Bhoo Varaha Mantra
ॐ भूवराहाय नमःIn Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English — with the meaning of every word, and the one syllable most people pronounce wrongly.
Who Bhoo Varaha is
Bhoo Varaha is Vishnu’s boar incarnation, the form in which the earth herself, personified as Bhudevi, was raised from the dark waters of dissolution. Distinct from every other descent, he is defined by the single act of bearing the planet upon his curved tusk and by the permanent intimacy of the goddess who clings to him. The Vishnu Purana and the Varaha Purana present him not merely as a combatant against a demon but as the cosmic pillar that re-establishes continents, mountains and oceans in their proper stations. In temple sculpture his snout is lifted, one foot planted on the residual serpent, Bhudevi seated in the crook of his arm or balanced on the tusk. The svayambhu shrine at Srimushnam and the great relief at Mamallapuram preserve this iconography without admixture of other forms. He remains the deity whose body is the support of the soil itself.
Raising the Submerged Earth
According to the Bhagavata Purana, Canto Three, the earth lay submerged in the single ocean that covered the worlds at the close of a kalpa. The gods appealed to Vishnu, who assumed the form of a gigantic boar, Bhoo Varaha. Diving into the waters he located Bhudevi, lifted her upon his white tusk, and rose through the flood. Hiranyaksha challenged him; the battle that followed shook the nether regions until the boar struck the demon with his hand at the root of the ear, and the demon died. The same episode appears in the Vishnu Purana and is elaborated in the Varaha Purana, where the boar further instructs the earth goddess in the sacred knowledge of creation after she has been set once more between heaven and the underworld. Varaha then remains as her eternal support, the weight of mountains resting upon him. This is the myth that distinguishes Bhoo Varaha from every other descent of Vishnu: the rescue is not of a person or a city but of the ground itself.
The mantra, in six scripts
The name mantra, and the form most devotees chant daily. No initiation is required — it is open to anyone, including a parent chanting for a child.
- ॐ
- oṃ — the sacred syllable
- भूवराहाय
- bhūvarāhāya — to the Earth-Boar
- नमः
- namaḥ — salutation
More Bhoo Varaha mantras
Varaha Verse of Jayadeva's Dashavatara Stotra
The verse of salutation, recited before or after japa.
- वसति
- vasati — dwells, rests
- दशनशिखरे
- daśanaśikhare — on the tip of the tusk
- धरणी
- dharaṇī — the Earth
- तव
- tava — your
- लग्ना
- lagnā — clinging, fixed
- शशिनि
- śaśini — in the moon
- कलङ्ककलेव
- kalaṅkakaleva — like the mark (kalaṅka-kalā + iva)
- निमग्ना
- nimagnā — sunk, set within
- केशव
- keśava — O Keshava
- धृतसूकररूप
- dhṛtasūkararūpa — O one who has taken the form of a boar
- जय
- jaya — victory
- जगदीश
- jagadīśa — O lord of the world
- हरे
- hare — O Hari
Source: Jayadeva, Gita Govinda 1.1 (Dashavatara Stotra 'pralaya-payodhi-jale'), verse 3.
The syllable people get wrong
In bhūvarāhāya the long ū of the opening bhū is the syllable that slips. Speakers commonly shorten it to a brief u, producing “bhu-varahaya” and losing the measured duration that marks the earth-syllable itself. The error collapses the name toward an ordinary short-vowel compound and erases the sonic weight tradition assigns to the recovered world.
When Bhoo Varaha is chanted
Weekday. Thursday
Festival. Varaha Jayanti
Questions
Have your chart read before you decide
Chanting is yours to do, and free. But which deity your situation calls for — and whether a mantra alone is the right response — depends on your chart. Sometimes it is; sometimes it is not.
- Over 30 years in the Guru–Sishya Parampara, from the age of five
- He reads every chart himself — 60 minutes, one to one, never delegated
- Charts are read only between sunrise and sunset, following tradition
Related
Chanting is yours to do. Some things are performed for you.
Where a matter carries real weight, devotees sponsor the homa alongside their own practice. Performed for you and any family members you name, at our Yagna Ashram, in your name and gotra, on a muhurta calculated from your chart, and telecast live so you can watch it done for you.