27 Nakshatra Trees, Navagraha Plants and Planetary Roots (Jadi)

What Are Nakshatra, Rashi and Planetary Trees?

A nakshatra tree (nakṣatra vṛkṣa) is the tree tradition assigns to one of the 27 lunar mansions, the star groups the Moon passes through in a little over 27 days. The nakshatra the Moon occupied at your birth is your birth star, and its tree is your tree. Indian households have long planted it near the home, watered it on the birth-star day, and refused to cut it.

Three lists sit side by side in this tradition, and they come from different places. The planetary plants have the clearest textual basis. The Garuḍa Purāṇa and the Agni Purāṇa name nine woods, from arka to kuśa, offered in turn to the nine planets in the planetary fire offering (navagraha homa). The nakshatra trees come down through regional ritual, botanical and garden traditions, and the lists disagree in several places. The rashi trees for the twelve signs are known mainly from public garden schemes such as the Ranchi Nakshatra Van.

A fourth practice grew from the same idea: wearing the root of a planet’s plant, a jaḍī or mūla, in place of its gemstone. That practice belongs to living tradition rather than to any classical verse, and the page treats it that way.

The tree is not a remedy you buy. It is a living thing you plant or protect, and the tradition’s own instruction is to look after it.

Nakshatra Van: Gardens Planted by the Stars

A Nakshatra Van, or Nakshatra Vanam in the South, is a garden of the 27 nakshatra trees, usually planted in the order the nakshatras rise. Forest departments, temples and universities have built them across India, so that a visitor can find their birth-star tree, sit under it, and see the whole sky set out in wood and leaf.

The Ranchi garden shows how much thought goes into the layout. Its 27 trees stand in two arcs aligned to the Sun’s path, 13 on the sunrise side and 14 on the sunset side, each beside a granite stone naming its nakshatra. A musical fountain sits at the centre, and a medicinal garden with a statue of Dhanvantari lies alongside.

Two things are worth knowing before you visit one. First, the gardens do not all plant the same trees. The North Indian gardens, such as Ranchi, follow one list; the Gujarat and Kerala lists follow another, and differ from each other in a few places, and the two differ in about ten nakshatras (the table below gives both). Second, the gardens themselves are the main public record of these lists. The Jharkhand Forest Department, for instance, credits its nakshatra trees to texts including the Nārada Saṁhitā, the Śāradā Tilaka and the Rāja Nighaṇṭu, and its planting order to the Sūrya Siddhānta.

The 27 Nakshatra Trees: Full List with Hindi Names

Three published lists stand behind the table: the Gujarat Forest Department’s list, the Ranchi Nakshatra Van’s list, and the Kerala list compiled in Wikipedia’s article on Nakshatravana. The tree column gives the tree most of them agree on; the last column names each list that differs. The table also gives each nakshatra’s presiding deity, the Hindi name and the botanical name.

Where the last column is blank, all three lists agree. The deities follow the standard jyotisha list; older sources do not always assign them the same way.

Botanical names follow current usage. Garden records often use older names for the same trees: Emblica officinalis (amla), Ficus glomerata (gular), Acacia catechu (khair), Eugenia jambolana (jamun), Anthocephalus cadamba (kadamb) and Madhuca indica (mahua). Where a list names only a group of plants, such as bamboo or jasmine, the table gives the genus.

Each Nakshatra and Its Tree

Ashwini Nakshatra Tree: Kuchla (Strychnine Tree)

Ashwini belongs to the Aśvins, the physicians of the gods, and its tree is a physician’s paradox. Kuchla contains strychnine and is highly toxic. Processed seed appears in some traditional preparations, but that never makes the plant safe at home: do not eat, prepare or handle the seeds. The nakshatra link is a reason to protect the tree, not to use it. The Ranchi garden plants amla instead, a gentler choice for a home.

Bharani Nakshatra Tree: Amla (Indian Gooseberry)

Bharani is ruled by Yama, lord of restraint and of the dead. Amla is among the most worshipped trees in Hindu households: devotees fast and pray beneath it on Āmalakī Ekādaśī in Phālguna and eat under it on Akṣaya Navamī in Kārttika. The Ranchi garden plants a banyan and a pakar together for Bharani.

