16th July 2019, casted as shadow of darkness -partial Lunar eclipse… India witnessed Lunar eclipse between hours of 12:15am (18:40GMT) – 5:30am (00:17GMT) with the peak eclipse at 3am (21:30GMT). This lunar eclipse was visible to South America, Africa, Parts of Asia, Australia and parts of Europe. While a set of countries viewed this on 16th July, the rest viewed the same on 17th July, ( due to the standard time zone changes.)
When the whole science world view the eclipse as a wonder phenomenon, Lunar eclipse has it’s own branches of stories/facts (yet unknown) in history and different mythologies.
A few mentions among the different belief groups being, “lunar eclipse shouldn’t be viewed directly with your naked eyes” , “Pregnant Women And Infants should stay indoor during a lunar eclipse and not even place a sight over the moon during the same”.
Even interesting fact is that Eclipses has their own stories in the Hindu puranas. The first mention being “Lord Krishna using his intellect/knowledge to predict the exact timing of the eclipse to save warrior/Lord Arjun’s life”. What makes these mentions interesting is the fact that these mentions are from the holy ancient books which were written long before the eclipse were actually explained and named.
An eclipse is an inauspicious event for the Hindutva followers.
“Why so??”.. .. This question takes us to a historical reference or story of an ancient period. The Koorma avatar of Lord Vishnu, for churning out the Holy water (amrith) from the palazhi ocean ( a mythological reference) . At the time, when gods won over the demons and owned the Amrith ( holy water which gives immortality, yet another mythological reference), a demon disguised himself as God and took a share of the amrith. This was soon found by the surya (sun) and Chandra ( moon) and was brought to the notice of Lord Maha Vishnu. Lord Vishnu,, in anger used his chakra to slice the demon into two. The top half and bottom half lived separately thereafter due to their immortality boon ( or curse it became) and are known Rahu and Kethu. Thus began the enemity of Rahu, Kethu towards Surya and Chandra. Rahu and Kethu pledged to swallow ( cast their darkness upon) Surya and Chandra, once they are close to each other. ( Rahu, kethu, sun, moon are all part of nine planets according to naming by hindu mythology/zodiac). Thus, lunar eclipse is believed to be the shadow of darkness cast upon the Moon in Hindu mythology. And hence making it an inauspicious event.
Out from the stories and back to the facts, the last total lunar eclipse took place on 21st Jan 2019 and next total moon lunar eclipse will be taking place on 26th May 2021.
Editorial Team
