Lexicons, Nirukta & Buddhist · Amarakośa c. 6th century CE; Nirukta c. 5th century BCE
नक्षत्रमृक्षं भं तारा तारकाप्युडु वा स्त्रियाम् ॥ १.३.२१७ ॥ — cf. निरुक्त ३.२०: नक्षत्राणि नक्षतेर्गतिकर्मणः । नेमानि क्षत्राणि इति च ब्राह्मणम् ।
'A star.' — Nirukta: 'Naksatra (stars) is derived from (the root) nakṣ, meaning to go. There is also a Brahmana passage: These are not gold (na-kṣatrāṇi).' — H.T. Colebrooke (1808); Lakshman Sarup (1921) for the Nirukta
Head-word of the six-fold synonym set for 'star'. The lexicon treats nakṣatra, ṛkṣa, bha, tārā, tārakā and uḍu as fully interchangeable — which is why the separate entries for Ṛkṣāḥ and the rest form one lexical family. Yāska's Nirukta 3.20 supplies the oldest etymology: from the root nakṣ 'to go', with the alternative Brāhmaṇa pun na imāni kṣatrāṇi.
Pāṇini & Patañjali · c. 500–350 BCE (Pāṇini)
४.२.३ नक्षत्रेण युक्तः कालः ।
Devanāgarī from Sanskrit Wikisource. IMPORTANT COLLATION: GRETIL's Kāśikā-derived text prints 'nakṣatreṇa yuktaṃ kālaḥ', with a neuter yuktaṃ that does not agree with the masculine kālaḥ; GRETIL's independent 'alt' text and the Wikisource Devanāgarī both read yuktaḥ, which is the standard and grammatically correct form. I have quoted the correct reading and flag the Kāśikā-file variant here.
3. The affix already ordained (IV.1.83) comes after a word in the instrumental case in construction, which is the name of a lunar mansion, to signify a time connected with the asterism. — A time is said to be connected with an asterism when the moon is in conjunction with any one of such asterism. … when the moon is in any one of these asterisms, then the affix is added to the name of such asterism in order to denote time of such conjunction. — Śrīśa Chandra Vasu (1896)
The key structural finding for the whole source. Nakṣatra is a FORMAL GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY in the Aṣṭādhyāyī, invoked as a condition in nine of Pāṇini's own sūtras: 1.2.60 (…ca nakṣatre), 1.2.63 (nakṣatra-dvandve), 2.3.45 nakṣatre ca lupi, 3.1.116 (…nakṣatre), 4.2.3 nakṣatreṇa yuktaḥ kālaḥ, 4.3.16 (…ṛtu-nakṣatrebhyo 'ṇ), 4.3.37 nakṣatrebhyo bahulam, 4.4.141 nakṣatrād ghaḥ, and 6.3.75 (in a phonological list). 4.2.3 is the head-sūtra of the whole nakṣatra section and is explicitly ASTRONOMICAL in its content: it derives a time-word from an asterism name when the time is 'joined with' that asterism — which the tradition, from the Kāśikā onwards, glosses as the moon's conjunction with it. The database currently dates nakṣatra as a term from the Amarakośa and Nirukta; this is earlier and better dated. Also relevant: Kātyāyana's vārttika on 2.2.34 speaks of ṛtu-nakṣatrāṇām 'of seasons and asterisms' as a single class with a canonical order, and Patañjali on 1.2.63 asks nakṣatra iti kimartham 'what is the purpose of [the word] nakṣatra?' — treating it as a technical restriction distinguishing star-senses from homonymous personal names.
Aṣṭādhyāyī 4.2.3 (also 1.2.60, 1.2.63, 2.3.45, 3.1.116, 4.3.16, 4.3.37, 4.4.141) ·
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