Vedic Index of Names and Subjects v1.c3.s12.476

v1.c3.s12.476

Graha (‘seizing’) is a term applied to the sun in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa,¹ most probably not in the later sense of ‘planet,’ but to denote a power exercising magical influence.² The sense of ‘planet’ seems first to occur in the later literature, as in the Maitrāyaṇī Upaniṣad.³ The question whether the planets were known to the Vedic Indians is involved in obscurity. Oldenberg⁴ recognizes them in the Ādityas, whose number is, he believes, seven: sun, moon, and the five planets. But this view, though it cannot be said to be impossible or even unlikely, is not susceptible of proof, and has been rejected by Hillebrandt,⁵ Pischel,⁶ von Schroeder,⁷ Macdonell,⁸ and Bloomfield,⁹ among others. Hillebrandt¹⁰ sees the planets in the five Adhvaryus mentioned in the Rigveda,¹¹ but this is a mere conjecture. The five bulls (ukṣāṇaḥ) in another passage of the Rigveda¹² have received a similar interpretation with equal uncertainty,¹³ and Durga, in his commentary on the Nirukta,¹⁴ even explains the term bhūmija, ‘earth-born,’ which is only mentioned by Yāska, as meaning the planet Mars.¹⁵ Thibaut,¹⁶ who is generally sceptical as to the mention of planets in the Veda, thinks that Bṛhaspati there refers to Jupiter; but this is extremely improbable, though in the Taittirīya Saṃhitā¹⁷ Bṛhaspati is made the regent of Tiṣya. A reference to the planets is much more probable in the seven suns (sapta sūryāḥ) of the late Taittirīya Āraṇyaka.¹⁸ On the other hand, Ludwig’s efforts to find the five planets with the sun, the moon, and the twenty-seven Nakṣatras (lunar mansions) in the Rigveda, as corresponding to the number thirty-four used in connexion with light¹⁹ (jyotis) and the ribs of the sacrificial horse,²⁰ is far-fetched. See also Śukra, Manthin, Vena.