Chandra Dev and His 27 Wives -- Why the Moon Waxes and Wanes

Look at the night sky tonight. If the moon is a thin crescent, growing fatter each night, you are watching Shukla Paksha -- the bright fortnight. If it is shrinking, you are watching Krishna Paksha -- the dark fortnight. By Amavasya (new moon), the moon disappears entirely. By Purnima (full moon), it is whole again. This cycle repeats every 29.5 days, has done so for billions of years, and is the foundation of the Hindu lunar calendar, the timing of every fast, festival, and muhurta.

Modern astronomy explains the lunar phases as the changing angle between the Sun, Earth, and Moon. Hindu mythology explains them with a marriage gone wrong, a father's curse, and a partial reprieve from Shiva.

Chandra -- also called Soma -- is the Moon god. He is described in the Puranas as devastatingly handsome, fair-skinned, adorned with lotuses, riding a chariot drawn by ten white horses (or an antelope in some traditions). He is the son of the sage Atri and his wife Anasuya, born from Atri's eyes during intense tapasya. In some traditions, Chandra emerged from the Samudra Manthan and was claimed by Shiva, who placed him on his head -- which is why Shiva is called Chandrashekhar (the one who wears the Moon).

Daksha, the Prajapati, had 27 daughters who personified the 27 Nakshatras -- the lunar mansions through which the Moon travels during its monthly orbit. Their names are the nakshatra names themselves: Ashvini, Bharani, Krittika, Rohini, Mrigashira, Ardra, Punarvasu, Pushya, Ashlesha, Magha, Purva Phalguni, Uttara Phalguni, Hasta, Chitra, Svati, Vishakha, Anuradha, Jyeshtha, Mula, Purva Ashadha, Uttara Ashadha, Shravana, Dhanishtha, Shatabhisha, Purva Bhadrapada, Uttara Bhadrapada, and Revati.

Daksha married all 27 to Chandra. The deal was simple and explicit: Chandra must spend equal time with each wife -- one night per nakshatra, completing the cycle every 27 days. This was not a romantic arrangement. It was an astronomical contract. The Moon's passage through each nakshatra was to be honoured by equal attention to each wife.

Chandra agreed. And then promptly broke every promise.

Chandra fell completely and hopelessly in love with Rohini -- the fourth nakshatra, associated with beauty, fertility, and the colour red. She is the brightest star in the constellation Taurus (Aldebaran, Alpha Tauri). In mythological terms, she was the most beautiful of the 27 sisters.

Chandra began spending all his time with Rohini and neglecting the other 26 wives. They waited for their nights. He did not come. He did not send word. He simply stayed with Rohini -- mesmerised, intoxicated, oblivious to his contractual obligations.

The 26 neglected wives went to their father Daksha and complained. Daksha summoned Chandra and warned him: honour the agreement, spend time with all wives equally, or face consequences. Chandra promised to reform. He went back to Rohini.

Daksha warned him again. Chandra promised again. He went back to Rohini again. Some versions say this cycle of warning and relapse happened three times. Others say seven. The number does not matter. The pattern does: Chandra could not -- or would not -- control his obsession.

Finally, Daksha cursed him. The curse was devastating: Chandra would be afflicted with Kshaya Roga -- a wasting disease (consumption/tuberculosis in the Puranic metaphor). He would lose his lustre, shrink day by day, and eventually disappear. No son would be born to continue his lineage.

The curse took immediate effect. Chandra began to fade. His light dimmed. His body shrank. The cosmos was thrown into darkness -- because without moonlight, the herbs that fed on lunar energy began to die, the tides failed, and the rhythms of the natural world collapsed.

The Devas, alarmed, intervened. They appealed to Daksha to modify the curse. Daksha, a Prajapati who understood cosmic balance, agreed to a compromise: the curse could not be removed, but it could be made cyclical. Chandra would wane for fifteen days (Krishna Paksha, the dark fortnight) -- reaching his lowest point at Amavasya (new moon). Then he would wax for fifteen days (Shukla Paksha, the bright fortnight) -- returning to full strength at Purnima (full moon). The cycle would repeat forever.

To heal from the worst of the curse, Chandra was told to worship Shiva. He established a Shiva Linga at Somnath in present-day Gujarat -- 'Soma' (Moon) + 'Nath' (Lord) = the Lord of the Moon. The first of the twelve Jyotirlingas, Somnath is, by this tradition, the place where the Moon went to pray for his life. Shiva placed Chandra on his own head -- absorbing the curse into himself, sharing the Moon's burden. This is why Shiva wears the crescent moon in his matted hair.

The Tara Scandal

Chandra's troubles did not end with Daksha's curse. He later abducted Tara -- the wife of Brihaspati (Jupiter), the guru of the Devas. The affair produced a son: Budha (the planet Mercury). This scandal divided the cosmos: the Devas sided with Brihaspati, the Asuras with Chandra (because chaos benefited them), and Brahma eventually intervened to return Tara to her husband. Budha, despite his scandalous parentage, went on to marry Ila (the gender-fluid child of Manu) and founded the Chandravanshi (Lunar) dynasty -- the lineage that would produce the Pandavas and Kauravas of the Mahabharata.

So the next time you look at a crescent moon and feel a pang of melancholy, you are looking at a god who loved too much, too unevenly, and paid for it with his own body. The moon's waning is not an astronomical event in the Hindu imagination. It is a love story that went wrong, a father's anger, and a cosmic compromise that turned a curse into the calendar.