Hasta nakshatra, 10°00' to 23°20' Virgo.

Hasta (Sanskrit hasta meaning hand or palm) is the 13th of the 27 nakshatras and sits wholly inside Virgo, holding 10°00' to 23°20' of the sign on the sidereal lattice. The presiding deity is Savitar (an aspect of the Sun-god, the creative impeller), the ruling planet is Moon (10-year mahadasha in Vimshottari) and the symbol is the hand, palm or fist, giving a macro register of manual skill, craft and dexterity. It is the settled centre of a Virgo run: Uttara Phalguni before it still carries the last of Leo and Aryaman's contract, and Chitra after it crosses into Libra under Vishvakarma's design, while Hasta alone holds the middle of Virgo as the plain work of the hand that makes and manifests. Sources: Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra Chapter 3, Phaladeepika Chapter 7, Sarvartha Chintamani.

Range, ruler, deity and classical attributes

Range	10°00' to 23°20' Virgo
Sequence position	13th of 27 nakshatras
Ruling planet	Moon (10-year Vimshottari mahadasha)
Presiding deity	Savitar (an aspect of the Sun-god, the creative impeller)
Symbol	hand, palm, fist
Gana (temperamental class)	deva
Varna (functional class)	vaishya
Yoni (animal-axis)	buffalo
Nadi (Ayurvedic constitution)	vata
Macro register	manual skill, craft, dexterity, the capacity to make and to manifest with the hands

Mythology and meaning

Savitar the presiding deity is an aspect of the Sun-god, the creative impeller who sets the universe in motion. The hand-symbol reflects manifestation: that which can be touched, made, crafted with the hands. Hasta carries the maker register: the chart owner manifests through skill and craft.

The classical reading walks the presiding deity, the symbol and the ruling planet together to derive the nakshatra's full register. Hasta's register is shaped by all three: the deity sets the thematic register, the symbol provides the visual-mnemonic and behavioural anchor and the ruling planet anchors the Vimshottari major-period framework and the broader chart-side reading whenever the chart owner runs the ruler's mahadasha.

What Moon in Hasta reads as

Classical professional registers commonly associated with this nakshatra include craft and handwork industries (jewellery, carpentry, surgery, fine arts), manufacturing and production, healing arts (massage, manual therapy, surgery), agriculture, anything requiring skill-of-hand or dexterity. The professional list is illustrative rather than deterministic. The nakshatra produces structural capacity; the chart owner's specific application depends on the broader chart, the dasha sequence and the natal house position of the Moon within the chart.

The four padas and per-pada navamsa signs

Each nakshatra divides into four padas of 3°20' arc each, mapping to the four navamsa signs starting from the position of the first pada. Pada-level reading qualifies the broad nakshatra register with the navamsa sign that the chart owner's Moon (or natal point) actually occupies. The four padas of Hasta.

Pada 1. Aries / Mars: skilled action through pioneering register, surgeon or martial-axis craft.
Pada 2. Taurus / Venus: refined craft through aesthetic register, artisanship axis.
Pada 3. Gemini / Mercury: dexterous communication, writing and articulate-skill axis.
Pada 4. Cancer / Moon: nurture-skill through manual care, healing-hands register.

The classical practice reads the pada-level register together with the natal Moon's navamsa sign for full nakshatra reading. The pada determines which navamsa sign the chart owner activates; the navamsa lord then participates in the broader chart reading as a parallel signature alongside the natal lord.

Moon rulership and the 10-year mahadasha

A native born with the natal Moon in Hasta opens life in the Moon mahadasha. The 10-year window foregrounds Moon's karaka register: Moon's natural signification activates as the broad thematic frame for the opening phase of the life.

Combined with Hasta's manual-skill register, the opening Moon mahadasha period often produces early-life skill formation through nurture and practice, the patient development of craft and the manifestation-capacity for which this nakshatra is renowned.

The exact degree of the Moon within Hasta fixes how much of the opening Moon mahadasha remained at birth. Moon at 0° of the nakshatra inherits the full 10-year period from birth. Moon at the closing degree of the nakshatra inherits only the residual fraction before the next mahadasha begins. The classical computation reduces this to days from the precise degree of Moon within the nakshatra range.

