Eclipse: Vedic aspect

When Lords (Devas) and Demons ( Asuras) were fighting amongst each others to attain their control over the immortals, saagar-manthan was done. Amrit (nectar) was one of the entities to appear during the courseof samudra or saagar-manthan. Now, Lord Vishnu in the desire of giving nectar to devas, appeared in the form of Mohini, who managed to convince the asuras to feed nectar to the devas first. All the planets (the Sun, the Moon, the Mercury, The Venus, the Jupiter, the Saturn and the Mars) sat in a row opposite to the row of demons. Soon after acquiring the pot of nectar, Mohini started distributing it to the Devas. On seeing this, an Asura named Svarbhanu, who learnt of Mohini’s trick, sat amidst the Devas to get a share of the Amrit. He sat in between Surya and Chandra in disguise of a Deva and was lucky enough to consume a few drops of the elixir.Surya and Chandra could sense trouble and soon informed Mohini about the same. Mohini took her original form and cut off the head of Svarbhanu. But since, he had consumed a fair amount of the nectar, he didn’t lose his life. Brahma granted a boon to Svarbhanu and gave a new lease of life to him.His head was attached to a snake’s body, while the snake’s head was fixed to his body. Thus two entities were born – the former one came to be known as Rahu and the latter as Ketu.Rahu and Ketu swallow Surya and Chandra year after year to avenge the defeat. It is believed that these partial and total but temporary disappearances of the Sun and the Moon result in eclipses.Rahu is believed to diminish the effects of the Sun, while Ketu diminishes the effects of the Moon.