The mantra of Shukra, Venus

the Navagraha Stotram verse for Shukra, Venus, recited as mantra

What the tradition reads

The Vedic tradition addresses Shukra, Venus, through the Navagraha Stotram's own verse to him rather than through a separate short mantra, reciting it on Friday, the day the tradition assigns to Venus exactly as the Western system does. The fuller verse from the Navagraha Stotram attributed to Vyasa reads Hima kunda mrinalabham daityanam paramam gurum, sarva shastra pravaktaram bhargavam pranamamyaham, rendered in plain language as a bow to Bhargava, white as snow, the jasmine flower and the lotus stem, supreme teacher of the daityas, and expounder of all the scriptures, a description that names Venus not primarily as a planet of romance in this tradition's own oldest layer but as a teacher of considerable learning, Bhargava being a name that marks Shukra as descended from the sage Bhrigu. The tradition prescribes the mantra for whoever stands in a Venus dasha or antardasha, or whose lagna lord is Venus, paired with charity of white things, rice, sugar, milk or white cloth given on a Friday, and, where a jyotishi has examined the whole chart, the diamond or white sapphire worn on the middle or ring finger in silver, for a trial period, removed if the trial goes badly. The mantra itself is recited one hundred and eight times on a mala, the thumb drawing each bead toward the body and never crossing the head bead at the top of the strand.

The story

Shukra's title in the Navagraha verse, Bhargava, marks him as the descendant of Bhrigu, one of the great sages of Vedic tradition, and the wider mythology gives Shukra the unusual role of guru to the daityas, the race the tradition often casts as adversaries of the gods, a teacher, in other words, appointed to the other side, which several traditional commentaries read as the reason Shukra's own wisdom is treated as complete rather than partisan: a teacher of all scripture, the verse says, not merely of one faction's cause. One of the better known stories attached to Shukra tells of his learning the secret of reviving the dead from Shiva, and of a trick played on him by Kacha, sent by the gods to learn the same secret from inside Shukra's own household, a tale the tradition uses to explain both Shukra's guarded relationship to his own knowledge and the eventual spread of that knowledge beyond the daityas regardless. The Navagraha Stotram itself, attributed to Vyasa, is recited both by individuals with a difficult Venus in their own chart and in the communal Navagraha shanti rites performed at temples dedicated to all nine grahas, a practice Wikipedia's account of the Navagraha system describes as ongoing. The verse here follows the text at sanskritdocuments.org.

Written from

Corpus key mantra:Venus.