Pouṣṇa (पौष्ण)

Authors: ASE Tech Team, Shylaja, Susanne M Hoffmann

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Revati 10th century (Athmanathaswamy temple)

The possible identification of the five stars of Revati from the temple engraving (identification by B.S. Shylaja). They are ε, δ, ζ, 89 and 96 Psc.

Pauṣṇa (पौष्ण) is another name for Revati (रेवती), (रेवती), the 27th nakṣatra of Vedic astral science, located in the Pisces/Andromeda area. The yogatara (main star) is ζ Psc and it consists of more than one star.

Etymology and History

Name & Spelling Variants

• Revati
• Pauṣṇa (पौष्ण)
  • Paushna
  • Pauchna
  • Pooshna
  • Pushan
  • Pauṣṇa

Pauṣṇa (पौष्ण) is also the name of the 27th nakshatra and, specifically, its yogatara (main star) Revati is assigned ζ Psc. This has the presiding deity as Pūṣan, the Sun. The word Pauṣṇa is derived from Pūṣan.

Identification and Main Star

Revati's shape in temple illustrations shows a group of five stars ε , δ , ζ, 89 and 96 Psc. It matches a characteristic arch pattern, including its determinative star (ζ Psc). We arrive at the identification with ζ Psc as determined from the coordinates of Sūryasiddhānta (4th/5th century).

Other identifications give longer list of stars: ε Psc, 71 Piscium, BD+07 153, FK5 36, GC 1258, HD 6186, HIP 4906, HR 294, PPM 144204, SAO 109627.     

In the catalogue of stars provided by Nityananda of 17th century, the entry corresponds to the name Pouṣṇa, the ecliptic longitude if 359 degrees and the latitude zero. This position is midway between ζ Psc and ε Psc:

The star Pauṣṇa (popularly known as Revatī) has the dhruvaka and śara which are equal to twenty-nine (golocana) degrees  and one-third of a degree subtracted from two degrees  respectively. The star is situated along the southern direction with sixth order brightness (sūkṣmatara). These are the only five [stars] which are situated in the Māīna[-rāśi]. There are a total of 84 (yugāṣṭa) stars are situated in the entire rāśicakra (or ecliptic).

Shylaja's identification (based on the Nityananda star catalog)

ε Piscium	71 Piscium	BD+07 153	HR 294	HIP 4906
δ Psc,	63 Piscium,	BD+06°107,	HR 224	HIP 3786
ζ Psc,	86 Piscium,	BD+06°174	HR 361	HIP 5737	Revati (रेवती)
89 Psc		BD +02 185		HIP 6061
96 Psc	96 G.Piscium	BD +04 123	HR 4628	HIP 3765

Stars within the Constellation Area

In 2025, Susanne M Hoffmann contributed a new "Indian Vedic" sky culture to Stellarium, which maps the depictions of the nakshatras engraved in a door frame of the Athmanathaswamy temple near Aranthangi, India, 10th century CE. When the geometrical pattern is identified with the stars as common, we used an algorithm to make this list of all stars brighter than 6.5 mag in V-band inside the convex hull computed from the identified individual stars:

id	Label	IAU design.	description	Vmag
1	Alpherg	HIP 7097	Constellation lines (Vertex)	3.62
2	Torcular	HIP 8198	Constellation lines (Vertex)	4.26
3	Revati (रेवती) (ζ Piscium A)	HIP 5737	Constellation lines (Vertex)	5.19
4	π Piscium	HIP 7535	Inside the hull	5.535
5	ζ Piscium B	HIP 5743	Inside the hull	6.1
6	118 G. Psc	HIP 6868	Inside the hull	6.214
7	101 Psc	HIP 7436	Inside the hull	6.219
8	-	HD 9496A	Inside the hull	6.33
9	121 G. Psc	HIP 7243	Inside the hull	6.33
10	124 G. Psc	HIP 7819	Inside the hull	6.345
11	CY Psc	HIP 7505	Inside the hull	6.42
12	* 96 Psc	HIP 6915	Constellation lines (Vertex)	6.54
13	* 104 Psc	HIP 7710	Constellation lines (Vertex)	6.75
14	-	HIP 7456	Constellation lines (Vertex)	7.51
15	-	HIP 8327	Constellation lines (Vertex)	8.77

Transfer and Transformation

• 
  Revati 10th century
• 
  Display of all 28th nakshatras in silver arch with candles in Tirupperunthurai (Athmanathaswamy temple) near Aranthangi, India, 10th century CE. (SMH 2025).
• 
  Display of all 28th nakshatras in a door frame in Tirupperunthurai (Athmanathaswamy temple) near Aranthangi, India, 10th century CE. (SMH 2025).
• 
  Revati, Tibetean
• 
  Revati, Chinese
• 
  Revati Hindu
• 
• 
  Lord Revati
• 
  Revati as reconstructed by Jones (1720)

Mythology/ Religion

The position is indicated by the blue symbol between ζ and ε Psc

IAU Working Group on Star Names

The name Pauṣṇa for ε Psc was suggested to WGSN in 2023. Based on the identification of the position of the 27th nakshatra in a 17th century star catalogue, which lists a coordinate between Zeta and Epsilon Pisces, the name Pauṣṇa was proposed as a star name for Epsilon (Zeta is already named Revati).

An alternative could be Zeta Psc B, as this star is also above the visibility threshold and unnamed.

Reference

• References (general)