Shanaishwarya / Shani

Since I brought up the subject of Shani Deva in my last blog, I thought of taking it a little further by narrating an amusing story of how Shani deva was born. The Sun God was very hot and his wife Aditi was angry with him because she used to get burnt every time she came close to hug him. So getting angry and annoyed with all the heat, she decided that she would take a break and go away to meet her father, the architect of the universe. But the Sun God wouldn't let her go. So Aditi made a replica of herself, "Chaya" and left. The Sun God, being a male, didn't find the difference until he had a son from Chaya. This son unlike all other sons, was "manda" or dark and did not possess the brilliance of the Sun. This was Shani Deva.

Later the Sun God went to his wife Aditi who asked him to let go off some of his heat. so he parted with some of his heat and brilliance and out of parted brilliance, he created the Sudarshana Chakra, Lord Vishnu's weapon, the discuss and Trishul, Lord Shiva's Trident.

What remained is the Sun that we see today.

Shani is depicted as dark, clothed in black, holding a sword an arrow and two daggers and riding a raven. He is depicted as ugly, old, lame and with long hair, teeth and nails. This is perhaps the cause of all the fear for Shani. It is said that nobody can escape Shani.

Once Shani went to Lord Shiva and told him that his Sade Sati begins the next day. To avoid Shani, Lord Shiva dived into the Ganga river and meditated for seven and a half years. At the end of it he came out and mocked Shani saying he couldn't affect Lord Shiva and said that he was under Ganga meditating. Shani smiled and said "Exactly my point" and left.

Lord Hanuman on the other hand handled Shani in a very different way. He asked Shani to meet him in the market place on Saturday and start of his tenure of 7 and a half years. Then he went to the market place on Friday and told the people that he is organizing a Puja on Saturday and that all the people in the market place can come and break coconuts on his head. On Saturday Shani came and sat on Hanuman's head to start off his tenure and the people broke all their coconuts on Shani's Head. Shani had no choice but to flee.

The moral here is that Shani cannot be escaped. He has to be welcomed and he can cause you no harm if you dedicate yourself to selfless service to others. It is the people's blessings (coconuts in Hanuman's case) that will Keep shani from harming you.

Shani affected Rama and caused him to go for a vanvasa and affected Ravana to make him foolish enough to kidnap Sita. He even affected Krishna when people accused him of stealing the Semantaka Gem. But that story in some other post...