Vishakha
16th lunar mansion of Hindu astronomy
Vishākhā (विशाखा), meaning "forked, having many branches", is the 16th nakshatra in Indian astronomy. It corresponds to the stars α, β, γ and ι Librae in the constellation Libra. In Hindu mythology, Vishākhā is a daughter of the king Daksha. She is one of the twenty-seven daughters of Daksha, who married the moon-god Chandra. Vishākhā is the sixteenth nakshatra of the zodiac, ruled by the planet Jupiter, Brihaspati or Guru. It is also supposed to be the birth star of the goddess Sita.
In Modern Astronomy, these stars are known as the Alpha-Librae, Beta-Librae, Gamma-Librae, and Iota-Librae. A part of this asterism lies in the Zodiac sign of Scorpio. Among these four stars, the Alpha-Librae and Beta Librae are the brightest. The best and the easiest way to spot these stars is to locate them below the bright star Spica.
“Vishakha” enters the record as 16th lunar mansion of Hindu astronomy. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Vishakha, 16th and lunar can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3631799. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vishakha” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.