Krittika Nakshatra Tree: Gular (Cluster Fig)

Krittika’s deity is Agni, and the gular, the udumbara, is a samidh: its wood is one of the nine offered in the planetary fire ritual (for Venus), and tradition uses it widely in Vedic rites. The fruit grows straight from the trunk, so the tree looks heavy with offerings.

Rohini Nakshatra Tree: Jamun (Black Plum)

Rohini, the Moon’s favourite wife, belongs to Prajāpati, the creator. The Purāṇas call the continent around Mount Meru Jambūdvīpa and explain the name by a giant jamun tree. A tree that, in the story, names a continent suits the most fertile of the nakshatras. Jamun fruits in the early monsoon.

Mrigashira Nakshatra Tree: Khair (Cutch Tree)

Mrigashira belongs to Soma. Khair, the khadira, gives the hard heartwood from which katha, the brown paste in betel leaf, is made. Tradition prizes its wood for ritual use, and it is the fire offering for Mars, which rules Mrigashira. All lists agree on this tree.

Ardra Nakshatra Tree: Agar (Agarwood)

Ardra is the storm of Rudra, and its tree turns injury into fragrance: agarwood forms its prized dark resin only where the tree has been wounded. The word agarbattī, incense stick, comes from agaru. North Indian gardens such as Ranchi plant the pakar for Ardra instead.

Punarvasu Nakshatra Tree: Bamboo

Punarvasu means “good again”, and its deity Aditi is the boundless mother. Bamboo, cut to the ground, sends up new shoots, which fits the nakshatra of return. Bamboo frames the wedding canopy in many regions and becomes Krishna’s flute. Every list gives bamboo.

Pushya Nakshatra Tree: Peepal (Sacred Fig)

Pushya belongs to Bṛhaspati, the Guru of the gods. In the Bhagavad Gītā (10.26), Krishna says that among trees he is the aśvattha, the peepal. Its wood is also Jupiter’s offering in the planetary fire ritual. Peepal is worshipped on Saturdays and circled with thread by married women.

Ashlesha Nakshatra Tree: Nagkesar (Ceylon Ironwood)

Ashlesha’s deities are the serpents, and its tree carries their name: nāga-kesara, linked in tradition with the nāgas. The white, fragrant flowers with golden centres are offered in worship, and the dried stamens are used in Ayurveda. Its very hard timber gives the English name ironwood.

Magha Nakshatra Tree: Banyan (Bargad)

Magha belongs to the Pitṛs, the ancestors. The banyan sends down aerial roots that become new trunks, so one tree becomes a grove: a living picture of a family line. Married women worship it on Vaṭ Sāvitrī, the fast that remembers Sāvitrī, who won her husband back from Yama; in the custom, the banyan stands for that story.

Purva Phalguni Nakshatra Tree: Palash (Flame of the Forest)

Purva Phalguni belongs to Bhaga, giver of shared enjoyment. Palash flowers in a blaze of orange at the end of winter, and the flowers were boiled for the colours of Holi. Its leaves make the traditional leaf plate, and its wood is the Moon’s offering in the planetary fire ritual.

Uttara Phalguni Nakshatra Tree: Plaksha (Pakar)

Uttara Phalguni belongs to Aryaman, guardian of contracts and marriage. Its tree is the plakṣa, a fig whose botanical identity differs between lists: the Gujarat list gives Ficus rumphii, others the pakar (Ficus virens). The plakṣa is one of the five barks of Ayurveda’s pañcavalkala, with banyan, peepal and gular (lists differ on the fifth). The Ranchi garden plants a rudraksha tree instead.

Hasta Nakshatra Tree: Jasmine (Chameli)

Hasta, the hand, belongs to Savitṛ, the Sun as impeller. Jasmine is the one shrub among the trees, grown on a support and picked by hand, so the pairing is easy to remember. Its flowers are offered daily in many homes. The Ranchi garden plants reetha, the soapnut tree.

Chitra Nakshatra Tree: Bel (Bael)

Chitra belongs to Tvaṣṭṛ, the divine craftsman. The bel tree’s three-part leaf is offered to Śiva, and its root is the jadi for the Sun (below). All lists agree on bel for Chitra, and it is one of the easiest nakshatra trees to find in any Indian temple compound.

