Among the gifts such people receive are cotton clothes, cash, grain such as sesamum seeds, udad, pulses, and salt.[258] The gift of a pair of shoes is much recommended.[259] Sometimes a figure of the eclipsed sun or moon is drawn in juari seeds and given away to a bhangi.[260]
Although the period of an eclipse is considered inauspicious, it is valued by those who profess the black art. All mantras, incantations, and prayogas, applications or experiments, which ordinarily require a long time to take effect, produce the wished for result without delay if performed during the process of an eclipse.[261]
If a man’s wife is pregnant, he may not smoke during the period of an eclipse lest his child become deformed.[262] Ploughing a farm on a lunar-eclipse day is supposed to cause the birth of Chāndrā-children, i.e., children afflicted by the moon.[262]
After an eclipse Hindus bathe, perform ablution ceremonies, and dress themselves in clean garments. The houses are cleansed by cowdunging the floors, vessels are rubbed and cleansed, and clothes are washed, in order to get rid of the pollution caused by the eclipse.[263] Unwashed clothes of cotton, wool, silk or hemp, according to popular belief, do not become polluted.[263] The placing of darbha grass on things which are otherwise liable to pollution is also sufficient to keep them unpolluted.[264]
Brahmans cannot accept anything during the impious time of an eclipse, but after it is over, alms are freely given to them in the shape of such costly articles as fine clothes, gold, cattle and the like.[265]
After an eclipse Hindus may not break their fast till they have again seen the full disc of the released sun or the moon. It sometimes happens that the sun or the moon sets gherāyalā (while still eclipsed), and people have then to fast for the whole of the night or the day after, until the sun or the moon is again fully visible.[266]
There is a shloka in the Jyotish-Shāstra to the effect that Rāhu would surely devour Chandra if the nakshatra, or constellation of the second day of the dark half of a preceding month, were to recur on the Purnima (full-moon day) of the succeeding month. Similarly, in solar eclipses, a similar catastrophe would occur if the constellation of the second day of the bright half of a month were to recur on the Amāvāsya (the last day) of that month.[267] The year in which many eclipses occur is believed to prove a bad year for epidemic diseases.[268]
The Jains do not believe in the Hindu theory of grahana (or the eclipse).[269] Musalmans do not perform the special ceremonies beyond the recital of special prayers; and even these are held to be supererogatory.[270]
With the exception that some people believe that the stars are the abodes of the gods,[271] the popular belief about the heavenly bodies seems to be that they are the souls of virtuous and saintly persons, translated to the heavens for their good deeds and endowed with a lustre proportionate to their merits.[272] And this idea is illustrated in the traditions that are current about some of the stars. The seven bright stars of the constellation Saptarshi (or the Great Bear) are said to be the seven sages, Kashyapa, Atri, Bhāradwāj, Vishwāmitra, Gautama, Jāmadagni and Vasishtha, who had mastered several parts of the Vedas, and were considered specialists in the branches studied by each, and were invested with divine honours in reward for their proficiency.[273] Another story relates how a certain hunter and his family, who had unconsciously achieved great religious merit, were installed as the constellation Saptarshi[274] (or the Great Bear). A hunter, it is narrated in the Shivarātri-māhātmya, was arrested for debt on a Shivrātri[275] day, and while in jail heard by chance the words ‘Shiva, Shiva’ repeated by some devotees. Without understanding their meaning, he also began to repeat the same words, even after he was released in the evening. He had received no food during the day, and had thus observed a compulsory fast. In order to obtain food for himself and his family, he stationed himself behind a Bel[276] tree, hoping to shoot a deer or some other animal that might come to quench its thirst at a neighbouring tank. While adjusting an arrow to his bowstring, he plucked some leaves out of the thick foliage of the tree and threw them down. The leaves, however, chanced to fall on a Shiva-linga which happened to stand below, and secured for him the merit of having worshipped god Shiva with Bel-leaves on a Shivrātri day. He was also all the while repeating the god’s name and had undergone a fast. The result was that not only were his past sins forgiven, but he was placed with his family in heaven.[277]
Similarly, Dhruva, the son of king Uttānapād, attained divine favour by unflagging devotion, and was given a constant place in the heavens as the immovable pole-star.[278]