śrībrahmayāmale śrī śukra stavarājaḥ

A stavaraja from the Brahmayamala with Prajapati for its seer, and it praises Venus by going through his biography rather than his attributes. He is Devayani's father; by extreme austerity he was made pure and obtained from Shankara the lore called Jivana, which brings the dead back; with it he revived the demons of the Three Cities after Shiva's arrow had pierced them; he was Yayati's teacher; he gave Bali his kingdom; and he gave the lore itself to the son of Brihaspati. Between those verses sits the one purely astronomical stanza in it, and it is exact: he stands in the middle of the field of stars, lighting the sky with his own brightness, and at his rising everything here becomes fit for auspicious rites, while when he has gone to his setting there is ill omen. Its fruit is to be sought on a Friday.