Ṛgveda & Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa · c. 1400–1200 BCE (astronomical epoch; transmitted text likely later)
प्रपद्येते श्रविष्ठादौ सूर्याचन्द्रमसावुदक्।
सार्पार्धे दक्षिणाऽर्कस्य माघश्रावणयोः सदा॥६॥
The sun and moon turn towards the north at the beginning of 'Sravish'ṭhā: but the sun turns towards the south in the middle of the constellation over which the serpents preside; and this [his turn towards the south, and towards the north], always [happens] in [the months of] Mág'ha and 'Srávaṇa. — H.T. Colebrooke (1805; repr. Essays on the Religion and Philosophy of the Hindus, 1858, p. 66)
The Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa never uses the name Āśleṣā. It marks the summer solstice as falling in 'the middle of Sārpa' — the asterism of the Serpents — identifying the nakshatra only by its presiding deity. The equation Sārpa = Āśleṣā comes from the text's own deity list (Ārca 25 / Yājuṣa 32, where Sarpāḥ presides over the 7th asterism) and is made explicit by Colebrooke. This verse, paired with Śraviṣṭhā for the winter solstice, is the basis for dating the text's astronomical epoch to roughly the 14th–12th century BCE.
Later siddhāntas & al-Bīrūnī · core text c. 400–600 CE
कृत्तिकामैत्रमूलानि सार्पम् रौद्रर्क्षम् एव च / दृश्यन्ते पञ्चदशभिर् आषाढाद् द्वितयम् तथा //
14. Krttikā, Anurādhā (māitra), and Mūla, and likewise Açleshā and Ārdrā (rāudrarksha), are seen at fifteen degrees; so, too, the pair of Āshādhās. — E. Burgess (1860)
Already on file from the Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa; this is a siddhāntic re-attestation, used in place of Āśleṣā at SS 9.14 (the nakshatra's divinities being the Sarpas). Al-Bīrūnī could not identify this asterism: his table notes 'Unknown, Most likely identical with two stars of Cancer and four stars outside of it' — independent evidence that the disputed status recorded here is not a modern artefact.
Mahābhārata & Rāmāyaṇa · vulgate expansion of the Bāla Kāṇḍa, after c. 3rd c. CE
पुष्ये जातस्तु भरतो मीनलग्ने प्रसन्नधीः । सार्पे जातौ तु सौमित्री कुलीरेऽभ्युदिते रवौ ॥१-१८-१५॥
VULGATE ONLY, from Sanskrit Wikisource Bālakāṇḍa sarga 18. Confirmed absent from the GRETIL Critical Edition text by direct search.
And Bharata of purged intelligence was born under the asterism Pushyā, when the Sun had entered Pisces; while the two sons of Sumitrā were born when the Sun arose in Cancer, under the asterism of Asleshā. — Manmatha Nath Dutt (1892)
The birth-star of Lakṣmaṇa and Śatrughna in the vulgate Bāla Kāṇḍa: 'the two sons of Sumitrā were born in SĀRPA, the sun having risen in Kulīra (Cancer)'. Sārpa is the deity-derived alias of Āśleṣā (devatā Sarpāḥ), already in the database from the Vedic corpus and the later siddhāntas; this is its epic attestation, and it is notable that the epic uses the alias rather than the ordinary name Āśleṣā — Dutt silently normalises it to 'Asleshā'. VULGATE ONLY, like the whole birth-horoscope passage.
Rāmāyaṇa (VULGATE) Bāla Kāṇḍa 18.15; absent from the Critical Edition (CE 1.17) ·
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