Hindu Feasts, Fasts and Ceremonies/Chapter 6
6. The Hindus and the Eclipse
THE Hindus were the first to have correct and scientific ideas about eclipses. Varaha-mihira, the greatest Hindu astronomer, who flourished in the sixth century A.D., has described the phenomena of eclipses in the same way as any astronomer of the twentieth century would do. But with the generality of the Hindus the eclipse is the swallowing of the sun and the moon for a time by a demon called Rahu. Rahu is also one of the nine planets in the astronomy of the Hindus, the ascending node. If any Hindu calendar is consulted tor the figure of an eclipse, Rahu, in the form of a monstrous serpent or dragon, will be seen to erasp the sun. Thus the common Hindu believes the eclipse to be a great calamity that has come over the luminaries. He has to fast for six hours before the commencement of the eclipse, and prepares his food and eats only after the eclipse is over. During the course of the eclipse he has to perform certain ceremonies. As soon as the first contact takes place he bathes and offers prayers to the Manes. After the last phase of the eclipse he bathes again, offers certain prayers and returns home. During the course of the eclipse he stays by the side of a river or on the sea-shore. River-baths and sea-baths are performed on this occasion to propitiate the Manes. Some devout Hindus go on a pilgrimage to Rameswaram or Benares to plunge themselves in the waters of the ocean or the Ganges during the eclipse.
The eclipse must take place on some asterism or other, and if that asterism happens to be that in which any Hindu was born, he has to perform some special ceremonies to absolve himself from impending evil. Every Hindu who was born in the asterism in which the eclipse takes place considers it as foreboding some calamity for him in that year. He makes a plate of gold or silver or of palm-leaf, according to his means, and ties it on his forehead, with Sanskrit verses inscribed over it. He sits with this plate for some time, performs certain ceremonies, bathes with the plate untied and presents it to a Brahman with some fee, ranging from four annas to several thousands of ‘rupees, according to his means. Maharajahs give large donations to Brahmans on this occasion. Nearly 90 per cent. of the copper-plate grants of the Vijayanagar period of the 15th and 16th centuries A. D. are donations of villages and of property to Brahmans by the Hindu kings of Vijayanagar on the occasions of either a solar or a lunar eclipse. Even now in Travancore, Mysore, Baroda and other Native States, the Brahmans are most munificently remunerated on eclipse occasions.
The belief that an eclipse is a calamity to the sun or the moon is such a strong Hindu belief that no marriages take place in the months in which an eclipse falls. Even the most educated Hindu who has taken his degree, with special distinction in astronomy probably, undergoes all the Hindu rites on the occasion. The eclipse time is considered a most auspicious time for mastering the incantations for exorcising the evil effects of serpent bite, or scorpion-sting, and of devils, and many specialists in these directions would be seen standing in water and muttering these incantations.
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