Born under Hasta: what it sets in motion

A natal Moon in Hasta opens life inside the Moon mahadasha, the 10-year major period the Vimshottari table assigns to the Moon. Here the ruler of the nakshatra and the ruler of the opening period are the same body, so the placement runs its first decade under its own lord. This is the load-bearing fact: the Moon's nakshatra selects the first mahadasha and the elapsed fraction of the arc sets how much of that period is left at birth, which is why the birth nakshatra is the entry point of the whole 120-year map.

The arithmetic runs across the 10°00' to 23°20' Virgo span. A Moon near the opening at 10°00' Virgo inherits close to the full 10 years of the Moon period. A Moon at the midpoint, near 16°40' Virgo, has crossed half the arc, so 5 years of the Moon remain before the 7-year Mars mahadasha begins. A Moon three-quarters through, near 20°00' Virgo, keeps one quarter of the period, about 2 years and 6 months. A Moon in the closing degrees keeps only a few months of the Moon before the handover. Because the Moon period is a full decade, a Hasta birth near the start spends its whole first ten years under one lord, and the full Moon mahadasha reading follows from where the Moon fell in the arc.

Transit reading: when slow planets cross Hasta

Beyond the natal-Moon reading, the Hasta nakshatra carries reading-significance whenever slow planets transit through its 13°20' arc. Saturn at approximately 2.5 years per sign passes through Hasta once every 29.5 years. Jupiter at approximately 13 months per sign passes through annually within each 12-year cycle. Rahu and Ketu at approximately 18 months per sign pass through every 18 years.

Transit Jupiter through Hasta provides a benefic overlay on the nakshatra's themes for the duration of the Jupiter transit. Transit Saturn through Hasta provides a structural-pressure overlay, often producing the consolidation or restructuring of the nakshatra's themes in the chart owner's life. Transit Rahu or Ketu through Hasta provides an amplification or dissolution overlay depending on which node is transiting and which house the nakshatra occupies on the chart.

Computed windows, 2024 to 2040

Every pass of Saturn, Jupiter and Rahu through Hasta's 13°20' span in this period. Sidereal positions from the Swiss Ephemeris with the PVRN Rao True Pushya ayanamsha and the mean node, the same engine that computes every chart on this site. Separate rows are separate passes, produced by retrograde motion.

Planet	Enters	Exits
Jupiter	2028-09-08	2028-11-10
Rahu	2033-07-13	2034-03-22
Saturn	2039-10-02	2040-10-20
Jupiter	2040-08-23	2040-10-25

This span in the 2026 to 2028 sky

Hasta sits wholly inside Virgo, so its 2026 to 2028 traffic is quiet until one dated arrival. Jupiter reaches Virgo in a first taste window from 18 November 2027 to 9 March 2028 and returns for its full stay from 17 July 2028, and because Hasta holds the 10°00' to 23°20' arc of the sign the benefic overlay begins to cross these craft degrees inside that taste window. That is the single slow contact the span receives in the period.

The other slow bodies stay away. Saturn holds in Pisces then Aries through this window, and the nodes run the Aquarius-Leo axis until 27 December 2026 and the Capricorn-Cancer axis after, so neither Rahu nor Ketu touches Virgo at all. That leaves the ordinary lights carrying the span for most of the window: the Moon, the nakshatra's own ruler, returns to Hasta for about one day every 27.3 days, and the Sun crosses the arc for roughly a fortnight once a year. Each of these is a transit over a fixed 13°20' arc and each carries the same limitation: the overlay marks a window while the natal chart decides the result. The neighbouring Chitra span, the next nakshatra along, takes that same Jupiter-in-Virgo taste from 18 November 2027 across its first two padas.

Compatibility attributes and Ashtakoota implications

Hasta carries gana classification deva (the temperamental class layer, with three values: deva for divine, manushya for human, rakshasa for intense), varna classification vaishya (the functional class layer), yoni classification buffalo (the animal-axis compatibility marker) and nadi classification vata (the Ayurvedic constitutional axis). These attributes feed Ashtakoota compatibility scoring used in classical Vedic matchmaking. The cluster documents these for reference, not as a forward-call mechanism.

Where Hasta sits in the 27-step sequence

In the fixed 27-step sidereal nakshatra sequence, Hasta is the 13th nakshatra. The Moon traverses one nakshatra in approximately 24 hours (the lunar daily motion of approximately 13°10' per day matched against the 13°20' nakshatra arc). The nakshatra boundaries are therefore time-sensitive at the daily and even hourly level: birth time accuracy is the prerequisite for accurate nakshatra identification.

