Budha

Not to be confused with Buddha.
Budha
Mercury

Iconography of Budha
Devanagari बुध
Affiliation Graha
Planet Mercury
Consort Ila[1]
Mount Lion or chariot hauled by eight horses of deep yellow colour

Budha (Sanskrit: बुध) is a Sanskrit word that connotes the planet Mercury.[1] Budha, in Puranic mythology, is also a deity.[2]

He is also known as Saumya (Sanskrit: सौम्य, lit. son of Moon), Rauhineya and Tunga.[2]

Planet

Budha as a planet appears in various Hindu astronomical texts in Sanskrit, such as the 5th century Aryabhatiya by Aryabhatta, the 6th century Romaka by Latadeva and Panca Siddhantika by Varahamihira, the 7th century Khandakhadyaka by Brahmagupta and the 8th century Sisyadhivrddida by Lalla.[3][4] These texts present Budha as one of the planets and estimate the characteristics of the respective planetary motion.[3] Other texts such as Surya Siddhanta dated to have been complete sometime between the 5th century and 10th century present their chapters on various planets with deity mythologies.[3]

The manuscripts of these texts exist in slightly different versions, present Budha's motion in the skies, but vary in their data, suggesting that the text were open and revised over their lives. The texts slightly disagree in their data, in their measurements of Budha's revolutions, apogee, epicycles, nodal longitudes, orbital inclination, and other parameters.[5] For example, both Khandakhadyaka and Surya Siddhanta of Varaha state that Budha completes 17,937,000 revolutions on its own axis every 4,320,000 years, and had an apogee (aphelia) of 220 degrees in 499 CE; while another manuscript of Surya Siddhanta increases the revolutions by 60 to 17,937,060, and the apogee to 220 degrees and 26 seconds.[6]

The 1st millennium CE Hindu scholars had estimated the time it took for sideral revolutions of each planet including Budha, from their astronomical studies, with slightly different results:[7]

Sanskrit texts: How many days for Budha (Mercury) to complete its orbit?
Source Estimated time per sidereal revolution[7]
Surya Siddhanta 87 days, 23 hours, 16 minutes, 22.3 seconds
Siddhanta Shiromani 87 days, 23 hours, 16 minutes, 41.5 seconds
Ptolemy 87 days, 23 hours, 16 minutes, 42.9 seconds
20th century calculations 87 days, 23 hours, 15 minutes, 43.9 seconds

Mythology

Budha appears as a deity in Indian texts, often as the son of Soma (moon god, Chandra) and Tara (wife of Brihaspati, Jupiter god). The mythology of Budha as a deity is not consistent in Hindu Puranas, and he alternatively is described as the son of goddess Rohini and god Soma.[2]

One of the earliest mentions of Budha as a celestial body appears in the Vedic text Pancavimsa Brahmana, and it appears in other ancient texts such as the Shatapatha Brahmana as well, but not in the context of astrology. In the ancient texts, Budha is linked to three steps of the Hindu god Vishnu (a minor Vedic deity, who becomes a major deity in later Hinduism).[2]

Calendar and Hindu astrology

Budha is the root of the word 'Budhavara' or Wednesday in the Hindu calendar.[1] The word "Wednesday" in the Greco-Roman and other Indo-European calendars is also dedicated to planet Mercury ("day of Woden or Oden"). Budha is part of the Navagraha in Hindu zodiac system, considered benevolent, associated with an agile mind and memory. The zodiac and naming system of Hindu astrology, with Budha as Mercury, likely developed in the centuries after the arrival of Greek astrology with Alexander the Great,[8][9][10] their zodiac signs being nearly identical.[11][12]

Budha is also the root for name for the week day in many other Indian languages. In modern Hindi, Oriya, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Urdu, Kannada and Gujarati, Wednesday is called Budhavara; Tamil: Budhan kizhamai; Malayalam: Budhanazhcha; Thai: Wan Phut (วันพุธ).

Iconography

Budha's iconography, according to Roshen Dalal, is as a benevolent[13] but a minor male deity with light yellow colored body (or green), draped into yellow clothes, with a chariot made of air and fire, drawn by eight wind horses. He is also represented holding a scimitar, a club and a shield, riding a winged lion in Bhudhan Temple. In other illustrations, he rides a lion and has four arms.[1]

Budha is not etymologically, mythologically or otherwise related to Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, though some careless textual claims to this link have occasionally appeared, according to Patrick Gray.[14]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Roshen Dalal (2010). Hinduism: An Alphabetical Guide. Penguin Books India. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-14-341421-6.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Terry Mahoney (2013). Mercury. Springer Science. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-4614-7951-2.
  3. 1 2 3 Ebenezer Burgess (1989). P Ganguly, P Sengupta, ed. Sûrya-Siddhânta: A Text-book of Hindu Astronomy. Motilal Banarsidass (Reprint), Original: Yale University Press, American Oriental Society. pp. vii–xi. ISBN 978-81-208-0612-2.
  4. ↑ Bina Chatterjee (1970). The Khandakhadyaka (an astronomical treatise) of Brahmagupta: with the commentary of Bhattotpala (in Sanskrit). Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 59–64. OCLC 463213346.
  5. ↑ Ebenezer Burgess (1989). P Ganguly, P Sengupta, ed. Sûrya-Siddhânta: A Text-book of Hindu Astronomy. Motilal Banarsidass (Reprint), Original: Yale University Press, American Oriental Society. pp. ix–xi. ISBN 978-81-208-0612-2.
  6. ↑ Ebenezer Burgess (1989). P Ganguly, P Sengupta, ed. Sûrya-Siddhânta: A Text-book of Hindu Astronomy. Motilal Banarsidass (Reprint), Original: Yale University Press, American Oriental Society. pp. ix–x. ISBN 978-81-208-0612-2.
  7. 1 2 Ebenezer Burgess (1989). P Ganguly, P Sengupta, ed. Sûrya-Siddhânta: A Text-book of Hindu Astronomy. Motilal Banarsidass (Reprint), Original: Yale University Press, American Oriental Society. pp. 26–27. ISBN 978-81-208-0612-2.
  8. ↑ Yukio Ohashi 1999, pp. 719–721.
  9. ↑ Pingree 1973, pp. 2–3.
  10. ↑ Erik Gregersen (2011). The Britannica Guide to the History of Mathematics. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 187. ISBN 978-1-61530-127-0.
  11. ↑ James Lochtefeld (2002), "Jyotisha" in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. 1: A–M, Rosen Publishing, ISBN 0-8239-2287-1, pages 326–327
  12. ↑ Nicholas Campion (2012). Astrology and Cosmology in the World’s Religions. New York University Press. pp. 110–111. ISBN 978-0-8147-0842-2.
  13. ↑ James G. Lochtefeld (2002). The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Hinduism: A-M. The Rosen Publishing Group. p. 324. ISBN 978-0-8239-3179-8.
  14. ↑ Patrick Gray (2015). Varieties of Religious Invention: Founders and Their Functions in History. Oxford University Press. pp. 46 footnote 19. ISBN 978-0-19-935972-1.
Sources

External links

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