Venus in Vedic Scriptures🔗

The asuras are the demons who are in eternal battle with the devas, the auspicious aspect of the Divine. In one mythical episode, the devas became very concerned because Venus has come to know the mantra of immortality that raises the dead. It gave the asuras an advantage in their battle with the devas.

To counteract that, Jupiter, the guru to the devas, sends his son Kaca to study under Śukra.

Śukra has a beautiful daughter called Devayāni. She fell in love with Kaca at first sight. But the asuras, knowing why Kaca came, had decided to kill him.

Devayānī could not tolerate Kaca’s death. In her deep grief, she asked her father Śukra to repeat the Mṛtyuñjaya mantra. Kaca came back to life but got killed again by the asuras.

Devayānī, torn by grief, requested her father to once again repeat the mantra. Again, Kaca came back to life.

The demons followed their evil plan to murder Kaca many times, but each time, Śukra kept resurrecting him.

The demons started to contemplate how to destroy Kaca once for all. They came up with the idea to kill him, grind him up into a fine powder and put him in Śukra’s wine.

Śukra drank the wine. Her daughter, in despair, asked him to repeat the mantra, but this time Kaca resurrected in Śukra’s stomach itself, and spoke from inside of him. At last the demons appeared to be happy.

But, in their unconsciousness, they brought about the very thing they were trying to prevent, for Śukra revealed the mantra of immortality to Kaca, so that when Kaca would tear himself out of Śukra's body, he would repeat the mantra and raise Śukra from the dead.