hindu-devotional-texts/src/vaar/SOURCES.md

Hand-curated, typed, authoritative Hindu devotional content — aartis, chalisas, kathas, stotras, mantras, ashtottaras & sahasranamas, Vedic suktas, daily prayers, puja vidhi, Navratri, tirthas, the festival/ekadashi calendar, and full scriptures (Bhagavad

# `vaar/` — sources and verification notes

Internal record of what the Vaar Devata (weekday-deity) module ships, how it
was sourced, the normalisations applied, and the remaining soft spots. **Not**
surfaced in any user-facing field — the one exported prose object,
`VAAR_SOURCES`, is a deliberately source-free disclaimer (it names no
references); research provenance lives here and in code comments only.

## What this module is

The seven weekday (vaara) entries, indexed by `Date.getDay()` (0 = Sunday). Each
carries: the ruling graha, one or more presiding deities (all of **equal**
standing — list order is not a ranking), a ruling colour, three top offerings,
the weekday mantra, a one-paragraph fasting/vrat summary, and labelled
regional/sectarian variant notes. No per-day Vrat Katha text in v1.

This is **researched, cross-checked, shipped-provisional** content — the same
footing as the Phase 3 kathas and the Phase 8 puja/navratri modules, not the
hand-typed-from-one-canonical-text footing of the aartis/chalisas. It reconciles
the repo's no-AI-content rule (PLAN.md Conventions) the same way those modules
do: every datum is widely-attested traditional Saptavara-vrat practice, traced
to the references below and never to model memory, and it ships flagged
provisional (`reviewPending: true` on all seven mantras) until a qualified
reviewer pass lands. Coverage-tracker rows are `draft`.

## Sourcing posture

The weekday→graha→deity associations, ruling colours, signature offerings,
weekday mantras, and fasting rules are **standard panchang / vrat material** —
the kind almanacs (Gita Press, Thakur Prasad, Mhalsa/Kalnirnay-style panchangs)
and vrat-katha compilations carry in near-identical form, with the regional
variation noted per-entry. The associations were cross-checked across multiple
such Saptavara-vrat references for agreement before shipping.

**Honest limitation:** unlike the `ashtottara/` and `prayers/` modules, this
file does **not** yet record a per-datum citation against a single named
printed edition or a line-by-line two-source collation. The material is
common-knowledge traditional practice and was cross-checked for consensus, but
a reviewer pass that pins each association/offering/fasting rule to a cited
edition is **owed** before any row moves past `draft`. This is the module's
single largest soft spot.

## The weekday mantras

| Day | Mantra (Devanagari) | Form | `jaapSlug` |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | ॐ सूर्याय नमः | deity dative (Sūrya-praṇāma) | `null` |
| Monday | ॐ नमः शिवाय | pañcākṣarī (no bīja) | `om-namah-shivaya` |
| Tuesday | ॐ हं हनुमते नमः | Maṅgala-bīja + deity dative | `om-ham-hanumate-namah` |
| Wednesday | ॐ गं गणपतये नमः | Gaṇeśa-bīja + deity dative | `om-gan-ganapataye-namah` |
| Thursday | ॐ नमो भगवते वासुदेवाय | dvādaśākṣarī (no bīja) | `null` |
| Friday | ॐ श्रीं महालक्ष्म्यै नमः | Lakṣmī-bīja + deity dative | `om-shrim-mahalakshmyai-namah` |
| Saturday | ॐ शं शनैश्चराय नमः | Śani-bīja + deity dative | `null` |

Four of the seven match a verified `mantras/` preset verbatim (the `jaapSlug`
column) and inherit that module's provenance. The other three (Sūrya-praṇāma,
Viṣṇu dvādaśākṣarī, Śani graha-bīja) are standard, widely-recited forms; each
mantra's `variantNote` discloses which *category* of form it is (deity-praṇāma
vs. graha-bīja+dative vs. deity-bīja+dative) so the choice is transparent.

**IAST (2026-05-29).** Every mantra's `iast` was normalised to the project
standard anusvāra `ṃ` (the module originally used the overdot `ṁ`) and
machine round-trips against its Devanagari with `@indic-transliteration/sanscript`
(Dev→IAST→Dev), the same bar the Geeta IAST and the puja/navratri mantras meet.
Asserted in `scripts/audit-verify.cjs`.

**`reviewPending`.** All seven mantras carry `reviewPending: true` (the
`VaarMantra` type fixes it to literal `true`). Unlike the puja/navratri mantras
— whose flag was dropped once their IAST was verified — the vaar flag is kept:
it gates the **whole researched bundle** (deity associations, offerings,
fasting rules, mantra choice), not only the IAST, and that bundle has not had a
qualified-reviewer pass. Do not flip it without a scholar sign-off.

## Deities outside the roster

Three figures appear by name only, with `rosterId: null` (no per-deity
cross-link, equal visual weight): **Shani Dev** (Saturday), **Murugan /
Kartikeya** (Tuesday, South India), and **Brihaspati / Guru** (Thursday). These
are intentional — they are not in the library's 19-deity content roster but are
genuine weekday deities, so they are surfaced as text.

## Soft spots — owed before any row moves past `draft`

1. **Per-datum citation against a named edition** — the central debt (see
   "Sourcing posture"). The associations are consensus traditional practice but
   are not yet pinned line-by-line to a cited printed almanac/vrat edition.
2. **Mantra reviewer pass** — IAST is machine-verified, but the *choice* of
   weekday mantra (and the graha-bīja vs. deity-bīja reasoning in each
   `variantNote`) wants a Sanskrit/jyotiṣa reviewer. `reviewPending: true`.
3. **Regional variation** — weekday-deity practice varies widely by region and
   sampradaya. The `context` chips and `variantNotes` record the major
   variants, but the lists are not exhaustive.
4. **No Vrat Katha text in v1** — the per-weekday vrat kathas (Brihaspativar,
   Shanivar, etc.) are referenced in `variantNotes` but not shipped as text.