Swati Nakshatra Tree: Arjun

Swati belongs to Vāyu, the wind, and is the nakshatra of independent movement. The Arjun is a tall riverside tree whose bark Ayurveda uses for the heart; ask a physician before taking it. Every list gives Arjun for Swati.

Vishakha Nakshatra Tree: Nagkesar (Ceylon Ironwood)

Vishakha belongs to Indra and Agni together, the nakshatra of a goal pursued, and it has the widest disagreement of any nakshatra. The Gujarat list gives nagkesar, the same tree as Ashlesha; the Kerala list gives kaith, the wood apple offered to Gaṇeśa; and the Ranchi garden plants vikankat (Flacourtia indica), a thorny tree of dry forests. Follow your family’s custom or the garden you visit.

Anuradha Nakshatra Tree: Maulsari (Bakul)

Anuradha belongs to Mitra, god of friendship and agreements. Maulsari’s small star-shaped flowers keep their scent long after they dry, which suits the nakshatra of lasting loyalty. They are strung into garlands. All lists agree.

Jyeshtha Nakshatra Tree: Semal (Silk Cotton)

Jyeshtha belongs to Indra, king of the gods. Semal stands tall and bare in late winter, covered in large red flowers before any leaf appears, then releases silky floss. The Ranchi garden plants the chir pine, a Himalayan conifer, instead. \ Read more in Jyeshtha Nakshatra: Meaning, Traits, Padas and Marriage.

Mula Nakshatra Tree: White Dammar or Sal

Mula, the root, belongs to Nirṛti, goddess of dissolution. The southern lists give white dammar, a Western Ghats tree with a fragrant resin; Ranchi plants sal, the forest tree of central and eastern India, under which tradition says the Buddha was born. \ Mula is also a gandamoola nakshatra.

Purva Ashadha Nakshatra Tree: Cane or Indian Willow

Purva Ashadha belongs to Āpaḥ, the waters, and both its trees grow by water. The Gujarat list gives the cane (Calamus), a climbing rattan palm; the Kerala list also names the vetasa, the Indian willow of riverbanks, which bends with the current. The Ranchi garden plants the Ashoka tree, the grove in which Sītā was held in Lanka.

Uttara Ashadha Nakshatra Tree: Jackfruit (Kathal)

Uttara Ashadha belongs to the Viśvedevāḥ, all the gods together, and its tree bears the largest fruit of any tree. One jackfruit can feed a household, which suits the nakshatra of victory that benefits all. Every list gives the jackfruit.

Shravana Nakshatra Tree: Aak (Crown Flower)

Shravana, listening, belongs to Viṣṇu. Aak’s leaves and flowers are offered to Śiva and Gaṇeśa, and its wood is the Sun’s offering in the planetary fire ritual. Its milky sap can burn the skin and eyes, so do not handle it casually, and keep children away from it. All lists agree.

Dhanishtha Nakshatra Tree: Shami (Khejri)

Dhanishtha belongs to the eight Vasus. The Mahābhārata tells how the Pāṇḍavas hid their weapons in a shami tree before their year in disguise; on Dussehra many still exchange its leaves as gold. Shami is Saturn’s offering in the planetary fire ritual.

Shatabhisha Nakshatra Tree: Kadamb

Shatabhisha, the hundred physicians, belongs to Varuṇa, lord of the waters. Kadamb blooms in the monsoon with round golden flowers and is Krishna’s tree on the banks of the Yamunā at Vrindavan. Every list gives kadamb.

Purva Bhadrapada Nakshatra Tree: Mango (Aam)

Purva Bhadrapada belongs to Aja Ekāpad, the one-footed goat, a fierce form of Rudra. Mango leaves crown the ritual water pot (kalaśa) and hang in a garland across the door at every festival. Some Kerala gardens plant Gluta travancorica, a tree of the mango family (Anacardiaceae).

Uttara Bhadrapada Nakshatra Tree: Neem

Uttara Bhadrapada belongs to Ahirbudhnya, the serpent of the deep. Neem is the bitter guardian of the Indian village, and on Guḍī Pāḍavā and Ugadi its leaves are eaten with jaggery for the year ahead. Some Kerala gardens plant the talipot palm instead.

