navagraha worshipped as deities

[Dominic Goodall]

> >>Who can provide
> >>me with references to graha worship given in the puranas? In the agamic
> >>canons?

As far as I am aware, there has still been no posting with information
about the worship of the planets in `agamic' sources.  Here are just
3 references.

Among the few surviving demonstrably early (i.e. known to writers of
the lineage of the 10th-century Kashmirian commentator Raamaka.n.tha II)
Tantras of the "Saiva Siddhaanta, the Kira.natantra (the earliest
MS of which is dated to 924 AD) devotes a brief chapter (15 verses) to
the topic: pa.tala 29.  In the Devakottai edition of 1932 this is
given the title grahayaagavidhi and appears as the 17th chapter of the
Kriyaapaada.

A South Indian Saiddhaantika anthology of quotations culled from
Siddhaantatantras and Saiddhaantika paddhatis called the
Sakalaagama[saara]sa"ngraha devotes ten verses (411--422b) to
navagrahapuujaa, attributing them to the Kira.na.  The verses in
question are not found in the Kira.na.  (The
Sakalaagama[saara]sa"ngraha is transmitted with considerable
variation---as are a few other works of the same and similar
titles---in a number of South Indian MSS.  The numeration I give is
that of the version published from Madras in 1974 by the South Indian
Archaka Sangham.)

The eclectic Saiddhaantika Tantra[saara]paddhati of (the supposedly
Keralan) Ii"saana"sivagurudeva gives `dhyaana"slokas' for all 9 grahas
in verses 7--15 of pa.tala 12 of its Kriyaapaada.

Doubtless other accounts could be found in other tantric sources,
particularly in relatively late Siddhaantas transmitted
in the Tamil-speaking South, but since many are not published, and
since even those published have appeared only in relatively
inaccessible South Indian editions, probably the only place to find
them all would be the French Institute in Pondicherry, which houses a
vast collection of manuscripts and books of the "Saiva Siddhaanta.
Dominic Goodall.