The Armour of Budha – A Puranic Chant for Mercury
Budha Preethyarthe Jape Viniyoga
This chant is being done to please Lord Budha (Planet Mercury).
Budhasthu pusthakadhara kumkumasya samadhyuthi,
Peethambardhara pathu, peethamalyanu lepana.
Let us be protected by Budha,
Who holds a book in his hand,
Who shines with Kumkuma (saffron),
Who wears yellow silk,
And who wears yellow garland.
Katim cha pathu may soumya, siro desam budhasthadha,
Nethra jnanamaya pathu, srothre pathu nisa priya.
Let him who is peaceful protect my hip,
Let my head and surroundings be protected by Budha,
Let my eyes be protected by the one who is engulfed in knowledge,
Let my ears be protected by him who loves night.
Granam gandha priya pathu, jihwam vidhyapriyo mama,
Kantam pathu vidho, puthro bhujow pusthaka bhooshana.
Let my sense of smell be protected he who likes scents,
Let my tongue be protected by he who likes knowledge,
Let my neck be protected by the knowledgeable one,
Let my arms be protected by he who is decorated by books.
Vaksha pathu varangascha, hrudhayam rohini sutha,
Nabhim pathu suraradhyo, madhyam pathu khageswara.
Let my breast be protected by the blessed one,
Let my heart be protected by son of Rohini,
Let my belly be protected by first among devas,
Let my middle be protected by God of the birds.
Januni rohinoyascha pathu jange akhila pradha,
Pathou may bhodhana pathu, Pathu sowmyam akhilo vapu.
Let my knee be protected by he who belongs to Rohini,
Let my calf be protected by he who knows everything,
Let my feet be protected by he who is expert teacher,
And let all the rest of me be protected by he who is peaceful.
Yethadwi kavacham divyam, sarva papa pranasanam,
Sarva roga prasamanam, sarva dukha nivaranam.
This Armour which is holy,
Destroys all sins committed,
Cures all types of diseases,
And is the panacea for all sorrow.
Ayur aroghya subhadham, puthra pouthra prabhardhanam,
Ya padeth srunuyath vapi sarvathra vijayee bhaveth.
It blesses one with long healthy life,
Increases sons and grand sons,
And those who read or hear it,
Would be victorious everywhere.
Ithi Sri Brahma Vaivartha Purane Budha Kavacham Sampoornam
Thus ends the armour of Mercury which occurs in Brahma Vaivartha purana.
While the fourth dimension is not radically different – to all appearances – to the existing third dimension, these two dimensions are actually merging now, as we speak. We look to the role of Budha – the Planet Mercury in the fourth dimension.
Mercury is recognised as a planet which bestows dexterity (adroitness, adeptness, facility, deftness, quickness); Mercury facilitates manual dexterity, intellectual dexterity and verbal dexterity. Where Mercury is concerned, the foundation of discipline is acquired very quickly, and then Mercury is careful with details, and evinces deeper levels of understanding, a convergence of ideas, and a coalescence of material with help from other planets. Mercury is quick on the uptake and fast to communicate.
A favourably placed Mercury in the birth chart (Mercury does well in the first house, its lesser house of exaltation is Gemini, the stronger house of exaltation is Virgo, it is weak in the 7th house an debilitated in Meena, Pisces) gives good reasoning powers, makes a person perceptive, clever, excellent in debates, somewhat intellectual, and careful with details. So we can say that Mercury is versatile and volatile: fast-thinking, fast-moving, fast-acting, somewhat rajasic in nature and fast with messaging – the representation of Mercury in Greek and Roman religion.
It is said that Mercury represents the rational mind and the power of speech of the Kalapurusha, the Lord of Time and Space, i.e. the body of manifest reality. We recall that manifest reality is in fact the experience of separation from the One, right from the Big Bang, or the emergence of the Pranava, the OM sound which causes creation, and through its agencies of Brahma – Vishnu – Maheshwara, creates, sustains and receives all that exists in separation until involution occurs and all is merged in source again. Mercury has an important role here; Mercury represents the principle of Maya, illusion, in the mind. This raises many questions about the nature of reality and the role of Mercury as planet, graha, seizer, luminary, reflecting and refracting the light from the Sun, the energies received from the Source of all Creation, the Central Galactic Sun.
