Hi Friends! Today let’s try to close our excursion into the names of the days (“vaaras”), and the planets – real or unreal – they are named after (“grahas”).
So let’s strike out into the forest of stories, and seize the day! Interestingly the word “graha” means the one’s who hold or seize. And the word “vaara” means both a day, as well as a strike. Nice?
We have handled the first three days of the week (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) in a set of stories about the Sun (“Ravi”/ “Surya”), the Moon (“Soma”/ “Chandra”) and the planet Mars (“Mangala”). The second instalment handled the next two days of the week (Wednesday, Thursday) with stories about the planet Mercury (“Budha”) and the planet Jupiter (“Brihaspati”). The third foray, after a long hiatus, looked at the next day of the week (Friday), with stories about the planet Venus (“Shukra”). That leaves us with one last day of the week.
Day 7 – Saturday
The seventh day of the week is called ShaniVaar, literally the Day of the Slow Moving One. It is named after Shani, the graha who is representative of the planet Saturn.
Shani is the son of SuryaDeva or Vivaswan (in turn one of the Adityas, i.e. sons of Aditi). He is the step-brother of Yama. Yama is the god of Dharma, while Shani is the god of Karma. While Yama metes out his justice in the afterlife, Shani metes the fruits of deeds (literally karma-phala) in this lifetime itself. Let’s dive into the stories that try to “explain”.
Tales of Shani
Brothers (and Sisters) from Another Mother
We had delved into the progeny of Vivaswan earlier in some detail earlier, so we will do a quick recap. Vivaswan, the sun, was married to Saranyu, the rain cloud. She is also called Sandhya, the evening. Given the brightness of her husband, Saranyu found it difficult to stay with him. So she created a lookalike assistant called Chhaaya (literally the shadow). She tasked Chhaaya to take care of her children (and her husband), and fled to her father (Tvastra or Vishwakarma). It is another story how she wasn’t allowed to stay there, spent some time disguised as a mare, and later reunited with her husband. Today we look at what happened while she was away.
Chhaaya took great care of the children of Saranyu – the righteous Yama, his beautiful twin sister Yami, and their younger brother Vaivaswata Manu. She also took care of their father, the resplendent Vivaswan, but more as a respectful attendant.
Guess who decided to pay a visit to Chhaaya while Vivaswan was out on his daily rounds? The eternally mischievous agent of change, Narada. His name literally means the one who grants his sound (i.e. his knowledge). This he does to those who seek it, as well as those who do not. (There are still those 6000 nephews, sons of a “skilful” brother of his, who are lost from before the start of creation, thanks to his directions).
So Narada, after receiving the respectful adoration due to him as a devarshi (“poet of the bright ones”), as well as a guest, let it slip that he knew that it was Chhaaya, a mere shadow, and not Saranyu, the rightful mistress of the house, who greeted him. And he hinted that sooner or later, the rightful mistress will resume her motherly (and wifely) duties, and Chhaaya would be sent away. Chhaaya had never thought of this scenario. She was rightfully disturbed, and hence asked if there was a solution.
Narada explained that as long as she took care of the children of another, she remains an outsider. As the French put it so sensitively, she would be an au pair, i.e. at par with a family member, though temporarily… and not really. BUT, if she had children of her own with the master, she would truly become an important member of the family.
So Chhaaya followed the suggestions of Narada, and soon conceived a son of SuryaDeva. While the embryo was in her womb, Chhaaya continued fulfilling her duties as a foster mother and caretaker of Surya‘s household. In some stories she also started intense penance to propitiate Shiva. Due to either the heat of the tapas, or the brightness of Surya, when her son was born he was dark-complexioned.
The son, as soon as he was born, realised that the master of the house (Surya) had not arranged for proper care of his mother during her pregnancy. Or may be due to his dark complexion, Vivaswan doubted the chastity of the mother, guessing the son was from some other father. Whatever be the reason, there was an undercurrent of enmity between father and son. This caused the son to look at his own father with an angry eye. This caused the first ever eclipse of the sun. The world got submerged in darkness and confusion. Then after the Mahadeva Shiva was invoked he explained that this son was Sauri (son of Surya), and destined to be a powerful deva on his own right.