Revati Nakshatra Tree: Mahua

Revati belongs to Pūṣan, the nourisher who guides travellers. Mahua’s sweet flowers are gathered as food in central India, and its seeds give a cooking oil. A tree that feeds whole villages suits the last nakshatra, the shepherd of the herd. All lists agree.

How to Honour Your Nakshatra Tree

The practice is simple, and it asks more care than money.

1. Find your birth nakshatra. It is the nakshatra the Moon occupied at your birth, worked out from your date, time and place of birth. Your Sun sign or your Western star sign will not give it.
2. Plant the tree, or adopt one. Plant it where it can grow to full size: a peepal or banyan needs open ground, well away from the house walls, while jasmine, bel or amla suit a home garden. In a flat, adopt a tree in a temple, park or Nakshatra Van and visit it.
3. Tend it on your birth-star day. Each month the Moon returns to your nakshatra for about a day. Families water the tree, light a lamp beneath it, and offer flowers on that day, and many do so on the birthday by nakshatra as well.
4. Do not fell or harm it. Necessary pruning for its health and safety is different from harming or destroying it.
5. Plant the trees of your family. Many households plant the trees of every family member’s nakshatra, so a garden slowly becomes a record of the family.

The tree does not change your chart, and the tradition never claimed it would. What it gives is a daily, living connection to your birth star, and shade for whoever comes after.

Rashi Trees: The Zodiac Tree for Each Sign

The twelve-rashi list below is the one the Ranchi Nakshatra Van plants; gardens in Gujarat, Patna and Silvassa keep Rashi Van sections of their own. It is a garden convention rather than a classical assignment. Use your Moon sign (Chandra rāśi), the sign the Moon occupied at birth, as Indian practice does.

Several rashi trees repeat a planet’s plant, which shows how the list was built. Khair for Scorpio is the fire offering of Mars, its ruler; peepal for Sagittarius is Jupiter’s; shami for Aquarius is Saturn’s; palash for Cancer is the Moon’s. Where a garden plants a different tree for a sign, follow the garden you visit; nothing in astrology turns on the choice.

Navagraha Plants and the Nine Samidha Woods

Each of the nine planets has a samidh, a ritual wood or grass offered into the fire, from arka for the Sun to kuśa for Ketu. In the rite for pacifying the planets (graha śānti), the Garuḍa Purāṇa and the Agni Purāṇa name the planets in order, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu, and then the nine woods, to be offered “in order” (kramāt). Read together, the two lists give one wood to each planet. The sticks offered are called samidh, fuel for the sacred fire.

Three of the nine are not trees at all. Apāmārga is a roadside herb whose burred seeds catch on clothing, and dūrvā and kuśa are grasses; both grasses are already indispensable in daily worship, dūrvā for Gaṇeśa and kuśa for every rite that needs a pure seat or ring. This is why a Navagraha Van plants herbs and grass beside its trees.

In a planetary fire offering, the priest offers the stick of each planet’s plant with that planet’s mantra, in common practice 108 or 28 times for the planet being pacified. Householders who keep a Navagraha garden simply grow the nine plants together, often in the arrangement used for the nine planets in a temple, with the Sun at the centre.

These nine plants are also the reason several nakshatra and rashi trees overlap with the planets: peepal, palash, khair, gular, aak and shami appear in all three lists.

Jadi: Wearing a Planet’s Root

A jadi (jaḍī, also called mūla, root) is a piece of a plant’s root worn on the body for a planet, in place of that planet’s gemstone. It is a practitioners’ remedy. The classical texts above prescribe plants for the fire and gems and metals for the planets, while the wearing of a root comes from living practice rather than from a classical verse. The list below is the one most Indian practitioners use, and practitioners differ on three planets.

Three cautions come with this table. Folk plant names do not map cleanly to botanical names: “bichhu buti” means different stinging herbs in different regions, and “sarpankha” and “singhpuchhi” are used loosely too, so buy only from a seller who names the species. White sandalwood is heartwood rather than root, though it is sold and worn as Rahu’s jadi. Some lists name dhatura root for Saturn; it is left out of the table because every part of the dhatura plant (Datura species) is poisonous, so prefer the shami root.

