The Saadhu who outsmarted the Navagrahas

  In Hinduism, the Navagrahas ( The Nine planets) are said to the forces that bring  fortune and ill fortune to  life, the Navagrahas are  masters in controlling  the Pancha Boothas ( fire, air, water, wind, earth and sky) and we Humans are made up of the Pancha boothas 

( We are made up of Panchaboothas our body has fire in the form of heat,  air,water, the food we got from earth and our mind is considered as the sky )so the Navagrahas can influence human life in good or bad ways  but do you know a sage outsmarted the Navagrahas  this is his story  

Long ago  in a place called Idaikattur, there lived a Sage since he belongs to the village of Idaikattur  he was known as Idaikattar, he was a master in astrology and a disciple of Konkanaar, He observed the  moments of planets and predicted a great famine is coming and it will last for 12 years  to prepare himself to face the coming famine, he started to grow plants that can withstand drought  all over the village  and trained his goats to eat only the plants that can withstand drought and he started to renovate his hut he mixed paddy with the mud and built a hut   around a small well  the water that came fro and waited  

At last, the Famine came most of the villagers  and cattle suffered a lot 6 months has passed the life of the people were getting worse day by day but Idaikattar wasn't affected by it  slowly he caught the eyes of the Navagrahas they were surprised how Idaikattar was unaffected by the famine  so they disguised themself as humans and visited  Idaikattar, he welcomed them to his hut  inside the hut they saw a small well which he and the goats uses for  drinking, he gave the  goats some drought plants to eat after eating the plants the goats felt itchy and scratched their back against the mud wall  the paddy that was mixed in the mud fell down and he collected the paddy washed it and prepared a simple meal to the nine guest  from the paddy and goat's milk, The Navagrahas were shocked  after having the meal the nine guest fell asleep  they were woken up by the sound of thunder when the woke up they saw heavy rain  and some of them noticed that they were moved from the place they fell asleep  they were puzzled 

 Idaikattar smiled and said, "greetings navagrahas hope my simple hospitality satisfied you, the moments and position of the navagrahas influence every life since your previous position brought famine I changed your positions to bring this heavy rain  and even if famine comes again I can survive with my drought plants and goats only thing  the position that idaikattar changed is the position of Navagrahas we see in many temples

The Navagrahas were shocked beyond the limits they  blessed him and went to their respective places form this story came the saying " WE CAN WIN FATE WITH WIT"

A normal human can't do such a thing but Idaikattar is a normal human who attain ASTA SITHIS  and one of the 18 siddhars of ancient Tamil Nadu whom most of us have forgotten