A Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology and Religion, Geography, History, and Literature c5.1454

c5.1454

RĀHU. Rāhu and Ketu are in astronomy the ascending and descending nodes. Rāhu is the cause of eclipses, and the term is used to designate the eclipse itself. He is also considered as one of the planets, as king of meteors, and as guardian of the south-west quarter. Mythologically Rāhu is a Daitya who is supposed to seize the sun and moon and swallow them, thus obscuring their rays and causing eclipses. He was son of Viprachitti and Sinhikā, and is called by his metronymic Sainhikeya. He had four arms, and his lower part ended in a tail. He was a great mischief-maker, and when the gods had produced the Amrita by churning the ocean, he assumed a disguise, and insinuating himself amongst them, drank some of it. The sun and moon detected him and informed Vishnu, who cut off his head and two of his arms, but, as he had secured immortality, his body was placed in the stellar sphere, the upper parts, represented by a dragon's head, being the ascending node, and the lower parts, represented by a dragon's tail, being Ketu the descending node. Rāhu wreaks his vengeance on the sun and moon by occasionally swallowing them. The Vishnu Purāna says, "Eight black horses draw the dusky chariot of Rāhu, and once harnessed are attached to it for ever. On the Parvans (nodes, or lunar and solar eclipses) Rāhu directs his course from the sun to the moon, and back again from the moon to the sun. The eight horses of the chariot of Ketu, swift as the wind, are of the dusky red colour of lac, or of the smoke of burning straw." Rāhu is called Abhra-pisācha, 'the demon of the sky;' Bharanī-bhū, 'born from the asterism Bharanī;' Graha, 'the seizer;' Kabandha, 'the headless.'