11/08/2026
Ketu is the serpent's tail. On 12 August it swallows the Sun — inside Ashlesha, the serpent's own
A total solar eclipse, and the numbers are almost too neat.
Greatest eclipse: 23:15:57 IST
Sun: Karka 25°48′ — Ashlesha, pada 3
Moon: right alongside at 25°53′
Distance from Ketu: 9°45′
Here's the astronomy nobody puts next to the myth. Rahu and Ketu aren't planets — they're the two points where the Moon's path crosses the Sun's. An eclipse can only ever happen near them. On the 12th that crossing sits 9°45′ away, and it falls inside Ashlesha, the nakshatra of the Nagas, whose symbol is a coiled snake. The Puranas said a serpent eats the Sun. The geometry says the same thing in different words.
And totality itself is a coincidence. The Sun is about 400 times wider than the Moon, and about 400 times further away. So from here the two discs are almost exactly the same size — which is the only reason the Moon can cover the Sun perfectly at all. Nowhere else in the solar system gets this.
India won't see it. Greatest eclipse is at 23:15 IST, the middle of our night, and the track of totality runs Greenland → Iceland → northern Spain. Classically that means no sutak here. The conjunction still happens overhead; the spectacle just isn't ours.
12 August takes the Sun. 28 August takes the Moon. Eclipses always come in pairs.
Computed with Swiss Ephemeris · sidereal Lahiri, ayanamsa 24°13′43″ — not copied off a panchang.
Save this for the 12th. Where does it land in your chart? 👇
· Your birth chart → cospyria.com
