MantraOnNet.com: Shani Mahatmya
He was an intellectual philanthropist of a king who clung tenaciously
to righteousness and was ever anxious to relieve his subjects’ miseries.
He guarded his citizens as carefully as if they had been his own
children, and they in turn regarded him with the same respect that
they accorded to their own fathers.
King Vikrama Deliberates in his Court over
Which of the Nine Planets is Superior:
On one occasion King Vikramaditya sat serenely in his
caparisoned court, incense coiling silently around his throne,
surrounded by a slew of ritual specialists, ministers of state, courtiers,
and pundits. After these assembled worthies had picked several
preliminary topics threadbare, confabulation began on a subject that
was dear to the king’s heart: the question of which of the Nine Planets
is paramount.
Each planet had its champion among those mages who, like
the great Varahamihira, had successfully traversed the vast ocean of
astrological knowledge. Each partisan was a sincere worshipper of the
planet he championed, and long worship had delivered to each some
of the attributes of that planet, attributes which shone through to
color their several presentations. Stillness descended on all sides of the
throne as every ear listened with one-pointed concentration for the
experts to state their opinions.
Acknowlegements: This section has been selected from ‘The Greatness of Saturn’ by Dr. Robert E. Svoboda
Following are the planets on which the experts debated:
- King Vikrama Returns To Ujjayni
- King Vikrama Reveals his Identity
- Lord Saturn’s Stories
- The Pleasing Of Lord Saturn
- King Vikrama Is Falsely Accused of Theft
- The Beginning of Saturn’s Dominance
- The Verdict
- The Beginning of the Universe
- The Rahu & Ketu
- The Saturn
- The Venus
- The Jupiter
- The Mercury
- The Sun
- The Moon
- The Mars