Note 18 — Chapter I · Nature
Reading edition
“During an eclipse they (the Malays) make a loud noise with sounding instruments to prevent one luminary from devouring the other, as the Chinese, to frighten away the dragon.”—Marsden, Hist. of Sum. p. 157. I have not yet met with the explanation given in this passage of 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. ↑