The ancients, to teach young ones astronomy
Wove fables around scientific theory..
So the sun, moon, planets and lunar nodes
Became the nine lesser gods.
(These nodes were the points where the moon’s orbit
Cuts across the ecliptic –
the sun’s path across the sky)
And, as the nodes had no form or shape,
They were personified as the head and tail
Of a sinister snake.
A snake that could swallow the whole
Sun and moon, and even your invisible soul.
The legend of the great snake, Svarbhanu
Was a tale once every student knew:
The sly Svarbhanu once sneaked into the hall
Where the nectar of immortality was being given to all
The virtuous ones.
He sat between the sun and moon, who glowed so bright
That, though he took the nectar, he was hidden from sight.
And, though he was decapitated, he could not die
For he had imbibed immortality.
His head became the North, his tail, the South
Lunar node, but each of his halves had a great mouth.
And the sun and moon, who’d failed to notice him,
Were eaten every so often, eclipsed and grow dim.
With great precision our sages could foretell
When heavenly bodies would fall under the spell
Of Rahul and Ketu, to be eclipsed.
The knowledge of math was lost over the ages
And only the legends now live on as images
In our collective consciousness.
gitabharath 