Rahu (Rāhu) is one of the most unusual figures of Hindu cosmology: a “shadow planet” rather than a physical celestial body. He is connected with the churning of the Ocean of Milk. An asura secretly drank the nectar of immortality, but Viṣṇu severed him before the nectar could pass through his entire body. The immortal head became Rāhu, while the remaining body became Ketu.
Rāhu’s attempts to swallow the Sun and Moon provide the traditional explanation for solar and lunar eclipses. Astronomically, Rāhu corresponds to the ascending lunar node, the point at which the Moon’s orbit crosses the ecliptic.
Astrologically, Rāhu represents obsession, ambition, unconventionality, illusion, foreignness, disruption, and insatiable desire. He magnifies whatever attracts him. His central theme is therefore hunger—the restless desire to acquire an experience, identity, status, or knowledge that always seems to lie just beyond one’s present condition.
