Shravana · 10°00′–23°20′ Capricorn

Shravana means “the hearing,” and the mansion sits at 10°00′–23°20′ of Makara (Capricorn), the twenty-second of the twenty-seven nakṣatras. Candra, the Moon, holds its Vimśottarī lordship: the receiving mind at its most porous, tuned to catch what passes. Its deity is Viṣṇu the preserver, who in the Vāmana story crossed the three worlds in three strides, which is why the older symbol is three footprints and the newer one an ear. Both carry the same claim the tradition makes here: revelation travels, and something has to be listening when it lands.

Classically Shravana is the student’s nakṣatra, the keeper of śruti (scripture as heard, not written), the ear that holds an oral lineage and passes the word on intact. It reads as the counselor others confide in, the connective work of carrying knowledge between people who would never meet. Its puruṣārtha is artha, so the listening is meant to build something usable in the world rather than float free of it.

The shadow the tradition names is the ear’s own: gossip, eavesdropping on other lives instead of living one, the listener who dissolves into everything absorbed and keeps no shape of their own. Learning through attention is the gift; losing yourself in the noise is the cost of the same faculty. Its question stays the listener’s: you hear everything, so what have you chosen to obey?