Chandra
சந்திரன் चन्द्र
Also Soma, Nisakara, Sasi, Thingal.
Smarta
Who this is
Chandra is the moon, the second of the nine grahas, and the one the whole Indian calendar is built on: the tithi is his distance from the sun, the nakshatra is the star he stands in, and a person’s birth star and rasi are where he was at the moment of birth. In the chart he rules the mind, and a weak or afflicted moon is read as unsteadiness rather than misfortune. He waxes and wanes because of a curse, and the tradition reads the waxing and waning as the model of everything that recovers.
How to recognise them
Fair, seated in a chariot drawn by ten white horses or by antelopes, holding a mace and a lotus, with a crescent at the head. In the navagraha arrangement he faces east and stands to the right of Surya at the centre. The soma creeper and white cloth belong to him.
Family and companions
Born of the churning of the ocean in one account and of the sage Atri in another. Husband of the twenty seven nakshatras, all daughters of Daksha, of whom he loved Rohini best. Father of Budha, Mercury, by Tara, the wife of Brihaspati, which caused a war among the gods. Siva wears him on his head.
How they are worshipped
Monday; Pournami and Amavasya each month; Sharad Purnima.
Monday is his day. White is his colour, rice and milk his offering, and pearl his stone. The full moon and the new moon are kept as fasts in most households, and the Pournami vratam and the Somavara vratam are his. Thingalur is his sthalam on the navagraha circuit, and the remedy for an afflicted moon is done there.
The stories
As they are told, with the disagreements left in
The curse that made him wane
Daksha gave him all twenty seven of his daughters, the nakshatras, on the understanding that he treat them equally, and he spent his time with Rohini and neglected the rest. The other twenty six complained to their father, who cursed him to waste away. As he faded the world suffered, and the gods interceded; Daksha could not take a curse back but could soften it, and so he wanes for a fortnight and waxes for a fortnight for ever. The whole lunar month, and therefore the whole festival calendar of this app, is a punishment being served in instalments.
The quarrel over Tara
He took Tara, the wife of Brihaspati, the guru of the gods, and would not give her back. The gods took one side and the asuras the other and it came to war, until Brahma intervened. Tara returned and bore a son, and when asked whose he was she would not say until pressed, and named Chandra. The child was Budha, Mercury, and the tradition notes without comment that the planet of intelligence and speech was born of the one scandal the gods fought a war over.
Where the regions differ
- Tamil
- Kerala
- Telugu
- Kannada
- North
- Maharashtra
- Bengal
- Punjab
- Assam
- Sri Lanka
- Nepal
- Gujarat
- Odisha
- Mithila
- Kashmir
- Tulu Nadu
- manipur
- rajasthan
- konkani
- sindhi
- jharkhand
- himalayan
- kodava
- Tamil Nadu
- Thingalur is the Chandra sthalam of the navagraha circuit near Kumbakonam, visited for an afflicted moon, and Mondays are kept with white rice offered.
- North India
- Karwa Chauth ends when the moon is sighted through a sieve and the husband gives the first water, and the Sharad Purnima kheer is left out in the moonlight all night.
- Bengal
- Kojagari Lakshmi Puja on the Sharad full moon is kept awake through, and the moonlight is held to have a quality that night it has at no other.
Their days
Every one of these has a page of its own
Where to see them
From the temple directory
- Thingalur Kailasanathar Temple Thingalur, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu
What is said
From the mantra library
In the almanac
Their nakshatras
Their graha