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A word about Buddha Graha

What follows Mangalvaar, a day ruled by Tama guna is Buddhvaar, the day ruled by rajo guna or rajasic energy while following Buddhvaar is Guruvaar, the day ruled by Sattva guna.

While Tama represents dullness and ignorance at one extreme and anger and destruction at the other, Rajo represents passion at one and arrogant superiority at the other extreme. Sattva is purity, it represents Expansion, Understanding, Optimism and Enthusiasm at one end and Extravagance, Indulgence, Bigotry and Fanaticism at the other end.


There is a beautiful story to illustrate how and why mercury was born. And if you understand this story, it has a lot of answers to questions about our existence.


Once upon a celestial time, the Moon had conquered the three worlds and performed the Rajsu yagna, the sacrifice which gives lordship. Many gods and goddesses served him; having achieved this glory he became arrogant. The Moon was the chief disciple of Jupiter, the guru of the celestials, and was also the favorite of Tara, Jupiter's wife, who was attracted to him by his character and beauty.


Once when Jupiter was away Tara and Moon eloped. Jupiter returned home, found his wife gone, soon discovered her whereabouts, and several times sent messages to the Moon requesting his wife's return. The Moon, however, repeatedly refused to comply with these requests, maintaining that Tara had accompanied him of her own accord and would leave only when she was satiated with him. These replies so infuriated Jupiter that he communicated them to his disciple Indra, the chief of gods who sent an ultimatum to the Moon.

When Moon refused to yield again, Indra began a war. Venus and the asuras (demonic celestials) took the side of Moon in this war, because of the ongoing enmity between Jupiter and Venus, while Lord Shiva, took the side of the devas. The war dragged on so long that the Great Rishis began to fear that the end of the world was near. Brahma asked Moon to return Tara. This the Moon did, but he returned her pregnant.

When Jupiter learned of this he was furious, and asked her for abortion. Tara had to did that but the baby which was a boy survived and he was radiant like gold. Seeing the child's splendor both Jupiter and Moon hankered after him, and both claimed paternity, demanding that Tara declare the true father's name. Tara was too embarrassed to speak. Finally, when Brahma questioned her in private she admitted that the Moon was the father of that wonderful child, who was the planet Mercury. Jupiter cursed the child that he would be neither a male nor female and thus Mercury was born as a transgender.


Mercury (or Buddha Graha), the planet which stays closest to the Sun (representing the Paramatma) at all times, represents the intelligence (Buddhi) in us and is the signifactor of our speech and communication. It represents the voice of our individual soul, also known as the Jeevatma (represented by the moon).

Mercural energies manifest when 'the mind' is set on 'the road that leads to the wisdom of the deities'.

Understanding Mercury requires understanding of all those other planets that played a role in its formation. So, I would only continue talking about him later in a new post.

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