The eclipse demon, Râhu, whose name means "the looser" or "the seizer," was one of the Asuras or demons
- Date of account
- Second edition published 1896
- Source
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2)
- Reference
- The Popular Religion and Folk-Lore of Northern India, Vol. 1 (of 2) · selected passage 3
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
The eclipse demon, Râhu, whose name means "the looser" or "the seizer," was one of the Asuras or demons
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyThe eclipse demon, Râhu, whose name means "the looser" or "the seizer," was one of the Asuras or demons. When the gods produced the Amrita, or nectar, from the churned ocean, he disguised himself like one of them and drank a portion of it. The sun and moon detected his fraud and informed Vishnu, who severed the head and two of the arms of Râhu from the trunk. The portion of nectar which he had drunk secured his immortality; the head and tail were transferred to the solar sphere, the head wreaking its vengeance on the sun and moon by occasionally swallowing them, while the tail, under the name of Ketu, gave birth to a numerous progeny of comets and fiery meteors.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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