Navagraha Temple, Guwahati: Nine Planets on Chitrachal Hill

The nine grahas as they appear in the tradition, with the colours and associations that determine how they are dressed and worshipped here.

Surya, the Sun:

• Colour red or copper
• Presiding deity Agni in some enumerations
• The Sun temples at Arasavalli, Konark, Modhera and Katarmal are dedicated to him
• Sunday

Chandra, the Moon:

• Colour white
• Associated with Soma, and with the mind
• Monday, which is also Shiva's day, and Shiva wears the crescent moon

Mangala, Mars:

• Colour red
• Associated with Kartikeya or with the earth, since Bhauma is another name and means born of the earth
• Tuesday, which is Hanuman's and Devi's day

Budha, Mercury:

• Colour green
• Associated with Vishnu
• Wednesday

Brihaspati, Jupiter:

• Colour yellow
• The guru of the devas, the preceptor
• Thursday, the day of the guru, on which Dattatreya and Sai traditions and Guru worship generally fall

Shukra, Venus:

• Colour white
• The guru of the asuras, who held the sanjivani vidya, the knowledge of reviving the dead
• Friday, which is Devi's day

Shani, Saturn:

• Colour black or dark blue
• Son of Surya, and the slowest moving
• Associated with discipline, delay, labour and consequence
• Saturday

Rahu:

• The head of the severed asura
• Colour dark
• A chhaya graha, a shadow entity rather than a body, being the ascending lunar node

Ketu:

• The body of the same severed asura
• The descending lunar node
• Also a shadow entity

The Rahu and Ketu story. It is worth telling because it explains why two of the nine are not objects at all.

• At the samudra manthana, the churning of the ocean, the amrita emerged
• Vishnu took the form of Mohini to distribute it and gave it only to the devas
• One asura, Svarbhanu, disguised himself and sat among the devas and drank
• Surya and Chandra recognised him and told Vishnu
• Vishnu severed his head with the Sudarshana chakra
• But the amrita had already passed his throat, so both parts were immortal
• The head became Rahu, the body Ketu
• They pursue the Sun and Moon in enmity, and when they catch them there is an eclipse

The astronomical reading. Rahu and Ketu are the two points where the Moon's orbit crosses the plane of the ecliptic, the lunar nodes.

Eclipses can only occur when the Sun and Moon are near those points. So the tradition's statement that eclipses happen when Rahu and Ketu catch the Sun and Moon is, in its own terms, an accurate account of the geometry.

That is a genuinely striking piece of observational work encoded as narrative, and it is the reason Indian astronomy could predict eclipses.

A note on Shani. He is the graha people are most anxious about, and the temple tradition around him deserves a word.

Shani is associated with delay, labour, restriction and the working out of consequence. That is often read as misfortune.

The traditional reading within bhakti is different: Shani gives what is earned, without shortcut and without favour, and the discipline he imposes is corrective rather than punitive. Shingnapur and the Shani temples are approached in that spirit, with oil offerings, with service, and with the understanding that what is difficult is not the same as what is unjust.

Which is a considerably healthier frame than fear, and it is the frame the devotional tradition actually holds.

Since the hill's name involves jyotisha, it is worth setting out what jyotisha historically was, which is not what most people now assume.

Jyotisha means the science of light, and in the classical scheme it is one of the six Vedangas, the limbs of the Veda.

What the six Vedangas are:

• Shiksha, phonetics
• Chhanda, metre
• Vyakarana, grammar
• Nirukta, etymology
• Kalpa, ritual procedure
• Jyotisha, the calculation of time

Why jyotisha was needed. This is the key point.

• Vedic ritual had to be performed at correct times, determined by lunar and solar positions
• Determining those times required knowing where the Sun and Moon were and would be
• Which required observation, record keeping and calculation
• Jyotisha existed to answer the question: when should this rite be performed

So the original purpose was calendrical. It was the discipline that produced the panchang.

The panchang is the direct descendant, and it remains the practical output.

• Tithi, the lunar day
• Vara, the weekday
• Nakshatra, the lunar mansion
• Yoga
• Karana

Those five limbs, pancha anga, are what the almanac gives, and they are what determines when Ekadashi falls, when Shivaratri is, when Amavasya arrives for shraddha, and when every festival in the year happens.

Indian astronomy. The observational and mathematical tradition produced substantial results.

• Aryabhata, fifth century, who gave a value for pi accurate to four decimal places, stated that the earth rotates on its axis and produced the apparent motion of the stars, and explained eclipses as shadows rather than as Rahu and Ketu literally
• Varahamihira, sixth century, whose Brihat Samhita is an encyclopaedia
• Brahmagupta, seventh century, who worked on zero and negative numbers and on planetary calculation
• Bhaskara II, twelfth century
• The Kerala school from the fourteenth century, including Madhava of Sangamagrama, which produced infinite series for trigonometric functions centuries before their European derivation

Aryabhata on eclipses deserves emphasis. He wrote, in the fifth century, that a lunar eclipse is the Moon entering the earth's shadow and a solar eclipse is the Moon coming between the earth and the Sun.

