The Moon's mother was the woman who brought back the dawn

On the road, afraid of thieves in the dark, he shoved Mandavya away with his foot. Mandavya was no thief. He had been impaled on a stake and was in agony. He cursed the man to die at sunrise, and that was when the wife cried out. The night went on, the sacrifices stopped, and the gods began to fear that without day and night there would be no more months or seasons.

Brahma sent them to Anasuya, wife of the sage Atri: majesty, he said, is subdued by majesty. Anasuya gave no orders. "The might of a faithful wife may not be lost," she told the gods, and she went to the brahman's wife. The wife named the curse, and Anasuya promised her a husband: a new one, in the same form as before. At midnight on the tenth night she called up the sun. The husband fell dead, his wife caught him, and Anasuya's words brought him back healthy and young. The purana says both women draw their power from faithfulness to a husband: a woman, the text insists, has no sacrifice or fast of her own, and her merit lies in obedience. Yet in this story the gods can only ask.

For her reward Anasuya asked that Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva become her sons. The purana begins the Moon's birth with her bath after her period. Three sons were born to her, and the portion of Brahma became Soma, whom Indian tradition knows as the Moon. With his cool rays, the purana says, he makes creepers, healing plants and people grow. The gods came to her for the day. The night got the Moon.