Bhaga

Before the sun is up, a fire is already burning. Butter hisses on the coals, the air is cold enough to show a man’s breath, and somebody is reciting a list of names: Agni, Indra, Mitra and Varuna, the twin Ashvins, Pushan, Soma, Rudra. One name in the list gets the rest of the hymn to itself. The singer wants cows and horses and sons, and a day that goes well at sunrise, at noon and at sunset, and he knows exactly whom to ask. He asks Bhaga.

The name is a plain word. Bhaga means a share, a portion, the part of the good things that falls to one person. The god is the share with a will of its own, the one who does the dividing. The same word sits inside bhagavat, the fortunate or blessed one, the title later given to the greatest gods of India. Far to the west, the old Persians used its twin, baga, simply to mean a god, and the Slavic word for god, bog, belongs to the same family. A word for a slice of the takings became a word for the divine. That says something about what people have always wanted from heaven.

Bhaga is one of the Adityas, the sons of the goddess Aditi. In the Rigveda they are a small company of gods who look after the order of human society: Varuna, Mitra, Aryaman and the rest. Bhaga and Aryaman are often named together, and both are looked to when a marriage is hoped to turn out well. In one hymn the Dawn is called his sister. The later books make the Adityas twelve, tie them to the sun and the months, and give them the sage Kashyapa for a father. They also give Bhaga a household. His wife is Siddhi, whose name means success, and the Bhagavata Purana names their sons Mahiman, Vibhu and Prabhu and a daughter, Ashis.

His great hymn is the forty-first of the seventh book of the Rigveda. It is seven verses long and it does not waste time. It calls him the son of Aditi, the great supporter, the one who wins early. It says that the poor man thinks of him and says “give me my share”, and the strong man, and the king. It asks him to add to the cattle and the horses and to make the singers rich in men. It asks that the Dawns bring him the way strong horses pull a chariot. Everybody wants the same thing from Bhaga. They want more.

Nowhere in that hymn does anyone say what he looks like. There are no arms, no colour, no weapon, no animal to ride. The later tradition supplies one detail only, and it is a hard one. Bhaga is blind.

The oldest account of how it happened is in the Shatapatha Brahmana, and it is a strange one. The creator Prajapati desired his own daughter. The gods called this a sin and told Rudra to shoot him, and Rudra did. Afterwards the gods were left with a piece of the sacrifice torn by Rudra’s arrow, a thing too dangerous to touch and too holy to throw away. They carried it to Bhaga, who sat on the south side. Bhaga looked at it and it burned out his eyes. They carried it to Pushan, who tasted it and lost his teeth. “Hence they say, Bhaga is blind,” the text adds, as if quoting a proverb everyone already knew.

The later tellings keep the wound and change the cause. In the Mahabharata the gods hold a sacrifice and leave Rudra without a share. He arrives with his bow, and with its tip he takes the hands of Savitri, the eyes of Bhaga and the teeth of Pushan. When his anger cools he gives them back. The Bhagavata Purana makes it harsher and more personal. At the sacrifice of Daksha, the sage Bhrigu cursed Shiva, and Bhaga, sitting among the guests, moved his eyebrows in approval. When Shiva’s creature Virabhadra broke into the hall, he remembered it. He threw Bhaga to the ground and put out his eyes. Bhrigu lost his moustache. Pushan, who had smiled, lost his teeth.

In the Mahabharata he turns up now and then in the crowd of gods. He is present when Arjuna is born, he sits in Indra’s hall, and when Arjuna and Krishna burn the Khandava forest he comes down on Indra’s side to fight them. The astronomers gave him a house in the sky as well, the lunar mansion called Purva Phalguni.

His power is the oldest one there is. He decides who gets what. Wealth, luck, children and a good marriage are all his to hand out, and he is asked for them by name at the hour when the day has not yet made up its mind. Nobody is too grand to need him. The king asks in the same words as the beggar.

His limit is that he cannot see whom he is giving to, and the stories never let him forget how that came about. He looked at what was not his to look at, or he raised an eyebrow at the wrong moment, and it cost him his eyes. A god of shares was hurt at a sacrifice where the shares were wrongly given. He has no weapon in any telling, and when Virabhadra came for him there was no fight at all.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Bhaga in Hindu mythology?

Bhaga is a Vedic god of wealth and good fortune who gives each person their share of the good things in life. He is one of the Adityas, the sons of the goddess Aditi. His main hymn is Rigveda 7.41, a morning prayer that asks him for cattle, horses, sons and a fortunate day.

What does the name Bhaga mean?

Bhaga means “share” or “portion” in Sanskrit, and so the god Bhaga is the one who deals out shares. The same word is the root of bhagavat, “the fortunate one”, a title given to the great gods. It is related to the Old Persian word baga and the Slavic word bog, which both mean “god”.

Why is Bhaga blind?

The texts give different reasons. In the Shatapatha Brahmana, Bhaga looked at a dangerous portion of the sacrifice that Rudra’s arrow had torn, and it burned out his eyes. In the Bhagavata Purana, Virabhadra put out Bhaga’s eyes at Daksha’s sacrifice because Bhaga had moved his eyebrows in approval when Bhrigu cursed Shiva.

Who are Bhaga’s family?

Bhaga is a son of the goddess Aditi, and in the later texts his father is the sage Kashyapa. His brothers are the other Adityas, including Varuna, Mitra and Aryaman, and one Rigveda hymn calls the Dawn his sister. The Bhagavata Purana names his wife as Siddhi, their sons as Mahiman, Vibhu and Prabhu, and their daughter as Ashis.

What did people ask Bhaga for?

People asked Bhaga for wealth, mainly cattle, horses and sons, and for good luck through the day at sunrise, noon and sunset. The Rigveda says the poor man, the strong man and the king all say the same thing to him: give me my share. Bhaga and his brother Aryaman were also looked to for a successful marriage.

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Aditi, Aryaman, Varuna, Ushas, Surya, Rudra, Prajapati, Shiva, Daksha, Sati, Indra, Agni, Soma, Arjuna, Mithra