There is an interesting one-to-one correlation/ mirroring between the children of Saranyu and Chhaaya.
Saranyu‘s daughter is Yami, the twin to Yama. Infact Yami (and Yama) literally mean twin. Yami later became the river Yamuna, which flows towards the east. Interestingly river Yamuna flows parallel to river Ganga for most of its course, before merging with it. May be that’s one more reason of being called “the twin”. Chhaaya also gave birth to a daughter. She was daughter of the one who heats, or Tapana. So she was named Tapati or Tapi. She also later became a river, which flows towards the west.
Saranyu had another son. He was called Vaivaswata Manu, or the Manu (ruler of a manavantara) who was son of Vivaswana. He is the Manu of the seventh (and current) manvantara, the one who helped and was later helped by the fish incaranation of Vishnu, the Matsya-Avataara. Similarly, Chhaaya had another son. He was called Savarni Manu or Suryasavarnika Manu, i.e. the Manu who is coloured (looks) similar to Surya. He is destined to be the Manu of the eighth manvantara. He waits his turn doing deep penance.
Saranyu‘s eldest son is Yama, the god of dharma. Chhaaya‘s eldest son is Sauri (Shani), the god of karma. While Yama pronounces justice on mortals as per dharma after their death – rewards, punishments in their rebirths; the younger brother gives mortals – as well as immortals – the just desserts of their actions or karma not waiting for death or rebirth. In the beginning of his career, Sauri used to be unrelenting and extremely swift in fulfilling his duties as giver of the fruits of actions, or karma-phala-daata. He used to afflict even infants and youth, whose actions were not yet informed by knowledge or wisdom. Someone could be beset with misfortune due to Sauri‘s impact throughout his/her life without respite. The next few stories explain why that’s no more the case. Thankfully!
How Sauri Became Shani – The Slow One
The family life in Surya-Loka, with Vivaswan, Chhaaya, and the children of Vivaswan (three with Saranyu and three with Chhaaya), went on amicably.
After having her own children, Chhaaya wasn’t afraid anymore to ignore or discipline the children of Saranyu. Once when Yama asked for something, Chhaaya ignored him as she was occupied in some other task. This angered Yama and he threatened to kick her. This made Chhaaya angry as well, and she cursed that Yama‘s leg would get infested with maggots. Yama went to his father and told the story. He accepted that he was at fault. How could he not being the patron god of good behaviour (“dharma“)? Yet, he maintained that a mother could not be so cruel to her own child. Vivaswan first gave Yama a cockerel, who would eat away the maggots from his leg. Yama was cured, but that leg of his remained shrivelled, thus getting him the sobriquet of Shirnapada, or the One with the Shrivelled Foot.
Version 1: How Sauri Was Cursed By His Mother
Interestingly, Yama‘s deduction that a mother cannot curse her own child to be lame is questioned by one more story. Once Sauri was hungry and asked for food. Chhaaya was preparing to worship Shiva, and offer the food to him for consecration before letting her family have the same. A few of those who have grown up in religious households in India may recall similar situations in their own childhood. But this is a story about the gods, so everything reaches critical state, and fast. Sauri, prone to anger like his half-brother, raised his leg to kick his own mother. Chhaaya again got angry, and rightfully. She cursed Sauri to be lame in the leg he raised in anger. Sadly this time Vivaswan did not intervene to reduce the intensity of the curse. So Sauri, from a swift-footed son of the Sun, became Shanaischara, literally the One with Slow Gait. This is the name he is well known as, or in short Shani.
Whatever be the case, Vivaswan realised that Saranyu had fled, leaving behind her shadow as Chhaaya. He went to his father-in-law’s abode. Their Tvastra (also known as Vishwakarma) explained the reason of Saranyu‘s escape. To solve the underlying problem Vishwakarma, the celestial craftsman, sheered off part of the resplendence of Vivaswan, thus making him easier to be close to. In this newer, less imposing form, Vivaswan looked for and found Saranyu. She was in the form of a mare, so Vivaswan took the form of a horse. As a result of their union in this form, two sons were born from the two nostrils of the mare-Saranyu. They were the Ashvin-Kumaras, literally the Young One’s from the Nose. Alternatively their common name may also denote their relationship with ashwa or “horse”, as their parents were in horse-mare form when the brothers were born. Their individual names are less known. On a critical review of the various stories and invocation, we can surmise that their individual names were Nasatya and Dasra.
