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The mantra of Chandra, the Moon

the name mantra and the Navagraha Stotram verse for Chandra, the Moon

What the tradition reads

The Vedic tradition gives Chandra, the Moon, the name mantra Om Chandramase Namaha, a form Wikipedia's own account of the deity records, recited on Monday, the day the tradition assigns to Chandra exactly as the Western system assigns Monday to the Moon. The verse from the Navagraha Stotram attributed to Vyasa, addressed under this graha's other names Soma and Shashin, reads Dadhi shankha tushaarabham ksheerodarnava sambhavam, namami shashinam somam shambhor mukuta bhushanam, rendered plainly as a bow to Shashin, called Soma, who has the pale hue of curd, conch shell and frost, who arose from the ocean of milk, and who is the ornament set upon Shambhu's, that is Shiva's, own crown. The tradition prescribes the mantra for whoever stands in a Moon dasha or antardasha, or whose lagna lord is the Moon, or whose own Moon is weak or afflicted, paired with charity of rice, milk, white cloth or silver given on a Monday, and, where a jyotishi has examined the whole chart, the pearl worn on the little finger in silver, for a trial period, removed if the trial goes badly. The mantra and verse are recited together, one hundred and eight times on a mala, the thumb moving each bead toward the body and never crossing the head bead at the top of the strand.

The story

Chandra's verse names him born of the ocean of milk and set as the ornament of Shiva's crown, an origin the wider mythology places within the churning of that ocean by gods and demons together, an event Wikipedia's own account of the episode lists among its fourteen treasures as a crescent that the god Shiva claimed for his own head. This account sits alongside a second, separate tradition, recorded on Chandra's own Wikipedia page, that names his parents as the sage Atri and his wife Anasuya, a birth by ordinary descent rather than by the churning of an ocean; the honest telling keeps both origins rather than choosing between them, since both are attested in the wider Puranic literature. Chandra's fuller mythology also tells of his marriage to the twenty seven daughters of the sage Daksha, who personify the lunar mansions, and of Daksha's curse upon him for favouring one wife, Rohini, above the rest, a curse that the tradition reads as the origin of the Moon's own waxing and waning. The Navagraha Stotram's verse to this graha is recited today both by those whose own Moon is troubled and in the communal Navagraha shanti rites, a continuing practice Wikipedia's account of the Navagraha system confirms.

Written from

Corpus key mantra:Moon.