Marsden’s work.
“Rahu, a daitya or demon who is supposed to seize the sun and moon, and thus cause eclipses
(according to the common myth he was a son of Vipra-ʿcitti and Sinhikā, and had four arms,
his lower part ending in a tail), he was the instigator of all mischief among the daityas, and
when the gods had produced the amrita or nectar from the churned ocean, he disguised himself
like one of them and drank a portion of it, but the sun and moon having detected his fraud and
informed Vishnu, the latter severed his head and two of his arms from the rest of his body; the
portion of nectar he had swallowed having secured his immortality, the head and tail were
transferred to the stellar sphere, the head wreaking its vengeance on the sun and moon by
occasionally swallowing them for a time, while the tail, under the name of Ketu, gave birth to a
numerous progeny of comets and fiery meteors.”—Monier Williams, Skt. Dict. s.v. Rahu. ↑
19
Gĕrhâna is from a Sanskr. word meaning “eclipse.” The name of the monster is Rahu. ↑
20
Clifford, Stud. in Brown Humanity, p. 50. For ceremonies to be observed during an eclipse,
more especially by women in travail, vide Birth Ceremonies (infra). ↑
21
“They (the Malays) observe in the moon an old man sitting under a bĕringin tree (the Banyan,
Ficus Indica).”—Maxwell, in J.R.A.S., S.B., No. 7, p. 27, In Sanskrit mythology the spots on
the moon are supposed to be caused by a hare or antelope, which being hard pressed by a
hunter appealed to the moon for protection, and was taken up by the moon into her arms. This
is no doubt the real explanation of the Malay phrase, “Bulan bunting pĕlandok” (“the moon is
great with the mouse-deer”), an expression often used when the moon is three-quarters full. ↑
22
“They tell of a man in the moon, who is continually employed in spinning cotton, but that
every night a rat gnaws his thread, and obliges him to begin his work afresh.”—Marsd., Hist. of
Sum. p. 187. ↑
23
It is, however, also possible that there may be two “bujangs,” and that we have here a simple
case of what philologists call “confluence,” so that the derivation, though quite possible, must
not be accepted without reserve. ↑
24
Sanskrit tapasya. ↑
25
Maxwell, in J.R.A.S., S.B., No. 7, p. 28. ↑