Retold from the Mahabharata, Shalya Parva, Section XXXV (Ganguli/Roy translation) · ages 6–9
Twenty-Seven Sisters in the Sky
Daksha gives his twenty-seven daughters to Soma, the Moon. Each sister is a nakshatra, a group of stars, and Soma stays only with Rohini.
Chandra and the Twenty-Seven Stars · Part 1
Long ago there was a father named Daksha. He was the lord of all living creatures.
Daksha had twenty-seven daughters. One, two, three… Can you count them all? Twenty-seven.
All the daughters had large eyes. Their beauty had no equal in the world.
Daksha gave all his daughters to Soma, the Moon. Some people call him Chandra. They became Soma’s wives.
Each sister is one nakshatra, a group of stars.
The sisters helped people count time.
Of all the sisters, Rohini had the most beauty. She was the loveliest of them all. She is a nakshatra too.
Soma took great delight in Rohini. She was dear to him.
Soma stayed with Rohini, and with no one else, for a long, long time.
But the other sisters were not pleased.
Each sister is one nakshatra.
For grown-ups
Where this story comes from
This story is retold from the Mahabharata, Shalya Parva, Section XXXV, where Balarama visits Prabhasa and the text tells how the Moon came to be there. We used the Ganguli/Roy English translation (archive.org mahabharataofkri05royp, pages 139 to 141). Verse numbers are approximate, good to about one verse. We checked no other edition and give no Sanskrit wording. This is a faithful simplification. We added no event, person or reason that the passage does not give. The words are ours. In English the translator marks “exclusively” in brackets (page 9), and “nakshatra” is our word for the “constellations” the passage names (page 5). We gave no names to the other sisters, told no wedding, gave no reason for Soma’s love for Rohini, and included no astronomy. The passage says “constellations”; the story says “a group of stars”. The passage names the Moon “Chandramas”; “Chandra” is the retelling’s short form. Neither is a word of the source. Outside the passage: in Vedic astrology, the nakshatra the Moon occupied at the time you were born is called your birth nakshatra. The app calls it your “Birth Star”, which is why the story uses the word “nakshatra”. Jyothshi can help you find yours. The Tara Bala page needs the birth nakshatra and a city.
The Balarama and Prabhasa frame, and the war before it (about verses 1–40). The passage begins with Balarama’s visit and the war. They are not part of this story’s arc, so the story begins with Daksha.
The curse and the wasting (about verses 57–66). These belong to later parts. The story does not tell them.
The passage gives about ten facts. The story tells one fact per page and repeats “Each sister is one nakshatra” as a refrain. The refrain adds no fact. “Chandra” on page 4 is a retelling gloss for the passage’s “Chandramas” (about verse 50). Two more questions a child may ask. “Why did he like Rohini best?” The passage does not say why; it says she was the loveliest and that he stayed with her (about verses 44–46). “How did they help people count time?” The passage only says they helped in calculating time (about verse 42), so the story only says they helped people count time.
The question children ask here
“How can all of them be the loveliest?” The passage says two things, and the story keeps both:
no one in the world was lovelier than the sisters (about verse 43);
Rohini was the loveliest of them (about verse 44).
“The story says both things. We do not know more than that.”
