navagraha stotram'

Nine verses, one for each graha, and a closing line that names Vyasa as the composer. Each verse pins a planet to a single image and ends in namah — Surya red as the japa hibiscus, Budha dark as the priyangu bud, Shani the colour of collyrium, Ketu like a flame-of-the-forest blossom. It is the shortest complete Navagraha prayer most households know, and the one recited at temple navagraha shrines and before a graha-shanti homa.

Significance

People reach for it when a jyotishya reading turns up a hard dasha, or when a run of months simply refuses to go right. The stotra is unusually modest about what it does. Its closing phala-shruti says the recitation drives off duhsvapna — the dreams that spoil sleep — and the peeda born of grahas and nakshatras, and that trouble from thieves and from fire stays away. It does not promise wealth, a job, or a marriage. Tradition holds that the work of the stotra is on the person standing under the planets, not on the planets themselves: you name all nine, including the two you are afraid of, and stop treating any of them as an enemy.

How and when to chant

The common practice is morning, after a bath, facing east, with a lamp lit. Many chant it daily as part of the morning prayers; others keep it for the weekday of the graha that is troubling them — Sunday for Surya, Tuesday for Kuja, Saturday for Shani. At a temple, people chant it standing before the navagraha platform and then make pradakshina around it, nine circuits being the usual count. Three or nine recitations at home is the ordinary measure; some keep it to a single careful reading. Read it slowly enough that the nine names land separately — the whole point is that no graha is skipped.