CHANDRA, in Hindu mythology, the moon. Moor tells us it is usually a male deity ; some times, however, feminine, Chandri, and in such character is more commonly applied to Parvati or Devi, the consort or Sacti of Siva, than to any other goddess. Lakshmi Devi, or simply Devi, as the consort of Vishnu is often called, occasionally coalesces with Parvati ; and both, as well as Saraswati, spouse of Brahma, may be identified with the moon or Luna. Thus, in Hindu mytho logy, the sun and moon, being sometimes regarded as male deities, the three principal female divini ties hold a similar union with their respective solar lords. According to Coleman, Chandra or Soma, the moon, is described as the male, and is painted young, beautiful, and of dazzling fairness, two-armed, and having in his hands a club and a lotus. He is usually riding on or in a cart drawn by an antelope. The moon is occasionally repre sented as Chandri, a female, in which character being visited by Surya, she produced a numerous family called Puliuda. In the third volume of the Asiatic Researches, this sexual change is accounted for by Colonel Wilford, who says, when the moon is in opposition to the sun, it is the god Chandra, but when in conjunction with it, the goddess Chandri, who is in that state feigned to have produced the Pulinda. The moon was also wor shipped as male and female, Lunus and Luna, by the Egyptians, the men sacrificing to it as Luna, the women as Lunus ; and each sex on these occasions assuming the dress of the other. The
Hindus have in their zodiac twenty-seven lunar mansions, called Nakshatra, or daily positions of the moon ; and as to perfect the revolutions some odd hours are required, they have added another not included in the regular chart. These twenty-eight diurnal mansions form the zodiac, having been invented by Daksha ; are personified as the daughters of the deity, and are the mytho logical wives of Chandra. In the chart of the lunar mansions they are curiously represented as a horse's head, a yoni, razor, an arrow, a wheel, a bedstead, a house, etc. The Dii Majores of the Rajput are the same in number and title as amongst the Greeks and Romans, being the deities who figuratively preside over the planetary system. Their grades of bliss are therefore in unison with the eccentricity of orbit of the planet named. On this account Chandra or Indu, the moon, being a mere satellite of Ella, the earth, though probably originating the name of the Indu race, is inferior in the scale of blissful abodes to that of his son Budha or Mercury, whose heliacal appearance gave him importance even with the sons of Vaiva, the Myth. Hind. p. 131.