Hasta is the hand, and everything the hand does: craft, healing, writing, trade, sleight. Its deity is Savitar, the Sun who rouses the world to work each morning and gives it skill, and people with the Moon here are the makers and the fixers — deft, industrious, witty, a little mischievous, and better than most at turning an idea into a thing. They laugh easily and work hard.
The Moon rules the nakshatra and Mercury the sign, so the Hasta Moon joins feeling to precision: the surgeon, the artisan, the accountant who cares. The difficulty is restlessness of the hands and a tendency to fret over small imperfections. A Moon here starts life in the Moon's own mahadasha, ten years, often a childhood close to the mother, and Mars's period follows.
The four padas of Hasta
Each nakshatra is divided into four padas of 3°20′. The pada says which sign the Moon is in when a nakshatra straddles two, and which navamsa (the ninth-harmonic sign) it falls in — the finer grain astrologers read for temperament and marriage.
| Pada | Span | Sign | Navamsa |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10°00′–13°20′ | Virgo | Aries |
| 2 | 13°20′–16°40′ | Virgo | Taurus |
| 3 | 16°40′–20°00′ | Virgo | Gemini |
| 4 | 20°00′–23°20′ | Virgo | Cancer |
Hasta in kundli matching
Three of the eight kootas of guna milan are read from the nakshatra alone. Yoni (Buffalo): the instinctive match by the nakshatra's animal — Elephant, Sheep and Cow are its friends; the Horse is its enemy. Gana (Deva): godly — gentle, giving, at ease with others; the same or a compatible gana scores in full. Nadi (Adi): the first pulse, vata in the ayurvedic reading; two Moons in the same nadi are the heaviest dosha, with the classical exemptions. Check a match to see all eight for two charts.
Born under Hasta
The Vimshottari dasha starts from the nakshatra of the natal Moon. A Moon in Hasta begins life in the Moon mahadasha of 10 years, less the part already spent by the Moon's degree within the nakshatra; the further into Hasta the Moon stood, the shorter the balance at birth. The exact balance needs the degree, which your free kundli gives.