Kuja (Maṅgala)

Kuja is the deva who presides over the planet Mars. He is also called Maṅgala and Aṅgāraka. The Purāṇas give two accounts of his birth. In both, he is born from drops of Bhagavān Śiva’s sweat that fell to the earth.

Birth from Śiva’s sweat (Vāmana Purāṇa)

Chapters 41 to 44 of the Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa tell of the great battle between Andhaka and Bhagavān Śiva. The fighting was so fierce that it made great heat. Drops of Śiva’s sweat fell to the earth. Those drops carried Śiva’s divine energy and the huge tejas (radiant power) of the war. From them Kuja, also called Maṅgala, was born.

Mars in Vedic astrology rules war, energy, heat, blood and brave action. These are the qualities of the setting in which he was born. Because the drops fell to the earth, he is the son of Bhagavān Śiva by the earth itself. For this reason other Purāṇas also call him Bhūmija (“earth-born”) and Mahīsuta (“son of the earth”).

The Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa gives this in Chapter 44.

Names and forms

Kuja has several names in the tradition.

• Kuja means “born of earth” (ku is earth, ja is born).
• Maṅgala means “the auspicious one.” He is fierce, but when he is properly honoured, Mars gives great blessings.
• Aṅgāraka means “burning coal.” It speaks of his fiery red look.
• Bhūmija and Mahīsuta both mean “son of the earth.”
• Lohitāṅga means “red-limbed.”

His place in astrology

Maṅgala is the fourth of the nine grahas (planets) in the Vedic system. He governs martial energy, courage, ambition, physical strength, blood, heat, brothers and sisters, and land. Jyotiṣa, the traditional science of the stars, assesses his place and his aspects in a birth chart with great care. Kuja-doṣa is the harmful effect of Mars in certain places in the chart. It is looked at with special care when a marriage is being matched.

He comes from Bhagavān Śiva, the supreme ascetic and warrior. For this reason he has two sides: the power to destroy and the power of mokṣa (liberation), the energy of battle and the fire of tapas (austerity).

The account in the Pārvatī Khaṇḍa

The Pārvatī Khaṇḍa of the Śiva Purāṇa, in Chapter 10, gives another account of his birth. Bhagavān Śiva was doing tapas at the Gaṅgāvatāraṇa kṣetra, the holy place where the Gaṅgā came down to earth. In the heat of that tapas, drops of his sweat fell to the earth. Those drops carried the divine energy of Śiva’s austerity, and Kuja was born from them.

Bhūdevī, the earth devī, took the child as her own and became his foster mother. For this reason he is called Bhūmija (earth-born) or Bhūpāla (the one protected by the earth). Kuja then went to the tīrtha (holy place) of Kāśī, also called Vārāṇasī. There he did pūjā and tapas. By this tapas and pūjā at Kāśī, he gained grahatva, the standing of a graha, and became one of the nine grahas.

The Pārvatī Khaṇḍa names the Gaṅgāvatāraṇa tīrtha as the place of his birth and Bhūdevī as his foster mother. It also names Kāśī as the place of the tapas through which he gained grahatva. The Vāmana Purāṇa sets his birth within the war with Andhaka.

Sources

• Vāmana Mahā Purāṇa, Chapter 44 (the battle of Andhaka and Bhagavān Śiva is in Chapters 41–44)
• Śiva Purāṇa, Pārvatī Khaṇḍa, Chapter 10