Budha — Graha Mercury

Budha: Graha Mercury

[BEGINNER]

Budha is the personification of the planet Mercury in the Hindu pantheon — the youngest-looking counsellor of the Navagraha, green-bodied and draped in yellow, quick of mind and sweet of speech. His earliest appearances are Vedic (the Pañcaviṃśa and Śatapatha Brāhmaṇas); the Puranas give him a dramatic family — son of Chandra (the Moon) and Tārā, wife of Brihaspati, his birth following the Tārakāmaya war among the gods. He married Ilā and fathered Pururavas, ancestor of the Lunar dynasty.

In Jyotisha, Budha governs intelligence, communication, learning and commerce — "an agile mind and memory", as the classical summaries put it. Varāhamihira himself assigns Mercury the colour green in the Brihat Jataka (Ch 2, v 5). His day is Wednesday (Budhavāra); his gem, the emerald; his direction, the North; and the Āśvalāyanagṛhyapariśiṣṭa prescribes gold for his image.

He rides a lion or a chariot drawn by eight yellow horses, bearing a scimitar, a club and a shield. Among the nine grahas he is counted a benefic (rajasika by nature, per the classical temperament tables), and his remedial worship — green offerings on Wednesdays — remains living practice across India.

At the Navagraha shrine of Thiruvenkadu (Svetaranyeshwara), Mercury's parihara sthala, he is worshipped alongside Shiva as Swetaranyeswarar.