Astral Deities

Bhaktapur, like all South Asia, has a body of astrological theory centered on the Navagraha, nine heavenly bodies and events,^[61] which are also thought of as divinities of benign or malignant influence. In the course of Hindu and Newar iconography these Navagraha have been given iconic representations, sometimes, particularly for Surya the sun god, elegant ones (Pal and Bhattacharyya 1969). The Navagraha are studied by astrologers (chap. 10)—with the help of detailed printed annual astrological charts and calendars—in their relation to the time of an individual's birth for the purpose of guiding decisions about important undertakings of many kinds and to diagnose and recommend treatment for certain illnesses and misfortunes.^[62] Astral considerations are also used in some pujas and festivals to determine their exact proper timing. In general, astrological procedures are used, particularly in the anticipation of risky undertakings or in problems arising out of errors in previous undertakings, to adjust individual action to impersonal cosmic order. The action at issue must be, of course, one where choices are free in some sense—aspects of a journey, a marriage, a business undertaking, or the timing of a ceremony, which are not specified by some other aspect of urban order. Astrology fills a gap, where the more common kinds of ordering of action, that determined by role, city area, annual calendar, or phase of the life cycle, do not operate.

Astrological considerations are important throughout the life cycle starting with the astrologically orienting time of birth. Worship of the sun, sometimes taken as the representative of all the Navagraha, is part of each of the life-cycle ceremonies. In one set of ceremonies, those associated with a girl's first menses (app. 6), the sun has particular importance, as the girl is "presented" to it and worships it after a prolonged period of seclusion in darkness.

The sun, and to a much lesser extent the moon, have other symbolic usages drawn from other aspects of the Hindu tradition, particularly those remnants of early Vedic religion that are parts of Brahmans' internal thar religion, and the Vedic component of their service to high-status clients such as the Homa ceremony. Ordinary people pray to the sun in a perfunctory manner on Sundays from the open roof porches of

their houses. Finally, many collections of household gods also include an image representing the sun.

The Navagrapha have no special shrines and are not used to mark city space. As we have noted above in the discussion of the peripheral Mandalic^[*] Goddesses, the Pujavidhi section of the Agni Purana^[*] contains a diagram associating the Navagraha each with a specific Matrka^[*] (Pal and Bhattacharyya 1969, 39f.) in a sequence that has some correspondence to the sequence of those goddesses at Bhaktapur's perimeter. The circle of peripheral Mandalic^[*] Goddesses in Bhaktapur, which are thought of and dealt with as arranged starting at the east and moving clockwise in almost exactly the same order as the listing of the Saktis of the gods in the Devi Mahatmya , corresponds at the same time—with one problematic position interposed—to the order of the planets as days of the week when the Matrka-planetary^[*] correspondence noted in the Pujavidhi is taken account of. This dim possible echo of astrological associations has no contemporary meaning.