That is correct, and it sits in the same tradition that tells the Rahu and Ketu story. The tradition held both: a narrative that encoded the geometry and a mathematical account that described it.

That is not a contradiction. It is what a mature tradition looks like.

Where the predictive strand comes in. Jyotisha also developed a predictive branch, phalita jyotisha, concerned with the effects of planetary positions on human affairs.

That is a real part of the historical tradition and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

And where Vandnaa stands. This app is a devotional companion. It carries the panchang because the panchang is what tells you when to observe a fast, when a festival falls and when the auspicious hours of the day are, and that is a calendrical function.

It does not offer kundli, birth charts, personal predictions or forecasts, and it will not.

The distinction is between knowing when the moon is full, which is a fact and which the tradition needs in order to worship, and being told what your life will do, which is a different activity with different consequences for the people who rely on it.

This temple, with its nine lingas, sits firmly on the first side of that line. It is a place where the grahas are worshipped, not consulted.

Guwahati is built around a set of hills, and most of them carry temples. The Navagraha hill is one of several and the group is worth knowing.

Nilachal:

• The hill on which Kamakhya stands, the great Shakti Peetha of Assam, and the most important temple in the northeast
• With the Ambubachi mela
• Covered in a separate guide

Chitrachal, this hill:

• The Navagraha temple
• Views over the city and the Brahmaputra

Sandhyachal:

• Sukreswar, on the bank of the Brahmaputra, covered separately

Umananda, on Peacock Island:

• A Shiva temple on an island in the middle of the Brahmaputra
• Reached by ferry
• Said to be where Shiva burned Kama with the third eye, hence Uma ananda, the joy of Uma
• Home to a small population of the golden langur, one of India's most endangered primates

Asvakranta:

• On the north bank, covered separately

Basistha:

• An ashrama associated with the sage Vasishtha, at the southern edge of the city
• With three streams meeting
• A pleasant place with waterfalls

Ugratara:

• A Tara temple in the city, one of the Tantric Devi shrines associated with Kamakhya

Doul Govinda, on the north bank:

• A Krishna temple, principal site of the Assamese Doul or Holi celebration

Why so many hills. Guwahati sits in a valley of the Brahmaputra with isolated hills, inselbergs, rising from the plain.

Each became a shrine, which is a general pattern in Indian religion: prominent isolated features attract sanctity.

Guwahati as Pragjyotishpura. The old city has a substantial place in the epics.

• Capital of Narakasura, the asura king slain by Krishna, whose death is commemorated at Naraka Chaturdashi, the day before Diwali
• Then of Bhagadatta, his son, who fought on the Kaurava side at Kurukshetra with an army of elephants and was a formidable warrior
• Bhagadatta's elephant Supratika is named in the Mahabharata
• The kingdom is Kamarupa, and the name persists in the district name and in Kamakhya's name

Naraka Chaturdashi. Since the connection is direct, it is worth noting that the day before Diwali in much of India commemorates Krishna's killing of Narakasura, whose capital was this city.

In the south it is the principal day of Diwali, with the abhyanga snana, the ritual oil bath before dawn.

That is a festival observed across India whose story is located at Guwahati, which most people observing it do not know.

The Brahmaputra. The river defines the city and deserves its own note.

• One of the few major Indian rivers with a masculine name, being the son of Brahma
• Rising in Tibet as the Yarlung Tsangpo, running east, then turning south in a great bend and entering India in Arunachal as the Siang, then becoming the Brahmaputra in Assam
• Among the largest rivers in the world by discharge
• Which floods annually and massively, and Assam's flood season is a serious recurring event
• Home to the Gangetic dolphin, which is India's national aquatic animal and which can be seen from the Guwahati ferries with luck
• Carrying Majuli, one of the largest river islands in the world, upstream, which is the centre of the Sattriya tradition described in the Tezpur entry

Standing on the Navagraha hill you can see the river, and it is worth taking the time to look at it. It is very wide.

What people actually do at a Navagraha temple, described plainly.

The basic visit:

• Darshan of the nine lingas
• Pradakshina, going round
• Offering flowers, water, or a lamp
• Sitting for a while

Graha specific offerings. Each graha has traditional offerings, and the temple's priests will guide anybody who wants to make them.

• Grains, cloths, oils and flowers of the graha's colour
• Lighting a lamp before the corresponding linga
• Til oil for Shani, which is the most commonly performed
• Recitation of the relevant stotra

Navagraha stotra. There is a well known short stotra, one verse per graha, which is recited at these temples and which many people know.

It names each graha with an epithet and offers salutation. Reciting the whole set takes a couple of minutes and it is the standard way of addressing all nine at once.

