Are the stars not aligned for the rupee?

Indranil Mukherjee | AFP | Getty Images

The slide in the Indian rupee to record lows against the dollar this week has sparked some debate in India as to whether the launch of the currency's new symbol last year on an inauspicious day is the real reason behind the rupee's pain.

According to reports in the Indian press, experts on vastu shastra, an ancient Indian practice similar to feng shui, the new symbol for the rupee was launched on an inauspicious day for the stars and the horizontal lines across the symbol appear to "slit the throat" of the currency.

(Read more: Is a Volcker on the cards for the RBI?)

The rupee hit a record low on Thursday at 65.56 per dollar and is down about 17 percent this year, with analysts attributing the move to an outflow of cash from emerging markets as investors anticipate an unwinding of U.S. monetary stimulus.

It has overtaken the yen as the world's worst performing major currency this year.

(Read more: Goldman downgrades emerging Asia currencies)

Dharmalingam Udaya Kumar, assistant professor in the design department of IIT-Guwahati, designed the rupee symbol in 2010, the Hindustan Times reported. The symbol was incorporated into currency notes of 10, 100, 500 and 1000 from January and in notes of 20 and 50 from April this year.

"Things were different at the time I designed the rupee symbol and things are different now," Kumar was quoted as saying by India's Live Mint on Thursday.

It also quoted celebrity astrologer Bejan Daruwall saying the rupee's problems did not stem from the currency's design, adding that the drubbing in the rupee would cease from November judging by the alignment of planets.

(Read more: Calls get louder for India to free up currency)

Horoscopes tend to play an important role in life in India, where superstition also runs deep.

The rupee's slide has also sparked a flurry of humor about the currency on Twitter and other social media outlets.

Here's one joke that was doing the rounds on Friday:

https://twitter.com/Hollaand/statuses/370759625760444416

Superstition and jokes aside, analysts said they expected the rupee to head lower still as investors focus on India's wide current account deficit and sluggish economy.

"We revised down our India growth forecast a couple of days ago, although the monsoon season is going well and that's good for growth," Taimur Baig, director and chief economist at Deutsche Bank said on CNBC Asia's "Squawk Box."

"On the flip side the rupee's fall is in the verge of becoming disorderly and that has implications for the financial sector, the corporate sector and the investment outlook and that can start hurting the real economy," he said. "So we are on a bit of a knife edge right now."

— By CNBC.Com's Dhara Ranasinghe; follow her on Twitter @DharaCNBC