Rohiṇī (Nakshatra)
Rohiṇī, “the red one”
Grammar: feminine noun, from rohita (red): “the red one”.
Meaning: one of the twenty-seven nakshatras (the lunar mansions), lying in the rāśi Vṛshabha; also the nakshatra in person, the beloved wife of Candra, the Moon. This is not Rohiṇī the wife of Vasudeva.
In the scriptures: when Daksha prepared his great yajña, he gave each a task, and he gave Candra, with Rohiṇī, charge of the wealth (dhanādhipatya, the treasury) (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 2).
When the devatā of that yajña fled into the sky in the form of a deer, Bhagavān Śiva pursued it as Kālarūpī, the form of Time, and occupied the sky. Pulastya Maharshi describes that body to Nārada limb by limb, each limb a rāśi with its nakshatras. The face is Vṛshabha, the kshetra of Śukra, made of the remaining three pādas of Kṛttikā, Rohiṇī and two pādas of Mṛgaśira (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 5).
When people talked of how the Moon came to shine so brightly, some gave one reason; others answered: “No, no. Rohiṇī Devī, grieving at the waning of her husband the Moon, performed fierce tapas to Śiva in the manner taught by the Veda, and on Akshaya Ashṭamī pleased that Mahādeva. He at once granted her a vara and freed the Moon from kshaya-roga (the wasting disease).” (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 16).
The word in use:
- Araja sat outside the hut of the āśrama with her head bowed, sobbing and thinking of her father, like Rohiṇī, the beloved of the Moon, when he is seized by Rāhu (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 40).
- In the Nakshatra Purusha vrata, the twenty-seven nakshatras are the limbs of Śrī Hari, the nakshatra-purusha form of Śrīman Nārāyaṇa, and Rohiṇī dwells on his shanks (jaṅghā). (Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapter 54).
Related terms: Nakshatra · Candra · Vṛshabha · Kṛttikā · Mṛgaśira · Kālarūpī
Sources
- Vāmana Purāṇa, Chapters 2, 5, 16, 40, 54