Calibration status

The article documents the classical Hasta-nakshatra reading as set out in BPHS Chapter 3 (nakshatra significations), Phaladeepika Chapter 7 and Sarvartha Chintamani. The presiding-deity reading, the symbol-interpretation, the four-pada-per-navamsa framework and the gana-varna-yoni-nadi compatibility attributes are presented as the tradition's own framework. The Tempora calibrated signature library (Note 005) does not currently include nakshatra-specific event signatures. Calibrating nakshatra placements against a labelled chart-corpus is open work.

FAQ

What is the Hasta nakshatra and where does it sit on the sidereal lattice?

Hasta is the 13th of the 27 nakshatras, occupying 10°00' to 23°20' Virgo. The ruling planet is Moon (10-year Vimshottari mahadasha). The presiding deity is Savitar (an aspect of the Sun-god, the creative impeller). The symbol is the hand, palm, fist. The macro register is manual skill, craft, dexterity, the capacity to make and to manifest with the hands. Sanskrit hasta meaning hand or palm. Sources: BPHS Chapter 3, Phaladeepika Chapter 7.

What mythology and meaning is associated with Hasta?

What does Moon in Hasta read as?

Natives born with the natal Moon in Hasta carry manual skill and craft as dominant register. The chart works with hands, manifests through making and operates with the precision of the skilled artisan. The Moon as the mental and emotional register absorbs the nakshatra's signature directly. Professional registers commonly associated: craft and handwork industries (jewellery, carpentry, surgery, fine arts), manufacturing and production, healing arts (massage, manual therapy, surgery), agriculture, anything requiring skill-of-hand or dexterity.

What are the four padas of Hasta?

Each nakshatra divides into four padas of 3°20' arc each, mapping to four navamsa signs. Hasta's padas. Pada 1: Aries / Mars: skilled action through pioneering register, surgeon or martial-axis craft. Pada 2: Taurus / Venus: refined craft through aesthetic register, artisanship axis. Pada 3: Gemini / Mercury: dexterous communication, writing and articulate-skill axis. Pada 4: Cancer / Moon: nurture-skill through manual care, healing-hands register. The natal Moon's navamsa sign determines which pada the chart owner activates.

What does the Moon rulership give Hasta?

Moon rulership means a native with Moon in Hasta opens life in the Moon mahadasha (10 years). The Moon karaka register foregrounds across the opening period. Combined with Hasta's manual-skill register, the opening Moon mahadasha period often produces early-life skill formation through nurture and practice, the patient development of craft and the manifestation-capacity for which this nakshatra is renowned.

How is Hasta read during transit?

Beyond the natal-Moon reading, Hasta carries significance when slow planets transit through its 13°20' arc. Saturn passes through once every 29.5 years. Jupiter passes annually within each 12-year cycle. Rahu and Ketu pass through every 18 years. Transit Jupiter provides benefic overlay. Transit Saturn provides structural-pressure overlay. Transit Rahu or Ketu provides amplification or dissolution overlay depending on which node and which house the nakshatra occupies.

How much of the Moon mahadasha does a Hasta birth inherit?

A natal Moon in Hasta opens life in the Moon mahadasha, the 10-year period the Vimshottari table assigns to the Moon, with the elapsed fraction of the nakshatra setting the remainder. A Moon near 10°00' Virgo inherits close to the full 10 years. A Moon at the midpoint near 16°40' Virgo keeps 5 years. A Moon three-quarters through, near 20°00' Virgo, keeps about 2 years and 6 months before the 7-year Mars mahadasha begins. This is why the birth nakshatra is the entry point of the whole 120-year map.

Which 2026 to 2028 transits cross the Hasta span?

Jupiter is the one slow contact the span receives, reaching Virgo in a taste window from 18 November 2027 to 9 March 2028 and returning for its full stay from 17 July 2028, so the benefic overlay begins to cross Hasta's 10°00' to 23°20' arc inside that taste. Saturn stays in Pisces then Aries and the nodes never touch Virgo, so no other slow body reaches the span. Beneath these the Moon visits for about a day every 27.3 days and the Sun for roughly a fortnight once a year. Each overlay marks a window; the natal chart decides the outcome.