These brothers were the gods of horse rearing, horsemanship and horse health. This was an important position. The Ashvin-Kumaras asked for full status as devas, and their share of the offerings to devas, from Indra. Indra refused. So the brothers decided to become the gods of health and medicine of humans as well. For that they needed to learn the medicinal arts. Sadly Indra had decreed that he would behead whoever teaches the Ashvin-Kumaras anything outside their purview. The Ashvin-Kumaras convinced a sage to teach them a particular medicinal science called madhu-vidya, literally the knowledge of honey. This was Sage Dadhichi. We had covered this story earlier, in the tale when Indra fought with the bones of Dadhichi. To cut the long story short:
- The Ashvin-Kumaras swapped Sage Dadhichi‘s head with a horse’s, making him Sage AshwaShira
- Sage AshwaShira taught the Ashvin-Kumaras the medicinal art of madhu-vidya
- The Ashvin-Kumaras became full gods, as they could handle both horses’ and human health.
- Indra fulfils his oath and beheads Sage AshwaShira
- The Ashvin-Kumaras use their newfound powers to reattach Dadhichi‘s original head back to his body
- For these and other similar physical traumas, Sage Dadhichi performs intense tapas and makes his bones (and body) the hardest material – impervious to all weapons
- Soon Indra needed the strongest material to build a weapon for an important mission
- Sage Dadhichi agrees to give his bones as raw material for Indra’s vajra
Now, there is a version of this story post the death of Sage Dadhichi that involves Shani.
Version 2: How Sauri Was Cursed by The Sacred Fig Tree Sage
The wife of Sage Dadhichi was a pious lady called Suvarchas. She had taken an oath that she would end her life along with her husband. So when Sage Dadhichi made the ultimate sacrifice to give the donation of his strong bones to Indra, Lady Suvarchas also decided to end her life. Just before she took her life, she was informed that she was pregnant. At this, she cut open her womb and brought out her son. This son she left under the shade of a sacred fig tree, better known as peepal tree. After that the strong willed lady took her own life as per her oath.
The son of Sage Dadhichi and Lady Suvarchas grew up without the love of parents. All he had to eat were peepal leaves, and all he had to drink was the sap of the tree. In some versions Chandra, the god of moon and vegetations, provided nectar through the sap of the peepal tree. This boy grew up to be known as Pippalada, named after the tree from which he drew sustenance. Like his father as well as Chandra, he was also a devotee of Shiva, and conducted severe penance from his infanthood itself. Pippalada had grown strong due to this intense penance. In fact in some versions, he is known to be a partial-incarnataion of Lord Shiva, himself.
When Pippalada has grown to an age when he could understand, the sage known (prone?) to impart knowledge that pushes the narrative forward, entered the story. Sage Narada, the itinerant bard son of Lord Brahma, came to impart diksha and knowledge to Pippalada. After the important work was done, Sage Pippalada asked Narada, what was the reason of his singular misfortune from birth. Sage Narada informed that it was due to Sauri, the karma-phala-daata son of Surya.
This angered Pippalada tremendously and HE cast an angry eye on Sauri. The one whose angry eye could defeat devas and even his own father, the mighty Sauri fell down on to the earth, and broke his legs in such a way that they never fully recovered. He became The Slow Moving One, or Shanaischara.
Pippalada also extracted a promise from Shani to never afflict someone who is less than sixteen years of age, as the person would not be yet aware of the reason of the negative impact of the karma,
any punishment given whose connection to the fault is not understood, is punishment for punishment sake only, and would not cause mending of ways and hence not be for the betterment of the world
Lord Shani accepted the wisdom in the above, and agreed on the same. In addition due to his slow gait now, he traversed the various constellations that impact human destiny very slowly now, and hence someone once afflicted with his angry eye wasn’t afflicted again too soon.
In fact let’s take a detour into astronomy. The planet Saturn revolves round the sun in around 29.5 to 30 years. There being twelve houses in any astrological table, corresponding to the twelve zodiac signs.
