, Rohini, Ashlesha, Makha, Swati, Vishaka, Uttarasada and Revati. Its health readings are the author's and are not medical advice. The book does not otherwise single the star out.

One more place the name appears is worth separating from the star. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's list of seasons (p. 68) gives Chandra the Varsha ritu, "Sravana - Bhadrapada (July - August)": there Sravana is a lunar month, not the nakshatra. The book does not draw any connection between the month and the star, and neither does this page; it is noted only because the Moon appears as ruler in both places and a reader may meet the two uses side by side.

Where the sources disagree

The deity is Govinda in BPHS and Vishnu in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara. On Abhijit the books differ in what they say rather than in substance: BPHS gives the arc, Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara gives only the position in the Ashtottari list, and neither describes Abhijit as a birth star; that is Saravali (Ch. 35 Sl. 86), which gives no arc.

The engine's Deva gana and Monkey yoni for Shravana have no source in this library, as its header says. Run on neighbouring stars, those tables produce some instructive contrasts. A Shravana Moon with an Uttara Ashadha Moon, both in Capricorn, scores 23 of 36: the same Antya nadi costs all 8 Nadi points, and Gana gives 3 of 6. With a Dhanishta Moon also in Capricorn the score is 28: the nadis differ, so Nadi gives the full 8, but Deva against Rakshasa gives 0 on Gana. With a Dhanishta Moon in Aquarius it falls to 18.5, because the signs are now second and twelfth from each other and Bhakoot scores 0. One star's distance can move a score by ten points, mostly through the sign. Its muhurat lists put Shravana on four, which sits comfortably with Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's movable class for Travel, though the book itself does not tie the class to travel.

The four padas of Shravana

Each nakshatra splits into four padas of 3°20', and each pada is one navamsa, so the 108 padas of the zodiac walk through the twelve signs nine times. BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 87-88 gives the rule as arithmetic: take the number of nakshatras already passed, divide by 3, multiply the remainder by 4, add the pada, and count that many signs from Aries. For Shravana's first pada: 21 nakshatras have passed, 21 divided by 3 leaves 0, times 4 is 0, plus 1 is 1, and the 1st sign from Aries is Aries. The engine's computeNavamsa, which uses the sign-based rule from Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara Ch. II, returns Aries too. The Navamsa calculator shows the whole D9 chart, and the Navamsa article explains why it needs an accurate birth time.

Shravana starts a new group of three stars, so its navamsas begin again at Aries: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer. None is vargottama; Capricorn's own navamsa is in Uttara Ashadha's second pada. The fourth pada puts a Shravana Moon in Cancer, its own sign, in the D9, so a Moon in Capricorn 20°00' to 23°20' is in its own star and its own navamsa sign at once.

The first pada is where BPHS's Abhijit overlaps the star, in Ashtottari only: its first 53' 20". The Kalachakra columns are the Rohini pattern: Cancer and Sagittarius as Deha and Jiva in the first pada, Libra and Virgo in the second, Aquarius and Virgo in the third, Scorpio and Pisces in the fourth. The app computes Kalachakra from these rows.

The sub-lord table starts with the Moon's own sub, 66.67 arc-minutes wide, so the first stretch of Shravana is the Moon's star and the Moon's sub, and it ends with the Sun's 40-minute sub just before Dhanishta.

Shravana and the dasha sequence

BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 12-14 finds the first Vimshottari dasha by counting from Krittika to the birth star and dividing by nine; the remainder picks a lord from the sequence Sun, Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Ketu, Venus. Counting Krittika as 1, Shravana is 20; 20 divided by 9 leaves 2, and that is Moon. The engine reaches the same lord from its own table. Sl. 15 gives Moon 10 years. A Moon in Shravana therefore starts life in a Moon Mahadasha, and Sl. 16 says how much of it remains: the part of the nakshatra the Moon has still to cross, as a share of the whole, times 10 years.

Run on a sample birth of 1 January 2000 with the Moon a quarter of the way into Shravana, the engine leaves three quarters of the Moon period, 7.5 years, and dates the next periods from there:

What a Moon period is classically held to bring is on the Moon Mahadasha page and the Moon in Vedic astrology page; the Vimshottari dasha calculator gives your own dates, and the sub-periods article explains why those dates move when the birth time moves. The Moon's period is 10 years, so a Shravana Moon moves into Mars's 7-year period within ten years of birth and into the 18-year Rahu period by seventeen.

