Myth of Rahu

It was when I overheard a conversation of a group, when my whole perspective of mythology changed. The group was a team of IT folks, having a gossip over lunch, about astrology. One of them simply stated as a matter of fact, “Astrology in India is completely fake. Astrologers simply make money by scaring people about planets like rahu and ketu whereas in reality, there are no such planet that exist in the sky.”

By that time I had googled enough about Indian Astrology (or Vedic Astrology) to know that indeed Rahu and Ketu were not planets but shadow planets. Little did that guy know, the vedic astrology was bang on about it. And little do most of the people know that Rahu and Ketu indeed exist!! They are mathematically calculated points in our solar system which are exact 180 degrees apart (Refer image above). They are called North Node-South Node in the west and Ascending-Descending Nodes in science terminology. These points are exactly the reason behind solar and lunar eclipses. Also, the movement of these points in the sky is like that of a giant serpent with Rahu as head and Ketu as tail.

However this was not the realization that turned my world around. What hit me was reinstating that these mathematically calculated points move like a “serpent” in the sky. Which indeed our dear mythology clearly states!!

Statue in Thailand depicting Rahu eating Sun

In Indian Mythology, there was a serpent named Svarbhanu, whom Lord Vishnu had cut into two halves, but he survived due to immortality nectar. The head became Rahu and tail, Ketu. The Rahu has power to engulf Sun and Ketu has to engulf moon.

What’s more..in western mythology, the north and south node of moon are equated to a cosmic dragon. And did you know the word ‘dragon’ literally means a giant serpernt!!

This brought to my mind that many parts of Indian Mythology, or any mythology for that matter, were woven symbolically, to reach only those who are capable to interpret it correctly, to avoid misuse, which may have disastrous consequences.

Do you believe Mythology is significant? Leave in comments..

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