In fact this segmentation of the sky into twelve sections is the reason behind the twelve months, and their corresponding twelve Adityas. But more on this some other day!
So Shani takes around two-and-a-half years to travel through one zodiac sign. If we add the time period it takes to traverse through the houses on either side of the same, that comes to seven-and-a-half years. This is called the Sadhe-Saati, the time-period of the malignant impact of Shanaischara.
When Shani Met Nemi
This story may sound trivial from the heading, but I find it very interesting, and am sure by the end of it, the connections to a better known story would make it interesting to you as well.
So there was a king of a major kingdom in the northern part of India. He was named as King Nemi. His name literally means the “rim of a wheel”. A very strong name indeed, as it brings to mind strength as well as the adherence to rules. In fact he shares the name with the twenty-second tirthankara of the Jain religion, Neminatha. But King Nemi is better known, may be even well-known, by another name. King Nemi when fighting from his chariot, could fight against ten opponents and in ten directions. Hence he was better known as King Dasharatha, literally The Ten Chariot (Warrior).
So, during the reign of King Dasharatha, his advisors once explained to him that there is going to be a period of intense misfortune, as Shani would be entering into a very inauspicious position. In the Vrishabha (Taurus) constellation, they explained, there is a triangle of three stars including the star Rohini, which is considered as the axle of the cart on which the world’s good luck moves. Whenever inauspicious movements of grahas happen there, there is famine and other major upheavals. This was referred to as rohini-shakata-bheda, or the piercing of the axle of (the cart of) Rohini. This event was expected to happen soon, and as a good king he needed to act to reduce the impact of the upcoming calamity.
Dasharatha decided to approach the problem in a very creative and different way. He got on his chariot and decided to approach Shani.
The versions of stories differ slightly beyond this point. Either Shani was scared of Dasharatha’s prowess, or he was impressed by the king’s audacity and concern for his subjects. Whatever be the case, Lord Shani asked King Dasharatha to ask for a boon.
Dasharatha asked that Shani never crosses the axle of Rohini’s cart as long as the name of Dasharatha and his descendants is remembered. Shani agreed and has never done so yet. As the stories go, later Dasharatha was blessed with four sons, the eldest of whom was Raghava Rama, the seventh incarnation of Vishnu. Hence, perhaps the stories of Dasharatha and his descendants are still being remembered, and Lord Shani is bound by his promise still.
A Feathery Friend Makes a Re-Entry
The story above has a version that brings in a favourite character of mine, as well as connects one of the unanswered questions in the epic tale of Raghava Ram’s travels and travails after his exile. This is in the Bengali version of Ramayana called Sriram Panchaali, composed by Krittibas Ojha.
By the way Panchaali here means example of the genre of narrative folk songs, consisting of five elements: (i) preset/well-known song portions, (ii) set to and accompanied by music, (iii) sections of extempore versifying as per the audience response/interest, (iv) with poetic contests of oneupmanship, and (v) dance – puppet or by human performers. These were earlier mostly on ancient legends and folk tales.
In this version of the story, when Dasharatha approached Shani, who was mounted on a chariot drawn by divine crows, the god cast his angry eye on to the chariot of Dasharatha. This made the chariot to turn to dust, and the helpless king started falling to the ground.
This was witnessed by a giant vulture, Jataayu. He was the younger son of Aruna, elder brother of Garuda and the charioteer of Vivaswan. We had met this feathered friend earlier with his elder brother Sampaati. Seeing the good king in peril, Jataayu swooped in and saved him at the nick of time. Shani was concerned with the welfare of Dasharatha, as he realised that his motives were good. In addition he saw that the son of the trusted charioteer of his father had befriended and helped the king. So Shani approached Dasharatha and agreed to grant him his boon, and promised to never pierce the axle of Rohini, at least while Dasharatha and his descendants were remembered by the world.
