Pushya

Definition

Pushya is the eighth nakshatra — a lunar mansion, one of the 27 segments the Moon moves through — spanning 3°20' to 16°40' of Cancer. The ancient seers saw its three faint stars as the milk-yielding udder of a cow. Its name means "Nourisher," "Nurturer," or "Yielding," and its older name Tishya means "auspicious." Saturn rules it, Brihaspati (Jupiter) presides over it, and Jupiter is exalted within it. Its symbols are the cow's udder, a flower, an arrow, and a circle.

In Tradition

Across the classical and modern Jyotish writers drawn on here, Pushya is held to be among the most auspicious and benign of the nakshatras — a quality its older name Tishya ("auspicious") echoes, and which descriptions of it as holy, pure, and nourishing reinforce. Trivedi calls it the most loved, benign, and nourishing of all the nakshatras, and Harness presents it as one of the most auspicious mansions for spiritual maturity.

In Practice

Sutton sees the double rulership — expansive Jupiter, restrictive Saturn — as what makes Pushya distinctive: a balance in which the soul's restrictions and its knowledge are both fully expressed, and in which one understands this life as part of a greater cycle with a limited destiny. In his reading the flower expresses latent faculties, the arrow ambition and directed activity, and the circle draws attention to the lifetime taken as a whole; that Jupiter is exalted in worldly Saturn's nakshatra shows that Saturnine restrictions are necessary for wisdom to dawn. Harness assigns Pushya the brahmavarchasa shakti, the power to create spiritual energy, and ties it to spiritual maturity.

Historical Origin

Pushya is documented here entirely through modern Jyotish authors rather than verbatim classical text. Trivedi (The Book of Nakshatras) and Harness (The Nakshatras) supply its degrees, ruler, deity, and symbols; Sutton (The Essentials of Vedic Astrology) elaborates its Jupiter–Saturn dynamic; and Raman (Notable Horoscopes), who transliterates it "Pushyami," lists it as the eighth of the twenty-seven lunar mansions.

Further Reading

• Trivedi, The Book of Nakshatras
• Komilla Sutton, The Essentials of Vedic Astrology
• B.V. Raman, Notable Horoscopes
• Harness, The Nakshatras