Soma’s Family Tree

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Family

• Anasuya(parent),Atri(parent)— Marriage · Miraculous

  The sage Atri and his devoted wife Anusuya produced Soma, the moon-god, through Atri's intense penance and divine grace, a birth the Puranas count among the most illustrious of the Saptarishi lineages.

• Tara(spouse),Budha(child)— Consort

  Soma abducted Tara, wife of Brihaspati, and from their union was born Budha, god of the planet Mercury, a liaison so scandalous it provoked a war between the devas before Brahma intervened and returned Tara to her husband.

• Rohini(spouse)— Marriage

  Soma married all twenty-seven Nakshatra daughters of Daksha but lavished his affection solely on Rohini, neglecting the other twenty-six wives so completely that Daksha cursed him to waste away, producing the waxing and waning of the moon.

Allied with

• Agni

  Agni and Soma together conquered darkness and won back the stolen cattle of light, the fire god blazing the path while the pressed juice fueled the gods' strength for the cosmic victory hymned in the Rigveda.

Guarded by

• Gandharvas

  The Gandharvas guard Soma in the celestial waters, keeping the sacred drink of immortality hidden until the gods secured it for the sacrifice.

Enemy of

• Brihaspati

  Soma abducted Tara from her husband Brihaspati, the guru of the gods, igniting the Tarakamaya war that split the devas into rival camps and was only resolved when Brahma himself compelled Soma to return her.

Member of

• Devas

  The Devas count among their number Indra, king of the gods and wielder of the thunderbolt; Agni, the sacred fire who carries offerings to heaven; Surya, who drives his chariot across the sky each day; Vayu, lord of the winds; Varuna, guardian of cosmic order and the waters; and Soma, the divine nectar personified.

• Navagraha

  Soma presides over the Moon among the nine Navagraha, the celestial bodies whose movements govern human fate in Hindu astrology, worshipped in temples across India to secure their benevolence.

Equivalent to

• Haoma(Persian)

  Soma and Haoma descend from the same Proto-Indo-Iranian sacred plant deity *Sauma, both ritually pressed and consumed for divine power — the Vedic pressing stones and the Zoroastrian haoma ceremony preserve cognate liturgies from their shared origin.

Associated with

• Daksha

  Daksha cursed Soma to waste away for neglecting twenty-six of his twenty-seven Nakshatra wives in favor of Rohini alone, a curse that explains the waning of the moon, partially lifted when Soma worshipped Shiva at Prabhasa so that his light would always return.

• Ganesha

  Ganesha cursed Chandra (the Moon) after Chandra laughed at him for falling off his mouse and spilling his modakas. The curse decreed that anyone who looked at the moon would suffer false accusations. Chandra begged forgiveness, and Ganesha modified the curse to apply only on Ganesha Chaturthi.

• Kshira Sagara

  Soma emerged from the churning of the Kshira Sagara as one of the fourteen divine treasures, a luminous embodiment of the moon claimed by Shiva to adorn his matted locks.

• Shiva

  Shiva placed the crescent moon Chandra in his matted locks to restore his light after Daksha's curse had weakened him, earning the epithet Chandrashekhara.