Where we have naada, Lord Brahma emerging on the Lotus from the navel of Maha Vishnu, this is the beginning of Creation, which Science defines as the Big Bang. It makes this measurement from the cosmic background radiation, the original noise and vibration that occurred at the Big Bang. This is nothing but the OM, the Pranava echoing through all the worlds and lokas, sustaining and continuing the creation: astronomers tell us that the Universe is still expanding at an incredible rate with heavenly bodies continuing to move away one from another. The inner reality is light: naada Brahma emerges from Paramjyothi – the realm of light – into maya, illusion, separation.
Mercury, then, represents this principle of inner light within the mind. This world is nothing but light; it is the power of Maya, the aakarshana shakti (the outgoing attraction power of the mind to seize what it sees) the mind attracts to itself that causes us to see this illusory world as night, day, light, dark, hard, soft, warm, cold, and so on; duality can be described endlessly. Mercury is karaka – dispositor of understanding the inner light within the mind: making sense of all this world.
How does Mercury make sense of this world of manifestation? We can begin with the profile of Mercury, dispositor of rational mind, speech, communication, diplomacy, persuasion, and dexterity of several kinds. Mercury is one of clean clothes, green in colour, and in the modern environment, is found in places of accounting, transportation, airports, publishers, printers, couriers, post offices, places of non-violent games, public assemblies, book-stores, libraries and places like the United Nations. This is Mercury’s public profile: found in many businesses, the information revolution, the communication revolution, the electronic revolution of instant communications.
The Deeper Levels of Mercury
It is said that Mercury is karaka-giver of intelligence. This is a bit of a contested issue, for Mercury, representing the principle of Maya in the mind, does no original thinking. To use a Buddhist term, all that Mercury gives is of dependent origination; it comes from some other source. There is nothing original within, but we may look to the capacity of Mercury for INTUITION and joining disparate facts together and flowing with convergence, a coalescence of ideas. Mercury is like the deeper levels of knowledge and understanding that come from mantra dhana, the repetition of mantras where knowledge is gleaned from deeper levels from joining of facts, practice, and gleaned knowledge, what is called jnatum, drashtum, praveshtum: knowing, visualising, entering.
When Mercury re-expresses all that it gets, we have access to that intelligence within us which begins to construct reality and make sense of the world around us. The outer reality (Maya, emerges from the Pranava, the OM) is recognised as the inner reality of light within. The subjective world within becomes objectified through the work of Mercury. Mercury as driver of meaning, sense, order, purpose, makes us stand under our experience until we arrive at understanding. In this sense, Mercury can be said to be the inner guru, where Jupiter-Brihaspati and Venus-Shukra are both gurus in the outer world of phenomena. Guru is made up of two syllables, gu and ru. Gu means to sit near; Ru means to remove the darkness. This is the dharma – the righteousness, the right conduct, the right purposeful action of Mercury as disposer of intelligence which removes the illusion of darkness within.
Mercury and the Fourth Dimension
The Fourth Dimension – and higher – are dimensions of light. Food may be taken as heavy, solid food, sometimes as lighter food, and sometimes as light energy. The Creative Source of All dispenses light and energy to all beings according to their capacity to receive that energy. (This is similar to how St Thomas of Aquinas described how grace, anugraha, is received by humans, according to their capacity to receive.) In the Fourth Dimension, time is faster, vibration is faster, minute particles vibrate and collide at a faster rate. Time, numbers, calculation, and the energy contained in words is totally different in the Fourth Dimension. To give an example, the word Eden, used to describe the Garden of Eden in the Hebrew Bible, is actually a Fourth Dimensional word bearing the energy of “creation of a beautiful place”, E-Din. Nonetheless, the Fourth Dimension is a place, a loka, of duality, separation from the ONE. The Maya principle is active in the Fourth Dimension.
All that emerges from Source, emerges into time and space. Note the name of the Body of Manifestation, the Body of the Lord of Time and Space, is kala-purusha, (time-manifestation of all-that-is, the world of multiple universes), Om Tat Sat in any other term. The basis of all this manifestation, Sat, is sathya, truth. Satyam moolam jagat, truth is the basis of the Universe. How do we come to know and understand all this manifest reality? Through the agency of Mercury, Lord Budha, and the role of Mercury as planet, graha, seizer, luminary, reflecting and refracting the light from the Sun, the energies received from the Source of all Creation, the Central Galactic Sun; the Param Jyothi, the Source of all Light.
The Maya principle is active due the inner light of the soul, the atma within. Mercury takes the datum of manifestation, the experience of this created reality and points it to the solar radiance, the source of all this manifestation. Mercury joins data together, and prods mind, body and spirit to recognise that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. It is the intelligence that constructs reality and the recognition of duality, the Self and the self.