Śri Mahā-ganapataye namah

We discussed that Ānjaneya, who was born with the divine radiance of all the Devatas, had in him some miraculous energies. He cut through the sphere of wind and travelled into deep space towards the Sun. It was the time of the eclipse and Rahu who was travelling towards the Sun in order to gulp it was astounded to see a baby vānara flying towards the Sun at speeds faster than him.

Rahu thought, ‘Today is my day. I am supposed to envelop the Sun and cast my shadow on it. Who is this racing ahead of me?’ He rushed towards the monkey baby and threateningly screeched, ‘Hey who are you?’

Rahu’s form which is only a black-coloured head appeared to Ānjaneya like a blackberry fruit. Fascinated by it, the infant now abandoned the idea of catching the Sun and instead travelled towards Rahu seeking to eat him. Rahu somehow managed to escape from his grip.

The term ‘swallow a planet’ does not imply actual eating as we presume but it refers to the phenomena of one planet casting its shadow on another. In astronomical terms, it is defined as planets exerting influence over each other through aspects which are determined by their positions in the zodiac represented in degrees and minutes. It is difficult to explain that subject here.

In order to help the common man understand this complex phenomena, it is said that Rahu catches the Sun, eats him and then leaves him. All we know is that our elders ask us to bathe since Rahu has gobbled the Sun and again at the end of the eclipse they ask us to bathe since he has left the Sun. We wonder, ‘Why should we bathe if Rahu wants to eat the Sun? Why should we bathe again when he has left the Sun? What is the connection between his eating and our bathing?’ Our irritation further intensifies when Rahu decides to catch the Sun during times when we are struggling due to water scarcity. At such time, in vexation, when we see the water (which we with utmost difficulty had stored in the drum) depleting quickly, we conclude that it was not the Sun who was jinxed but it is our home that is jinxed. Anyways, let us discus the reasons for that tradition later on.

Coming back to the story, Rahu managed to escape from Hanuman’s grip and directly went to Indra, the Lord of heaven. In great anxiety he addressed Indra saying,

‘O Indra, this was the day initially allotted to me. While entitling me to eat up the Sun, you have secretively allotted the same day to another boy. When my shadow is supposed to fall on the Sun at this allotted time, another boy is racing ahead of me trying to throw his shadow upon it. Now my shadow cannot be cast. Your actions are unjust’. When Rahu thus screamed in frenzy in the assembly of all Devatas, Indra felt humiliated and embarrassed.

All these incidents take place within milli-seconds. Do not presume that Rahu dashed to heaven, put in his application and thereafter the case had to come up for hearing in Indra’s court and hence all these would take long time.

Indra thought, ‘Some rascal has had the audacity to usurp Rahu’s position’. Without a second’s delay, in absolute fury, he took up his thunderbolt (vajrayudha) weapon, mounted his elephant Airavata and dashed towards the Sun’s planet. He was in a hurry to offer protection to Planets Sun and to Rahu.

Meanwhile, when Rahu ran away to submit his complaint, Hanuman decided to go ahead with his original plan of eating the Sun. By the time Indra arrived, Hanuman had opened his mouth wide and was about to gobble up the Sun. Indra who was rushing to help the Sun, saw the little boy who was on the verge of swallowing the Sun and hence in great anxiety screamed, ‘Hey stop, stop.’

In tomorrow’s episode let us see what happened thereafter.

Jaya Guru Datta