The Moon and the Stolen Bride

The sages told the Pandavas of Chandra, the Moon, and of the war that his desire kindled in heaven - a tale that explains both the origin of the very dynasty from which the Pandavas themselves descend, and why the moon waxes and wanes in the sky.

Chandra, the Moon-god, was radiant and beautiful, the lord of the night sky, and he was much given to pride in his own splendor. He had been set as the guardian of the stars and given high honors, and he grew arrogant in his beauty and his station. And it was this pride, joined to desire, that led him into a great wrong - for Chandra cast his eyes upon Tara, the wife of Brihaspati, the venerable preceptor of the gods himself, and conceived a desire for her that he would not master.

Chandra carried Tara away. He took the wife of Brihaspati, the teacher of the gods, into his own dwelling, and made her his own - a grievous outrage, for to steal the wife of one's own preceptor, the most honored of teachers, was among the deepest of wrongs.

Brihaspati, dishonored and grieved, demanded the return of his wife. The gods too, and the elders of heaven, came to Chandra and urged him, again and again, to give Tara back to her rightful husband, telling him that what he had done was a great sin and that he must undo it. But Chandra, in his pride and his desire, refused. He would not give Tara up; he kept her against all the demands of Brihaspati and the counsel of the gods, defying even the order of heaven for the sake of his desire. And so a wrong that might have been mended hardened into a cause of war.

The refusal of Chandra split the heavens into two warring camps, and there arose a great war among the powers of the cosmos over the stolen Tara. On one side stood Brihaspati, the wronged preceptor of the gods, and with him the gods and Indra, demanding the return of his wife. But on the other side, Chandra found an ally in Shukra, the preceptor of the demons - for Shukra was the rival of Brihaspati, and was glad of any cause that set him against his old adversary - and so the host of the asuras rallied to Chandra's side.

Thus the gods and the demons, drawn up behind the two rival preceptors, fell upon each other in a tremendous war, the whole cosmos shaken by the battle, all of it kindled by Chandra's refusal to give up another man's wife. As with the abduction that would later doom Ravana, and the desire that cast Nahusha from heaven, here too a single covetous desire, indulged and defended, set the worlds at war and drew countless others into ruin for one being's lust.

The war threatened to consume the worlds, and at last the creator Brahma himself intervened to end it before all was destroyed. He came between the warring hosts and commanded them to cease, and he gave his judgment: that Chandra had done a grievous wrong in stealing the wife of his preceptor, and that he must restore Tara to her rightful husband Brihaspati at once.

Chandra, faced with the command of the Grandfather of the worlds himself, could defy heaven no longer. He gave Tara up, and she was restored to Brihaspati, and the great war over her was ended, the gods and demons drawing back from a battle that had nearly unmade the cosmos. So the order of heaven was upheld, and the wronged preceptor had his wife again - but the matter was not entirely closed, for Tara returned to Brihaspati carrying within her the consequence of her time with the Moon.

When it became known that Tara was with child, a new dispute arose, for both Brihaspati and Chandra claimed the child as his own - Brihaspati as her husband, and Chandra as the one with whom she had dwelt. The two pressed their claims, and the matter could not be settled, for only Tara knew the truth, and at first, out of shame, she would not speak.

At last, pressed by all - and, it is said, rebuked even by the unborn child within her, who demanded to know his own father - Tara spoke the truth: that the child was Chandra's, the son of the Moon. And in time she bore the child, a son of surpassing radiance and beauty and wisdom. The child was given to Chandra, his true father, and was named Budha. He grew to be wise and gentle and learned, a being of great intelligence - and from him would come a line of kings that would shape the whole history of the world.

From Budha, the son of the Moon, descended one of the two great royal lines of the world: the Chandravamsha, the Lunar Dynasty. For Budha wedded Ila, and from them came Pururavas - the king who loved the nymph Urvashi - and from Pururavas the line ran on through the ages, through Nahusha and Yayati and Puru and Bharata, down through Kuru, for whom the field of Kurukshetra is named, and at last to Shantanu and the house of the Pandavas and the Kauravas themselves.

So the Pandavas, listening to this tale, heard the very origin of their own ancestry: that their line, the Lunar Dynasty, sprang from Budha, the radiant son born of the Moon and the stolen Tara. The whole great drama of the Mahabharata, the war of the cousins, the deeds of the Pandavas - all of it descended, generation by generation, from this child of the Moon. It was a sobering thing to learn that their own noble line had its root in an act of wrongful desire and a war it kindled in heaven - a reminder that the greatest houses spring from mixed and human beginnings, and that what matters is not the purity of one's origin but the righteousness of one's life.

There is another tale told of Chandra's pride, the sages added, which explains the very changing of the moon in the sky. For Chandra had been given in marriage the twenty-seven daughters of Daksha - the twenty-seven lunar mansions, the constellations through which the moon passes. But Chandra, in his partiality, loved only one of them, Rohini, and lavished all his attention upon her, while he neglected the other twenty-six entirely.

The slighted sisters complained to their father Daksha, who came to Chandra and warned him to treat all his wives equally; but Chandra, proud and besotted, would not change. So Daksha, angered at the neglect of his daughters, laid a curse upon the Moon: that he should waste away and lose his light. And at once Chandra began to wane, his brightness diminishing, dwindling toward nothing. Stricken, the Moon repented and appealed for mercy, and the gods interceded for him. Daksha could not wholly revoke his curse, but he softened it: Chandra would wane and lose his light for half of each month - but then he would wax and recover his fullness again for the other half, and so on forever. And that, the sages said, is why the moon is not always full, but waxes and wanes through the fortnights: it is the curse of Daksha, softened to mercy, written in the changing face of the Moon.

The sages drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas.

"See, son of Pandu, how often a single covetous desire, indulged and defended, kindles a great and needless ruin. Chandra coveted another man's wife - and not just any man's, but his own preceptor's - and his refusal to give her up set the very gods and demons at war and shook the cosmos. As Ravana fell for seizing Sita, as Nahusha was cast down for desiring the queen of heaven, so Chandra's desire brought war and disgrace. The coveting of what is another's, and the pride that will not yield even when shown its wrong, are among the surest roads to ruin, and they drag many others down along the way.

"And see, in the changing moon, the curse of partiality and pride: Chandra neglected all but his favorite and was made to wane for it, and his waxing and waning are the visible mark of that fault, softened by mercy. Let the changing moon remind you to be just and even-handed toward all who depend upon you, and not to lavish all on a favorite while neglecting the rest, lest you wane as the Moon wanes.

"Yet take comfort, too, in the deeper turn of the tale: that even from these flawed beginnings - a wrongful desire, a war in heaven - there sprang your own noble line, the Lunar Dynasty, through the wise and radiant Budha. The greatest houses rise from mixed and human roots. What honors a line is not the spotlessness of its origin, but the righteousness of those who carry it on. Carry yours, then, in righteousness."

And the Pandavas, hearing the strange origin of their own ancestry written in the face of the Moon, took the lesson thoughtfully to heart.