On Baalgatha Podcast, learn why we witness Solar and Lunar Eclipse. How is this story related to the ancient times?
Listen to the story of Demon Swarbhanu, and how he transformed into Rahu and Ketu. Why is he angry with the sun and the moon and how does it result in the eclipse of the sun and the moon? This tale from Hindu Mythology takes us to the ancient times.
इस कहानी को हिंदी में सुनें
Listen to this story in Kannada
सूर्य आणि चंद्र ग्रहणाची कथा मराठीत ऐका
Listen to this story in Telugu
સૂર્ય અને ચંદ્રગ્રહણની વાર્તા સાંભળો
Read the story of Eclipse
About this episode of Baalgatha Podcast
हम सूर्य और चंद्र ग्रहण क्यों देखते हैं?
जानने के लिए बालगाथा पॉडकास्ट पर इस छोटी कहानी को सुनें
राक्षस स्वरभानु के बारे में भारतीय पौराणिक कथाओं की क्लासिक कहानी, और वह कैसे सूर्य और चंद्र ग्रहण का कारण बनता है। यह एपिसोड मीनू पंडित द्वारा लिखा गया था और अमर व्यास द्वारा संपादित किया गया था। शीराली बीजू द्वारा कथन। व्यास द्वारा ऑडियो संपादन।
Listen to this story in Kannada
Translation in Kannada and narration by Shruthi Prakash, Audio Editing by Prashanth.
सूर्य आणि चंद्र ग्रहणाची कथा मराठीत ऐका
राक्षस स्वरभानूची कथा ऐका आणि त्याचे राहू आणि केतूमध्ये रूपांतर कसे झाले ते ऐका. तो सूर्य आणि चंद्रावर का रागावतो आणि त्याचा परिणाम सूर्य आणि चंद्राच्या ग्रहणात कसा होतो? हिंदू पौराणिक कथांमधील ही कथा आपल्याला प्राचीन काळापर्यंत घेऊन जाते. Translation and Audio editing by gaathastory. Narration by Anaya Thatte.
Listen to this story in Telugu
Translation and narration by Swetha. Audio editing by Prashanth.
સૂર્ય અને ચંદ્રગ્રહણની વાર્તા સાંભળો
રાક્ષસ સ્વરભાનુની વાર્તા સાંભળો, અને તે કેવી રીતે રાહુ અને કેતુમાં પરિવર્તિત થયો. તે સૂર્ય અને ચંદ્ર પર કેમ ક્રોધિત છે અને તે સૂર્ય અને ચંદ્ર ગ્રહણમાં કેવી રીતે પરિણમે છે? હિંદુ પૌરાણિક કથાઓની આ વાર્તા આપણને પ્રાચીન સમયમાં લઈ જાય છે. Gujarati Narration by Sheerali Biju, audio editing by gaathastory.
Read the Story of Eclipse Below
As per science, an Eclipse happens when the new moon comes between the Sun and Earth and blocks the Sun’s rays and casts a shadow on part of Earth. Since moon is smaller in size compared to our Earth, it cannot cover the entire planet and hence casts a shadow in a limited area which is called as Eclipse. This area changes during the course of the eclipse because the Moon and Earth are in constant motion: Earth continuously rotates around its axis while it orbits the Sun, and the Moon orbits Earth. This is why solar eclipses seem to travel from one place to another.
But there is also an interesting legend associated with Eclipse. Let’s listen to it today… When the churning of ocean happened , many things emerged from the ocean and one of them was Amrit or divine nectar. It is said one who drank the Amrit or divine nectar attained immortality i.e. did not die and became invincible i.e. no one could conquer them . There was a huge fight between the Asurs (Danavs) and Gods (Devs) as both wanted to consume Amrit.
The Asurs knew that Devas would not give them Amrit and hence stole the pot of Amrit. Vishnu appeared as a beautiful lady named Mohini and deceived the Asurs to get the Amrit back. Mohini told the Devs and Asurs to sit in separate lines and she would distribute the Amrit equally to everyone. Mohini started with Devs and started giving bigger portions of the Amrit. One Asur name Svarbhanu saw this and understood the trick played by Mohini that Asurs would never get the Amrit as it would be exhausted by the time she reached the asurs. So Svarbhanu sat among the Devas to get his share of Amrit. He sat between Sun God (Surya) and Moon God (Chandra) and was lucky to get few drops of Amrit.
Now Surya and Chandra could sense this trick of Svarbhanu and told Mohini about the same. Swarbhanu was trying to escape but Surya and Chandra shone brightly and he was caught by Mohini. She took her original form (i.e. of Lord Vishnu ) and cut off the head of Svarbhanu. Since, he had consumed lot of amrit, he didn’t lose his life. Brahma then granted a boon to Svarbhanu and gave a new lease of life to him.
His head was attached to a snake’s body, while the snake’s head was fixed to his body. Thus two entities were born – the former one came to be known as Rahu and the latter as Ketu.
Svarbhanu was very angry with Survya and Chandra and it is said Rahu and Ketu swallow Surya and Chandra year after year to avenge the defeat. It is believed that these partial and total but temporary disappearances of the Sun and the Moon result in eclipses. Isn’t this story interesting?
About this Episode of Baalgatha Podcast
This episode was written by Minu Pandit and edited by Amar Vyas. Editing by Vyas. Music: Carefree Cathy. Baalgatha Podcast is produced by gaathastory. You can listen to new episodes of Baalgatha in English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada and Telugu exclusively on Spotify.