NAME: Chandra `the bright'. Candra. Known also as Soma (which was a drink, but Chandra became so associated with it that Soma is often confused as his name), also known as Pavamana (liqueur purifier), Sitamarici (with cool rays), Somanatha (Lord of the Soma), Kumudapati (Lord of the lotus.)
SYMBOLS: The Moon. The OM symbol. A golden crown. A garland of pearls. He holds a mace in one hand and with the other one he makes the sign of blessing. He rides in a chariot drown by, depending of the myth, ether seven white horses or two antilope. Soma the mystical yellow drink of the Gods.
USUAL IMAGE: Chandra is most often shown seated on a lotus in a chariot being drawn ether by two antilope or seven white horses. He is pale complected has four arms and wears all white.
HOLY BOOKS: Rig-Veta. (All 114 hymns of the ninth Book of the Rig-Veta are dedicated to the plant / God / drink Chandra / Soma.
RELATIVES: Maharishi Atri (father), Anasuya (mother), Mercury (son). Surya (consort). The 27 constellations were said to be his wives, and that all of them were chaste and beautiful.
Some sources say that he had a co-ruler of the Moon. A Goddess named Candi (YES that's what I said Candi) and that she ruled the Moon the month after he had been eaten (the New Moon) while he return after she was devoured. So that they switched back and forth each moon.
SYNODEITIES: Thoth (Egyptian, in his aspect as Moon God.) Bacchus (Roman), Dionysos (Greek), Mama-Kylia (Inca), Meness (Pre-Christian Latvian.)
DETAILS: Chandra was an early Vedic God of the Moon. In an earlier time (two to three thousands years ago) he was far more greatly regarded then in present day Hinduism. It is said that even Indra worshipped him at one time.
It was said that it was the force of Chandra the Moon that gave life to all animals, Gods, humans and spirits. While the progression from full to half to new moon was said to represent the Gods eating Chandra for his vital energy. He was so powerful that even after being completely consumed he always returned.
He was most closely associated with the drink of the Gods known as soma, in fact he is so closely linked to it that many think that the name of the god is Soma, which was much like the nectar of the Greek Gods.
No one really knows what this drink was. It was described as a yellow drink that when imbibed gave the drinker the ability to be both in the physical and spiritual worlds at the same time. Many have speculated as to just what this drink was made from.
The two most popular candidates being the A manita muscaria or fly agaric mushroom (note: this fellow is highly poisonous) which was suggested by R. Gordon Wasson and picked up by many other including Robert Graves (who also thought that this was the mushroom that Lewis Carroll gave Alice in his Wonderland stories!) and others.
And asclepias acida (milkweed), thought no one really knows for sure. There are some who think that the yellow color of soma came about because whatever the source the only way that it could be drunk safely was for a priest to be made partially immune to the toxic effects of the substance through long exposer while the worshippers were only exposed to the priest's soma soaked urine.
This Soma is a god; he cures