Rahu Mantra
ॐ भ्रां भ्रीं भ्रौं सः राहवे नमःIn Devanagari, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and English — with the meaning of every word, and the one syllable most people pronounce wrongly.
Who Rahu is
Rahu is the ascending lunar node, counted among the nine grahas yet without a physical body of his own. Puranic astronomy knows him as the immortal head of the daitya who once seized a share of amṛta. Jyotiṣa assigns him the northward crossing of the Moon’s path, the direction of sudden inversion, and the significations of smoke, eclipse, foreign connection, and the hunger that outlasts form. Iconographic manuals give him a serpentine lower half or simply a severed head with wide mouth and living eyes, mounted on a lion or a chariot of eight horses. He is neither fully deva nor fully asura after the beheading, and that liminal status is the core of his identity among the planetary deities.
The Severed Head at the Churning
The Bhāgavata Purāṇa (Canto 8) and the Viṣṇu Purāṇa recount the churning of the ocean of milk. When the amṛta at last rose and was being served to the gods by Mohinī, the daitya Svarbhānu disguised himself and took a place between the Sun and the Moon. He tasted the nectar; at that instant Sūrya and Candra recognised the intruder and alerted Viṣṇu. The discus flashed, severing Svarbhānu’s head before the amṛta could pass his throat. Because the drop had touched his tongue, the head became immortal and was thereafter known as Rahu, while the trunk became Ketu. Ever afterward Rahu pursues the Sun and the Moon across the sky, and when he overtakes them the eclipse occurs. The same texts note that Rahu’s body ends at the neck; all that remains is appetite and the memory of the stolen sip. This single episode supplies the entire mythic identity of the graha: the head that cannot die, the eternal chase, and the darkening of the luminaries.
The mantra, in six scripts
The seed 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
- भ्रां
- bhrāṃ — seed-syllable bhrāṃ
- भ्रीं
- bhrīṃ — seed-syllable bhrīṃ
- भ्रौं
- bhrauṃ — seed-syllable bhrauṃ
- सः
- saḥ — seed-syllable saḥ
- राहवे
- rāhave — to Rahu
- नमः
- namaḥ — salutation
The syllable people get wrong
In rāhave the medial ha is a voiced glottal aspirate that speakers frequently drop altogether, allowing the long ā to slide directly into ve and producing the collapsed ‘rā-ve’. The h must be released as a distinct breathy pulse between the ā and the final syllable.
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 — an examination that decides a course, a performance, a child whose studies have stalled — 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.