This was the start of a deep friendship between Dasharatha and Jatayu. When Raghava Rama met the old Jatayu during his exile in the forest, he greeted the feathered giant as a friend of his father. Jatayu was saddened at the news of the death of his dear friend, Dasharatha. He took it upon himself to keep an eye on the welfare of his departed friend’s family: the sons (Raghava Rama and Saumitreya Lakshmana) and daughter-in-law (Jaanaki Sita). When later Dashaanan Ravana was abducting Jaanaki Sita, Jataayu tried his utmost to foil his attempt. He failed due to his old age, but he refused to take his last breath till he could give Rama the news about who had kidnapped Sita. In fact, Rama paused his frantic search for Sita to pay his last respects to Jataayu and conducted the last rites of this friend of his father.
How exactly could a mortal king, however strong, approach the planet Saturn, on a chariot, you may ask? All I can say, is: Good question!
a story is a vehicle for something. sometimes a pinch of information. sometimes a sprinkling of propaganda and once in a while a little bit of history. but the test of tellability of a story is that can we make it interesting and/or entertaining? does the fact that the moon is not my mother’s brother, make her a liar, for singing chandaa-maamaa duur ke?
Now for those who want to flog the story-horse till he talks in French, this particular astronomical event (Saturn crossing the three-star axle of Rohini in the Taurus constellation) has never happened, atleast from 10,000 BC onwards. Beyond that the closest this has happened has been around 5300 BC.
Let us end today’s thread of stories with the quick origin story of the two grahas (of the navagrahas) which are not exactly planets.
Tales of Rahu and Ketu
Let us do a quick recap of the storied genealogy of these two much-feared grahas.
One of the sons of Brahma and the original Seven Sages (SaptaRishis) was Marichi. He was married with Sambhuti, one of the daughters of Daksha Prajapati, another son of Brahma. Born to them was a son, who grew up to be one of most learned sages. This was Sage Kashyapa. He was married to many daughters of Daksha. Two of them were Diti and Danu, together the mother of asuras, the powerful one’s.
One of the daughters of Kashyapa with his wife Diti, was a fierce lady called Simhika. She was the sister of Hiranyaksha and Hiranyakashipu. We met her during our dive into the stories of the Narasimha-Avataar, the fourth avataar of Vishnu. Her name literally means the She-Lion, signifying ferocity.
One of the sons of Kashyapa with his other wife Danu, was a danava called Viprachitti. His name literally the One with a Wise and/or Poetic Mind. So the daitya-kanya Simhika, the ferocious She-Lion, married the daanava Viprachitti, the Wise Minded One. Born to these two, was a clever yet ferocious son, called Svarabhanu, literally the splendour of radiance.
He was one of the asuras who was part of the churning of the ksheera-sagara. After many fabulous gifts received from the churning thanks to Kurma, the second Vishnu-avataar, at last Dhanvantari arose from the depths of the ocean, holding in his hand the Vessel of Immortality Nectar, or amruta-kalasham. Please note, Dhanvantari is also considered a partial incarnation of Vishnu. There was a frantic tug-of-war for the amruta between devas and asuras. To solve this problem on behalf of the devas arose another incarnation of Vishnu, namely the one who enchants, or Mohini.
While all the asuras lost their thinking abilities, Mohini started imparting the immortality elixir (“amruta“) only to the devas.
Save one asura. Svarbhanu with his brilliant mind understood this trickery, and taking a form similar to devas took a seat between Surya and Chandra. And he almost succeeded. He received the amruta but before he could swallow and metabolise it, Surya and Chandra pointed him out as an asura to Vishnu, who immediately cut off Svarbhanu‘s head with the sudarshana chakra.
The head of Svarbhanu became Rahu and his body became Ketu. These two were now immortal, and separate beings. Rahu time and again attacked and swallowed Surya, causing solar eclipse. Ketu, in turn, repeatedly attacked and swallowed Chandra, causing lunar eclipse. They are considered shadow planets, or grahas, with strong (and mostly maleficent) influence as per astrology.
Before we end this story, I hope you have noticed that with the full complement of devas present; and at least three avataars (partial or otherwise) of Vishnu present, an asura was smart enough to fool almost all of them, and became immortal in spite of all the machinations.
This long thread of stories and the three posts before this was a long detour. From next time, we will try and get back to the tragic love-story of Shiva, and the tale of Tarakasura, the strong saviour and how he met his end, as per the boon of Brahma, by the hands of a boy of seven days, who is the son of the Mahadeva, and who is devasenapati.
Tales from Indian Mythology from a Story Keeper 