Revati

Authors: Susanne M Hoffmann, Eric Mamajek, Youla Azkarrula, Shylaja, ASE Tech Team

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Revati

Asterism Info
Native	रेवती
Translation	a Hindu mother goddess
Position (2000)
Right ascension	18.43285834
Declination	7.575359937
Area	0 sq. deg.
Stars
Bright stars	1
Bayer/Flamsteed stars	1
Stars brighter than 3.00m	0
Brightest star	Revati (5.19m)
Taxonomy
category of asterism	IAU-Star Name
IAU- constellations	Psc

Revati, 27th nakshatra, Athmanathaswamy temple (10th c. CE).

रेवती (Revati)

Asterism Info
Native	रेवती
Romanisation	Revati
IPA	ɾeːʋɐtiː
Translation	Revati
Position (2000)
Right ascension	18.43285834 to 26.8399438
Declination	7.294091915 to 15.34583184
Area	39.11 sq. deg.
Stars
Bright stars	15
Bayer/Flamsteed stars	12
Stars brighter than 3.00m	0
Brightest star	Alpherg (3.62m)
Taxonomy
category of asterism	constellation
IAU- constellations	Psc, Ari

Revati's shape in temples matches a characteristic star pattern north of its determinative star. Here mapped to Stellarium (SMH for WGSN 2025).

Revati (रेवती), Prosperous, is a modern star name adopted by the International Astronomical Union in the IAU-Catalog of Star Names (IAU-CSN). Its origin is Indian. It is the name of HIP 5737 (ζ Psc, HR 361) in the constellation Psc.

Etymology and History

Name Variants

• Revati
• Paushna

Revatī (रेवती) is the name of the 27th nakshatra and specifically its yogatara (main star) ζ Psc. The Sun passing this star designates the beginning of a new (solar) year now.

Identification and Main Star

Revati's shape in temple illustrations shows a jar with 29 stars inside , one above and one below. It matches a characteristic oval star pattern north of its determinative star (ζ Psc) in the Pisces/Andromeda area. The star above the jar would then mark the position of the Andromeda Galaxy.

The engraving of 27 stars in a temple of 10th century provides a different pattern of only five stars - the pattern seems to include δ, ε, ζ, 89 and 91 Psc.

The possible identification of the five stars of the engraving

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:

Stars inside the convex hull (identification by SMH based on the temple image - differs from SMH's ident. based on Jones 1720)

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	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

Revati is a significant figure in Hindu mythology, best known as the consort of Balarama (elder brother of Krishna) and daughter of King Kakudmi. Renowned for her immense stature, she is often considered an incarnation of the goddess Jyotsna or a form of Lakshmi (goddess of opulence). Her story famously explores themes of time dilation.

Revati also the name of consort of Balarama, brother of Lord Krishna. She was the daughter of Raivata, who wanted a very noble man as his his son-in-law. He went to the creator, Lord Brahma to check who would be the son-in-law. He was assured that a young man has just been born. By the time he made this trip and returned a yuga had passed (432000years). So, the girl Revati married Balarama of the next yuga.

IAU Working Group on Star Names

Revati profile card (CC BY Sadegh Faghanpour for IAU WGSN).

The name Revati was proposed to IAU WGSN for ζ Psc in 2017, however there is the question of which star the name should be assigned.

ζ Psc is a multiple star system with at least five components. Summaries of the ζ Psc system appear in Argyle, Swan & James (2019, "An Anthology of Visual Double Stars", p.96) and Beavers, Salzer & Chen (1984, 1984PASP...96..179B).

The bright pair ζ Psc A (HD 7344, HR 361, HIP 5737; Vmag = 5.21) and ζ Psc B (HD 7345, HR 362, HIP 5743; V = 6.44 mag) are separated by about 23 arcseconds. Although the discovery of the AB pair is often attributed to William Herschel (1782, p. 137), Herschel flags his description of the pair with an asterisk flagging it as one previously reported by Christian Mayer. To make matters more confusing, the discoverer ID for the pair in Washington Double Star catalog is "STF 100", where "STF" refers to Friederich Georg Wilhelm von Struve -- who did not observe the star until decades later. J.S. Plaskett (1919, 1919JRASC..13..191P) discovered that both A and B show radial velocity variations of tens of kilometers per second, consistent with being spectroscopic binaries. The companion to A ("Ab") was detected via photoelectric photometry during a lunar occultation (C. Meyer et al. 1995, 1995A&AS..110..107M) , and estimated to be 0.8 mag fainter than Aa in a photometric band with effective wavelength similar to Johnson V. Although an orbit for Aa+Ab has not been published, Ba+Bb has had spectroscopic binary orbits published by Christie (1933, 1933ApJ....77..310C) and Beavers et al. (1984, 1984PASP...96..179B) -- with that latter reporting spectral types for Ba and Bb as F7V and G7V, and an orbital period of 9.07530 days.

There is also another faint resolved component C discovered by S.W. Burnham (1889; 1889AN....120..289B; IDed in Washington Double Star Catalog as BU 1029 BC). The Gaia DR3 astrometry for C (ID: Gaia DR3 2577061264719259264) confirms that it is co-distant and co-moving with A and B. The change in position angle of C with respect to B between 1888 and 2021 suggests an orbital period of approximately three centuries. The absolute magnitude of C calculated using Gaia DR3 values (M_G = 6.43) would be consistent with an early K dwarf star.

The name Revati was adopted by WGSN 30 June 2017 and adopted for the primary component ζ Psc Aa. The unresolved light of ζ Psc A has been spectral typed as either A7IV (Levato 1975, 1975A&AS...19...91L) or A7IIIn (Abt & Morrell 1995, 1995ApJS...99..135A), however its absolute magnitude (Mv = 2.15) is similar to that of main sequence A7 stars. The nature of its companion Ab is unknown.

• 
  Revati profile card for zeta Psc (CC BY Sadegh Faghanpour for IAU WGSN).
• 
  Revati stickfigure (CC BY Sadegh Faghanpour for IAU WGSN).

Weblinks

• Website of the IAU WGSN: https://exopla.net/

Reference

• References (general)
• Saha&Lahiri (1955)