--- title: "Hasta Nakshatra: All Four Padas, Lord and Meaning" slug: "hasta-nakshatra" canonical_url: "https://mahadasha.com/hasta-nakshatra" description: "Hasta Nakshatra spans 10°00' to 23°20' Virgo under the Moon, deity Savitar. All four padas, Mercury's exaltation inside it, and the ten-year dasha it opens." published_date: "2026-08-04 09:40:00" modified_date: "2026-08-04 09:40:00" author: "Pawan Acharya" keywords: "hasta nakshatra, hasta nakshatra padas, hasta nakshatra pada 2, hasta nakshatra female, hasta nakshatra male, hasta nakshatra marriage, hasta nakshatra career, hasta birth star" locale: "en" --- # Hasta Nakshatra: All Four Padas, Lord and Meaning > Hasta Nakshatra is the open hand, ruled by the Moon with Savitar as its deity. Its four padas, Mercury's exaltation degree inside it, and what skill costs. # Hasta Nakshatra: All Four Padas, Lord and Meaning Hasta Nakshatra occupies 10°00' to 23°20' Virgo and is ruled by the Moon. Its deity is Savitar, the impelling face of the Sun, and its symbol is an open hand. In the sky it is the five stars of Corvus, the Crow, which form a compact quadrilateral that does in fact look like a hand held up. The name simply means hand. Of all twenty-seven symbols this is the most literal, and the most useful. ## What a hand actually does A hand takes, gives, makes, holds, blesses and points. It is the organ that converts an intention into an object, and it is the one piece of anatomy that separates human capability from everything else. Hasta is the nakshatra of that conversion. Savitar is the aspect of the Sun that impels, the one invoked in the Gayatri mantra. Not the Sun as ruler or as light, but as the force that sets things in motion at dawn. Put that behind an open hand and you get the specific quality this star confers: the ability to make something happen with your own effort, starting now. People born here tend to be genuinely capable. Not theoretically capable. They fix the thing, they cook the meal, they get the paperwork through, they know a shortcut. Dexterity shows up in the classical descriptions and it is meant physically as well as figuratively. They can also be sleight-of-hand practitioners in the less admirable sense. A hand that is skilled enough to make something appear is skilled enough to make something disappear, and the texts note it. ## The strongest Mercury in the zodiac sits here Mercury reaches its deep exaltation degree at 15°00' Virgo, which falls inside Hasta's second pada. That is worth pausing on, because Virgo is also Mercury's own sign. Budha is the only graha in the system that exalts in a sign it already rules. So the second quarter of this nakshatra holds the single most capable Mercury degree anywhere. In a star that is already about skill, dexterity and craft, ruled by a Moon that governs the mind, that concentration is not a coincidence the tradition invented afterwards. It is why Hasta produces so many people who are simply good with their hands and quick with their heads at the same time. All four padas sit in Virgo, so Mercury is the rashi lord throughout while the Moon rules the star. Mind and method, working together. ## All four Hasta Nakshatra padas in detail The padas run Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer. ### Pada 1: 10°00' to 13°20' Virgo, Aries navamsa Mars takes the navamsa. Syllable *Pu*. The forceful quarter. Skill applied fast and under pressure: surgery, emergency work, machinery, the trades, competitive craft. This pada does not deliberate. It is the most physically capable of the four and the one most likely to injure itself, and it has a temper that the rest of Hasta does not. ### Pada 2: 13°20' to 16°40' Virgo, Taurus navamsa Venus takes the navamsa, and Mercury's exaltation degree at 15°00' Virgo sits inside it. Syllable *Sha*. Craft in the full sense. Making beautiful things properly, slowly, to a standard. Jewellery, tailoring, carpentry, cuisine, instrument-making, fine art. Anything placed in this pada gets the benefit of the strongest Mercury degree in the zodiac, and it shows up as an eye that other people simply do not have. ### Pada 3: 16°40' to 20°00' Virgo, Gemini navamsa Mercury rules both rashi and navamsa. Syllable *Na*. Doubled Mercury, and the hand becomes writing, calculating, coding, trading and sleight of hand. The quickest quarter mentally and the most commercially adaptable. It is also the one where the tradition's warning about deception lands most often, because this pada can do a thing faster than anyone can check it. ### Pada 4: 20°00' to 23°20' Virgo, Cancer navamsa The Moon rules both the star and the navamsa. Syllable *Tha*. Water navamsa under an earth sign, and the hand turns to care. Nursing, massage, physiotherapy, cooking for a family, gardening, midwifery. This is the gentlest quarter and the most useful one to have in a household. It also worries most, since the Moon doubled in Virgo produces a mind that inspects itself. ## Ten years of Moon at the start A Moon in Hasta opens life in [Moon Mahadasha](https://mahadasha.com/moon-mahadasha) , ten years. [Rohini](https://mahadasha.com/rohini-nakshatra) and [Shravana](https://mahadasha.com/shravana-nakshatra) are the other Moon stars. A Chandra childhood is domestic and emotionally attentive, usually with a strong mother and a settled house. For Hasta that has a particular result: skills get picked up early and informally, in a kitchen or a workshop, from a parent rather than from a school. Get the balance from the [dasha calculator](https://mahadasha.com/dasha-calculator) . ## The syllables Hasta gives a child Hasta's four are *Pu*, *Sha*, *Na* and *Tha*, and it is the most scattered set in the twenty-seven after [Ardra](https://mahadasha.com/ardra-nakshatra) 's. Four padas, four different consonants, no pattern. Only the first continues anything, picking up the *P* from [Uttara Phalguni](https://mahadasha.com/uttara-phalguni-nakshatra) . After that the set jumps. A family working from an approximate birth time gets no help at all here, which makes Hasta one of the nakshatras where the birth time genuinely has to be right before the naming ceremony. ## When Hasta is active in a chart Hasta receives the Moon once a lunar month, on the 27.3-day cycle. Being Moon-ruled, this nakshatra also gets the fastest star-lord transit of any: the Moon crosses its own 13°20' in roughly a day, once a month. That is a monthly signal rather than a generational one, and Hasta natives who track it usually report the day as unusually productive. Mercury needs about a fortnight and passes through several times a year, with retrograde loops occasionally holding it there for six weeks. The Sun crosses in mid-September. Jupiter takes five months every twelve years, and Saturn's thirteen-month passage every twenty-nine and a half is the one that turns a knack into a profession, usually by making the easy version stop working. ## Work that suits Hasta Anything done with the hands, at any level of sophistication. Surgery and dentistry, physiotherapy and massage, the building trades, engineering, craft of every kind, cooking, tailoring, jewellery, instrument-making, pottery, printing. The Mercury rashi adds writing, accountancy, analysis, coding and trade, and the Moon's rulership adds care work and hospitality. Palmistry appears in the classical lists for obvious reasons. Hasta is Kshipra, a swift nakshatra, so muhurat practice favours it for trade, medicine, learning a craft, and anything meant to be finished quickly. ## Marriage, gana and compatibility Hasta is Deva gana, Mahisha yoni, Adi nadi. The buffalo yoni is shared with [Swati](https://mahadasha.com/swati-nakshatra) , and its natural enemy is the horse, which puts [Ashwini](https://mahadasha.com/ashwini-nakshatra) and [Shatabhisha](https://mahadasha.com/shatabhisha-nakshatra) under review. ### Which nakshatras actually match Hasta Hasta's fixed contribution: Tara worth 3, the buffalo yoni worth 4, Deva gana worth 6, Adi nadi worth 8. Hasta's best partners on those 21 are [Mrigashira](https://mahadasha.com/mrigashira-nakshatra) and [Swati](https://mahadasha.com/swati-nakshatra) , both at 19. Swati is the same-yoni pairing, which scores the full four, and both partners avoid Hasta's Adi nadi so the eight-point block survives intact. The weakest are [Jyeshtha](https://mahadasha.com/jyeshtha-nakshatra) and [Shatabhisha](https://mahadasha.com/shatabhisha-nakshatra) , both at 2 of 21. Each shares Hasta's Adi nadi, which costs eight on its own, and each pairs Deva with Rakshasa, which costs five of the six gana points. Two failures, both structural. A Moon star settles 21 points and no more. The other 15 come from [Kundali matching](https://mahadasha.com/kundali-matching) . ## Reading Hasta for planets other than the Moon Mercury in the second pada is exalted at its exact degree in its own sign, which is the strongest Budha placement available anywhere in the zodiac. Nothing else in Hasta competes with it. The Moon in its own nakshatra is practical and slightly anxious, with real manual ability. Venus in the second pada produces genuine artistic craft. Mars in the first is fast and effective and occasionally reckless. Saturn here is the long apprenticeship: slow, thorough, and eventually the best in the room. Jupiter is the least at home, because Virgo does not reward expansiveness and this star rewards precision. ## The difficult side of Hasta Fussiness. Virgo plus the Moon produces a mind that checks, and checking has no natural stopping point. Hasta natives redo work that was already finished and notice flaws that nobody else can see, which is exactly the faculty that makes them good and exactly the one that makes them tiring. The second issue is the one the texts raise about the hand. Cleverness with objects and with money can shade into cleverness at other people's expense, and this star has the dexterity to get away with it for a long time. The Moon's remedies apply, and the practical answer is to put the skill somewhere it is visibly useful. Mercury's exaltation degree lands in Hasta's second quarter, and that pada reads unlike the other three. Find yours in the [birth chart calculator](https://mahadasha.com/birth-chart-calculator) , and see the [27-nakshatra guide](https://mahadasha.com/27-nakshatras-in-vedic-astrology) for the rest. A last observation about the hand. Of the twenty-seven symbols, this is the only one that is a part of the human body doing something rather than an object, an animal or a piece of furniture. The tradition chose an action, not a thing, and Hasta natives are accordingly judged by what they produce. ## Frequently asked questions ### What does Hasta Nakshatra mean? It means hand. The symbol is an open palm, and the nakshatra governs skill, craft, dexterity and the conversion of an intention into a made object. It is the most literal symbol in the twenty-seven. ### Why is Mercury strong in Hasta Nakshatra? Mercury's deep exaltation degree, 15°00' Virgo, falls in Hasta's second pada. Mercury is the only planet that exalts in a sign it also owns, so that degree is the strongest Budha point in the zodiac and it sits inside this star. ### What careers suit Hasta Nakshatra? Surgery, dentistry, physiotherapy, the building and craft trades, cooking, tailoring, jewellery, engineering and printing, plus the Mercury professions of writing, accountancy and coding. The requirement is hands or precision, usually both. ### Is Hasta Nakshatra auspicious? Yes, and it is well regarded for beginnings. It is Deva gana, Kshipra or swift in muhurat terms, and favoured for trade, medicine, learning a craft and buying tools. Only the classical caution about cleverness with money tempers it.