Why wear a root at all? Practitioners give three reasons: cost, availability, and gentleness. A good natural gem of planetary quality can cost far more than most families can spend, and practitioners do not treat a heat-treated or synthetic stone as equal to a natural one (see gemstones in Vedic astrology). A root costs little, is easy to replace, and, in practitioners’ view, acts more mildly than a gem, which is why it is often suggested for a planet whose strengthening needs care. These are traditional assessments; no study has measured either effect.

Which Root Suits Your Chart?

A jadi follows the same logic as a gemstone. In the lineages that use it, a planet’s root is worn to support or strengthen that planet, and whether that is wise depends on the whole chart and the astrologer’s method, not on whether the planet is “good” or “bad” in general.

• Factors commonly examined: the lords of the ascendant and of the 5th and 9th houses, and a planet that rules both an angle and a trine for your ascendant (the yogakāraka), together with each planet’s dignity, aspects, conjunctions and strength in the navamsa.
• Conditions needing particular caution: a planet that rules the 6th, 8th or 12th house, since strengthening it can strengthen what those houses signify; Rahu and Ketu, which are judged by their sign, its lord and the planets with them.
• Timing: the planet whose period (daśā) or sub-period is running often decides which root is considered now.
• Gem or root: where a planet should be supported but needs care, or where a good gem is beyond the budget, practitioners often suggest the root.

Your nakshatra tree is a different matter. Planting and tending it needs no chart-based prescription: it is a devotional and ecological practice. Choose a species and a spot that suit each other, and take ordinary gardening care.

How a Jadi Is Collected, Purified and Worn

The steps below are the common practice of North Indian practitioners. Families and lineages vary the details, and where yours has its own custom, follow it.

1. Invite the plant. On the evening before collection, the plant is “invited” (nimantraṇa): water, rice and a flower are offered at its base, a thread is tied round it, and the purpose is stated. This asks permission rather than simply taking.
2. Collect at the planet’s time. The root is dug the next morning, on the planet’s weekday or in a favourable nakshatra (Pushya is the one most often chosen), taking only a small piece. Even a small cut can injure or kill a plant, so many now take roots only from cultivated plants.
3. Purify it. The piece is washed in clean water, often with a little raw milk or Ganga water, and dried in the shade. Ritual washing does not remove toxins or make a poisonous plant safe to handle, wear or eat.
4. Wrap or set it. It is wrapped in cloth of the planet’s colour or sealed in a small amulet (tābīz) of the planet’s metal, and worn on a thread on the arm or round the neck.
5. Put it on with the planet’s mantra. It is worn first on the planet’s weekday, in the bright half of the lunar month, after reciting the planet’s mantra as your family tradition or astrologer gives it.

Source it legally. Never dig roots from protected, threatened or privately owned plants without permission. White sandalwood is regulated in India, so buy it only from licensed sellers; for the other roots, prefer cultivated plants and sellers who name the species.

Replacing it. A root is organic and wears out. Practitioners replace it when it cracks, crumbles or gets wet often, and many simply renew it every year. The old root is not thrown away: by custom it is placed in flowing water or buried at the foot of a tree. Return only the root itself; never put cloth, metal or plastic into a river.

Safety First

A jadi is worn, never eaten. Nothing on this page is a reason to eat, drink, prepare or apply any root, seed, sap or plant preparation.

• Poisonous plants: kuchla seeds, aak sap and every part of dhatura are toxic. Do not collect, handle, prepare or experiment with them at home, and keep the plants out of reach of children and pets. A plant’s ritual or astrological link is never a reason to touch its toxic parts.
• Skin contact: wearing a root does not prove it is safe on the skin. Avoid direct contact with any root you cannot identify, and if a root or its cloth causes itching or a rash, take it off.
• Medicinal plants: ashwagandha, arjun and neem are also Ayurvedic medicines. Taking them by mouth is a decision for a qualified physician, not an astrologer.
• Pregnancy, medication and allergy: if any applies, ask your doctor about handling or wearing a plant before you do.

A root, a tree or a gem is a traditional remedy. It does not replace medical care, and no honest astrologer will promise you a result from one.

Related

Other Remedies on AstroShala

• Gemstones: the nine planetary gems, how a chart decides which to wear, and how to test a stone.
• Yantras: planetary and deity yantras, and how to install and keep one.
• Japa Mala: the rosary for each planet and how to use it in mantra practice.
• Rudraksha: the beads by number of faces, the planets traditionally linked to them, and how to wear one.