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How did the weekdays get their names?

I wonder if this thought has come across one’s mind:

“How did the weekdays get their names?”

Everybody knows that there are 24 hours in a day. The Vedic Astrology calls such hours as “HORA”s. Hora is the short form of the Sanskrit words “Aho ratri” which means “day and night” where the “A” and “tri” are skipped and made into one word “Hora”.

Each Hora is assigned a lord who rules every hour in the following sequence or order:

“Arka Shukra Budhaschandra Manda Jeeva Dharaasuta”

Arka – The Sun (Ravi, Aditya)

Shukra – Venus

Budha – Mercury

Chandra – The Moon (Soma)

Manda – Saturn (Shani)

Jeeva – Jupiter (Guru)

Dharaasuta – Mars (Mangala, Kuja)

The Sun being the head of the family of The Solar System is given the prominence of being the lord of the first hour or hora of Sunday – the first day of the week. Counting 24 hours from Sun in the above sequence, the 25th hour lord happens to be the Moon, the lord of the first hour of the second day. Hence, the day that comes after Sunday is named Monday (Somawara).

Similarly, once the counting continues, we see that Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn happen to be the lords of the first hours of Tuesday (Mangalawara), Wednesday (Budhawara), Thursday (Guruwara) , Friday (Shukrawara) and Saturday (Shaniwara) respectively.

Thus, the weekdays got their names from the lord who rules the first hour of the day.

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