Ashtottari is the 108-year system BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 17-20 offers as an alternative "when Rahu is not in Lagn, in any other Kendr, or Trikon to the Lord of the Lagn". It assigns stars in alternating runs of four and three from Ardra. Shravana is the last of Saturn's run of four, Purva Ashadha, Uttara Ashadha, Abhijit and Shravana, so a Shravana Moon starts in a Saturn period of 10 years. Under Sl. 21-22 a malefic's period is shared a quarter per star, so at the start of Shravana proper three quarters, seven and a half years, are taken as over, and the balance is measured against Shravana's shortened Bhabhog. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara Ch. V (p. 120) prints the same grouping as a table. The app computes Ashtottari this way: it reads a Moon in the first 53' 20" of Shravana as Abhijit, measures Shravana's balance against the shortened Bhabhog, and dates every period, on the Alternate Dashas calculator and the Kundali screen.

The engine does compute six other nakshatra-based systems from the same chapter, each with its own starting star and condition. For a Moon in Shravana (sampled at the middle of the star) the alternate dashas calculator returns:

Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara's timing rule (p. 91) adds a classical angle to these periods. It says that during the period of a planet placed in a star, the effects follow that star's nature, and Shravana's nature is movable. So in the book's terms the star matters to the dasha twice over: as the Moon's Janma Nakshatra it fixes the Vimshottari order, and as the star a planet occupies it colours that planet's period. The app applies the first and not the second.

Of the engine's six systems, Shatabdik gives Shravana the Moon for 5 years and Panchottari the Moon for 17; Chaturashiti-sama gives the Sun. None of the six counts from Shravana; the system that does, Shat-trimshat-sama, is computed alongside them and gives a Shravana Moon the Moon for 1 year.

Shravana in compatibility and muhurat

Ashtakoot matching, the 36-point Guna Milan the match tool runs, reads four of its eight kootas from the two Moon nakshatras: Tara, Yoni, Gana and Nadi. The engine places Shravana in the Deva gana, the Antya nadi and the Monkey yoni. Its own header is candid that none of the classical books it works from contains the Ashtakoot rules, no nakshatra gana list and no koota point scale, so these tables are carried as they are rather than cited. One partial anchor exists: Advanced Predictive Astrology (p. 225) prints "Humour Producing Asterisms" in three groups of nine, Vata, Pitta and Kapha, and that grouping coincides star for star with the engine's Aadi, Madhya and Antya nadis. Shravana sits in its Kapha group. The book does not call this Nadi koota, and this page does not claim it does.

Two people with the Moon in Shravana score 28 of 36 in the engine: full marks on seven kootas and 0 of 8 on Nadi, because the same star always means the same nadi. The other stars sharing Shravana's Antya nadi, and so also scoring 0 on Nadi against it, are Krittika, Rohini, Ashlesha, Magha, Swati, Vishakha, Uttara Ashadha, Revati. On Yoni, Purva Ashadha shares the Monkey and scores the full 4; the engine treats the Sheep as the Monkey's enemy, so Krittika and Pushya score 0; every other pairing scores 2.

Tara counts from each partner's star to the other's. The engine marks a count as unfavourable when it leaves 3, 5 or 7 after division by 9, and BPHS Ch. 44 Sl. 15-21 does name the 3rd, 5th and 7th stars from the birth star Vipat, Pratyak and Vadh, though in a chapter on longevity this page does not reproduce. Counted forward from Shravana, the unfavourable stars are Ashwini (7), Ardra (12), Pushya (14), Magha (16), Swati (21), Anuradha (23), Mula (25), Shatabhisha (3), Uttara Bhadrapada (5). The score is 3 when both directions are clear, 1.5 when one is, and 0 when neither is. The compatibility feature shows every koota with its points, so a low total can be traced to the factor behind it.

For choosing a time, the muhurat feature and the muhurat calculator add 16 points to a window when the transiting Moon is in a star on the activity's list and take 6 away when it is not. Shravana is on the Business launch, Travel, New job, Investment lists. Shravana is on four lists, Business launch, Travel, New job and Investment, and off Marriage and Property purchase. A Shravana native looking at the Moon-house factor in the same score should remember that it counts from the Ascendant when a birth time is known and from the natal Moon sign, Capricorn here, when it is not. Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara (p. 89) also calls the 22nd star from one's birth star the vainasika nakshatra, "to be avoided for auspicious events"; for a Shravana native that is Vishakha. The engine does not apply that rule.