Shanti observances. The tradition has shanti rites, meaning appeasement or pacification, associated with the grahas.

How to think about these honestly:

• They are a real and ancient part of the tradition
• They are performed at temples and at home
• They involve offerings, recitation, charity and observances
• Their value within the tradition is understood as discipline and surrender, not as transaction

What they are not a substitute for:

• Medical treatment. If somebody is ill, they need a doctor. A shanti rite is not treatment
• Legal advice, if there is a legal problem
• Financial planning, if there is a financial problem
• Mental health care. If somebody is in distress, they need help. Tele MANAS is 14416, free, in many languages

The tradition itself does not claim otherwise. The Ayurveda texts are medical texts, the Dharmashastra contains procedure, and the tradition never held that ritual replaced action. Karma means action, and the whole framework rests on doing the thing.

A caution. There is a substantial commercial industry that sells expensive remedies, stones, rings and rituals to people who are afraid, particularly around Shani and around Rahu and Ketu, and particularly to people in difficulty.

That industry is not the tradition. It exploits the tradition.

Signs that somebody is exploiting you:

• They tell you something terrible will happen unless you pay
• The price rises as you show concern
• They discourage you from getting medical or professional help
• They say the remedy must be secret
• They ask for increasing amounts over time
• They tell you your family members are the cause

A temple priest performing an ordinary observance for an ordinary dakshina is not doing this. Somebody who first makes you frightened and then sells you the cure is.

What worship at a Navagraha temple actually offers. The same thing worship at any temple offers.

A place to stand, a few minutes of quiet, the sense of having done something deliberate, and the frame of mind that comes from acknowledging that a good deal of what happens is not in your control.

That last one is worth something. The nine grahas, in the devotional reading, are a way of saying that time moves, that circumstances change, that difficulty passes and that ease also passes.

Which is true, and which is worth going up a hill to be reminded of.

Getting there

• Navagraha temple, Chitrachal hill, Guwahati, Assam
• Within the city, a short drive from the centre
• Guwahati airport is around 25 kilometres
• Guwahati railway station is in the city
• Autos and taxis go up the hill

Timings

• Generally open from early morning to evening. Check locally

When to go

• Any day. It is an ordinary working temple
• Saturdays are busier, for Shani
• Sankranti days, when the Sun changes sign, particularly Makar Sankranti, which is Magh Bihu in Assam
• Eclipse days draw people, though temples are frequently closed during the eclipse itself and reopen after, so check
• October to March for weather. Guwahati is humid and the monsoon is heavy

A note on eclipses. Since Rahu and Ketu are the eclipse story, the customary observances are worth stating.

• Many temples close during an eclipse and reopen afterward with cleaning and fresh worship
• Traditional practice involves fasting during the eclipse, bathing after, and giving in charity
• Cooked food is customarily not kept through an eclipse
• People traditionally do not eat during the eclipse period

And the safety point: do not look directly at a solar eclipse. Use proper eclipse glasses or a projection method. Permanent retinal damage from looking at the sun during an eclipse is real and it is painless while it happens, which is why people do it.

At the temple

• Footwear is left outside
• Modest dress
• Photography inside may be restricted
• The temple's priests can guide anybody who wants to perform a specific observance

Combining the visit. Guwahati has a full circuit and the Navagraha temple fits into a day.

• Kamakhya, on Nilachal, the principal temple of the northeast
• Umananda, on Peacock Island, by ferry, for the Shiva temple and the golden langurs
• Sukreswar, on the Brahmaputra bank
• Basistha ashrama, at the city's southern edge
• Ugratara
• Assam State Museum
• Srimanta Sankaradeva Kalakshetra, for Assamese culture, which is well done
• Brahmaputra river cruise at sunset
• Deepor Beel, a wetland and bird site at the city's edge

Further afield:

• Hajo, around 30 kilometres, with the Hayagriva Madhava temple, a Buddhist association and the Poa Mecca, which makes it one of the few sites significant to three traditions
• Madan Kamdev, around 40 kilometres, with extensive ruined sculpture, sometimes called the Khajuraho of Assam
• Pobitora wildlife sanctuary, around 50 kilometres, with the highest density of one horned rhinoceros anywhere
• Kaziranga, around 200 kilometres, for the rhinoceros at scale
• Shillong, in Meghalaya, around 100 kilometres

Pobitora deserves a mention. It is small, it is close to Guwahati, and it has the greatest density of Indian one horned rhinoceros of any protected area in the world.

If you are in Guwahati and have half a day, it is very easy to reach and you will see rhinos.

A closing thought. Nine stones under one dome, on a hill, in a city whose old name means the place of eastern light.

The tradition that put them there was doing something specific: keeping track of the sky in order to know when to perform the rites. That work produced the calendar that still tells a hundred and forty crore people when the festivals are.

Stand in the chamber, look at the nine, and you are standing in the record of a very long habit of paying attention to the sky.