Shani Ji

Shani is the divine personification of the planet Saturn, one of the Navagraha and ruler of Saturday. Unlike most other grahas he is also independently worshipped as a full deity of karma, time, discipline and justly delivered consequence.

He is called Shani Dev, and, reflecting his reputation as a strict but fair judge, is described as the deity who "delivers results depending upon one's thoughts, speech and deeds," rather than acting arbitrarily.

He is depicted as a dark-complexioned figure, often carrying a sword or a danda (sceptre), seated on a buffalo or, in some images, a crow. At his most widely visited shrine, Shani Shingnapur, he is represented not by a carved image but by a five-and-a-half-foot black rock installed on an open platform, alongside a trishula and a Nandi image.

He is the son of Surya, the sun, and Chhaya, the shadow-form of Surya's wife Sanjna, born of the tension within his father's household. His reputation for exacting, if ultimately fair, justice underlies the wide respect and even fear with which devotees approach him, seeking to placate rather than merely petition him.

Son of Surya and Chhaya, and consequently a half-brother, in the wider solar family, to figures such as Yama associated with Surya's other consort Sanjna.

He governs longevity, hardship, discipline, delay, ambition and the wisdom gained through experience, and Saturday worship of him is widely practised to ease life's difficulties, especially through charity offered without expectation of return.

His best-known independent shrine is at Shani Shingnapur in Ahmednagar district, Maharashtra, a village famously built without doors on its houses in the belief that Shani himself punishes theft; elsewhere he is worshipped chiefly as part of the standard Navagraha temple set.