Checking Shravana in your own chart

1. 1.Open the nakshatra calculator with your birth date and, if you have it, time and place. It returns the Moon's star, its pada and its lord. Without a time it also shows the star at 00:00 and 23:59, so you can see whether Shravana held all day.
2. 2.Check the pada against the table above. The pada fixes the Moon's navamsa, which the Navamsa calculator shows in full.
3. 3.If your Moon is within a few arc-minutes of a sub-lord boundary, the sub-lord calculator prints the distance to the next one. An error of a few minutes in the birth time can move it.
4. 4.Open the Vimshottari dasha calculator to see the Moon balance at birth and every period after it.
5. 5.Look at the whole chart in the birth chart calculator. A star describes the Moon's placement; the houses, the Ascendant and the other planets are read from the full chart.
6. 6.For matching, enter both birth details in the match tool; it computes both stars itself, so nothing has to be typed in by name.

If your Moon is in Shravana's first degree, remember that some traditions count that stretch as Abhijit; the app does so in its Ashtottari Dasha only, not in Vimshottari. The kundali feature shows the star with the full chart, and the sub-periods article explains how the Moon period divides.

Common misreadings of Shravana

• "Shravana is Abhijit." Only the first fifteenth, about 53 arc-minutes, and only in BPHS's Ashtottari scheme; in Vimshottari all of Shravana is the Moon's.
• A Moon in Shravana is not "exalted" for being in its own star. Exaltation and fall belong to signs; Capricorn is neither for the Moon. What the own star gives is a Moon-Moon start to the dasha sequence.
• The occupations in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara, public officials, priests and physicians, are significations of the star, not a career forecast.
• Being on four muhurat lists does not make every Shravana day good for those activities: the nakshatra factor is one of seven in the score.
• The body part Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara gives Shravana is a tool the book uses with the 6th lord to locate illness in a chart (p. 91). It says nothing about the health of a person whose Moon is in Shravana, and it is not medical advice.
• Shravana and Dhanishta are adjacent, both movable in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara and both on the engine's Travel list, but the engine puts them in different ganas and nadis, which is why a Shravana-Dhanishta match swings so much with the sign.
• Shat-trimshat-sama is counted from Shravana, but it applies only under its own day-and-hora condition, which the app checks when it computes it.

Questions about Shravana

Which sign is Shravana nakshatra in?

Capricorn, entirely: Capricorn 10°00' to 23°20'.

Who is the lord of Shravana?

The Moon, with a Vimshottari period of 10 years. The deity is Govinda in BPHS and Vishnu in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara. See the Moon Mahadasha page for what the period is held to bring.

What are the navamsas of Shravana's padas?

Aries, Taurus, Gemini and Cancer. None is vargottama.

How much of Shravana belongs to Abhijit?

In BPHS's Ashtottari, the first fifteenth: Capricorn 10°00' to about 10°53'. In Vimshottari, none.

What gana, nadi and yoni does the app give Shravana?

Deva gana, Antya nadi and the Monkey yoni, shared with Purva Ashadha. The engine's header notes these tables have no source in this library.

Is Shravana good for travel in the app?

Yes, it is on the Travel list, so a travel window with the Moon there gains 16 points on the nakshatra factor. The muhurat feature shows every other factor beside it.

Which dasha system starts counting from Shravana?

Shat-trimshat-sama, BPHS Ch. 46 Sl. 42-43, with periods of 1 to 8 years. The app computes it, starting a Shravana Moon with the Moon.

When does Sade Sati fall for a Shravana Moon?

The engine defines Sade Sati as transiting Saturn in the 12th, 1st or 2nd sign from the natal Moon. A Shravana Moon is always in Capricorn, so the band is Saturn in Sagittarius, Capricorn and Aquarius. The Sade Sati calculator gives the dates; it is a transit, separate from the dasha.

Why does the app's trait line for Shravana mention family and not children?

The sloka in Jyotisha-Siddhanta-Sara speaks of many children and devoted sons. The engine's comment says it drops appearance and marriage predictions from these lines; its Shravana line also leaves out the clause about sons and keeps the temperament, rendering the family material as "a devoted family".

What does a Shravana-Shravana pair score in the match tool?

28 of 36: full on seven kootas, 0 on Nadi. The match tool shows each koota.