The Vishnu Purana: Book II: Chapter XII | Internet Sacred Text Archive

CHAP. XII.

Description of the moon: his chariot, horses, and course: fed by the sun: drained periodically of ambrosia by the progenitors and gods. The chariots and horses of the planets: kept in their orbits by aerial chains attached to Dhruva. Typical members of the planetary porpoise. Vásudeva alone real.

PARÁŚARA.--The chariot of the moon has three wheels, and is drawn by ten horses, of the whiteness of the Jasmine, five on the right half (of the yoke), five on the left. It moves along the asterisms, divided into ranges, as before described; and, in like manner as the sun, is upheld by Dhruva; the cords that fasten it being tightened or relaxed in the same way, as it proceeds on its course. The horses of the moon, sprung from the bosom of the waters 1, drag the car for a whole Kalpa, as do the coursers of the sun. The radiant sun supplies the moon, when reduced by the draughts of the gods to a single Kalá, with a single ray; and in the same proportion as the ruler of the night was exhausted by the celestials, it is replenished by the sun, the plunderer of the waters: for the gods, Maitreya, drink the nectar and ambrosia accumulated in the moon during half the month, and from this being their food they are immortal. Thirty-six thousand three hundred and thirty-three divinities drink the lunar ambrosia. When two digits remain, the moon enters the orbit of the sun, and abides in the ray called Amá; whence the period is termed Amávásya. In that orbit the moon is immersed for a day and night in the water; thence it enters the branches and shoots of the trees; and thence goes to the sun. Consequently any one who cuts off a branch, or casts down a leaf, when the moon is in the trees (the day of its rising invisible), is guilty of Brahmanicide. When the remaining portion of the moon consists of but a fifteenth part, the progenitors approach it in the afternoon, and drink the last portion, that sacred Kali which is composed of ambrosia, and contained in the two digits of

the form of the moon 2. Having drank the nectar effused by the lunar rays on the day of conjunction, the progenitors are satisfied, and remain tranquil for the ensuing month. These progenitors (or Pitris) are of three classes, termed Saumyas, Varhishadas, and Agnishwáttas 3. In this manner the moon, with its cooling rays, nourishes the gods in the light fortnight, the Pitris in the dark fortnight; vegetables, with the cool nectary aqueous atoms it sheds upon them; and through their developement it sustains men, animals, and insects; at the same time gratifying them by its radiance.