Mangal Ji (Mars)

Mangal, or Mangala, personifies the planet Mars as one of the Navagraha and rules Tuesday. Also called Lohita, "the red one," he is associated with energy, aggression and martial courage.

Lohita and Kuja, "earth-born," name his fiery colour and his mythological origin from the earth goddess Bhumi. He is also called Angaraka, from angara, "ember," another reference to his fiery, reddish nature.

He is shown with a red body, bloodshot eyes and flaming, curly hair, four arms carrying a spear, mace, lotus and trident, and riding a ram, his vahana. His hot, bilious temperament in iconography marks him as a malevolent yet heroic, combat-skilled figure.

Vaishnava tradition holds that he was born as Bhauma, son of the earth goddess Bhumi, when Vishnu in his boar (Varaha) avatar raised her from the cosmic waters and infused her with his essence. Shaiva tradition instead tells that drops of Shiva's sweat, shed while he mourned his wife Sati in deep yogic absorption, fell to earth and took the form of a child.

Depending on the tradition followed, he is regarded either as the son of Vishnu (in his Varaha avatar) and the earth goddess Bhumi, or as born from Shiva. Both traditions agree in calling him Bhauma, "son of the earth."

As one of the Navagraha he governs energy, courage, conflict and land or property matters in Vedic astrology, and is propitiated especially on Tuesdays. His term, mangala, meaning "auspiciousness" in the Rigveda, only gained its planetary and astrological sense in later classical Sanskrit literature.

Dedicated Mangal temples and pilgrimage sites exist across India, though in smaller number than for deities such as Shani or Surya; medieval Sanskrit astronomical texts, from Aryabhata's fifth-century Aryabhatiya onward, attest to his long-standing place in Indian astronomical and astrological calculation.