Yog tara is not a junction star

The word “Yogtara” has been translated as “Junction star” by Burgess in his translation work of the Surya Siddhanta. It is in the chapter on conjunction where the polar coordinates of the yogtaras have been specified for each of the nakshatra as observed at certain point of time. The word “junction” can confuse many of us and is the reason why some people taking a clue from this word “junction” went to the extent of using the specified polar coordinates as the boundaries of the nakshatras forgetting the spacing defined for each of the 27 nakshatras in many ancient texts including the siddhantas. For example, these people mention the nakshatra space for Krittika beginning from the specified yogtara position of 39d 10m instead of the standard 26d 40m celestial. Such an assumption is actually wrong.

While Burgess translated the word “yogtara” in a very simple manner, for the word “योग” can be translated as “union”, “junction”, “addition” and even “accession”, the fact is the yogtara is the prime star of a particular nakshatra. And I am not saying it without any academic backing. Let me give a reference sloka that clearly specifies what a yogtara means.

Narada Purana chapter 56:

या दृश्यंते दीप्तताराः स्वगणे योगतारकाः ।।

It means “the bright stars as observed are the yogtaras.”

If we read the whole sloka, the first part mentions the number of prominent stars in each of the nakshatra beginning Ashwini and then specifies that the brightest star is the yogtara. It is obvious that there can be prominent stars within the same nakshatra before and after the yogtara. So, yogtara can’t be a junction star. I don’t think any more clarification is needed on this.

We need to treat the yogtara as the principal star of a nakshatra (“principal”, since the bright star as observed at one point of time may not be a bright star in the defined nakshatra space always) and stop calling it a junction star since it does not specify any boundary.

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