ശ്രീ ശുക്ര നാമ സ്തോത്രമ്

Sixteen names of Venus from the Skanda Purana in three short verses, and what holds them together is a colour. Shukra means bright or white, and the list keeps returning to it: white-garmented, frost-hued, white as the kunda flower, of pure rays, ornamented in white. The rest divide between his learning and his office. He is Kavya and Kavi, the poet; Ushanas; one who has gone to the far side of the Veda and its limbs; a knower of his own self; an ocean of compassion, reachable by knowledge, and the giver of sons. Three consecutive names put polity at the centre of what he is — the knower of it, the maker of it, and the one who walks its road — before he is called the lord of the planets. Its single verse of fruit asks for length of life, wealth, ease, a son, and a good place to live.