Ketu Mantra - Om Sraam Sreem Sraum Sah Ketave Namah

The Ketu Mantra — the beej mantra of Ketu (the south lunar node), chanted to pacify Ketu and gain its protective, spiritual grace.

Meaning

With the seed-syllables of Ketu, the mantra bows to the shadow-planet Ketu, the headless node of detachment, intuition and liberation.

Benefits

Chanted to reduce the obstacles, anxieties and unexpected difficulties of Ketu and to gain its protection, detachment and spiritual benefits.

How the Mantra Is Built

The seeds Sraam Sreem Sraum carry Ketu's hissing sa sound through the three vowel energies, with Sah as the release and Ketave Namah as the salutation — "to Ketu," the headless trunk of the eclipse serpent, the south node of the Moon. Where Rahu is hunger without satisfaction, Ketu is detachment without direction: past-life momentum, sudden severances, mysticism, moksha and the intuition that arrives without reasoning. He is called the flag (ketu) — a sign pointing beyond the world.

How to Chant

Chant on Tuesdays or Saturdays, at dusk, facing south-west; his offerings are mixed-colour or smoke-grey cloth, horse gram, and a lamp of sesame oil. The classical vowed count for Ketu is 17,000 repetitions; the everyday practice is one mala of 108 weekly. Because Ketu is the moksha-karaka — the significator of liberation — his japa is traditionally accompanied by a few minutes of silent meditation after the count, letting the mantra dissolve rather than rushing on.

When Astrology Prescribes It

The Ketu mantra is prescribed through Ketu dasha (seven years), for Ketu with the Moon or in the lagna — showing as unexplained anxiety, rootlessness, sudden losses or health puzzles that evade diagnosis — and as the paired remedy with Rahu's mantra in Kaal Sarp Dosha; see the Kaal Sarp Dosha calculator. Worship of Ganesha, Ketu's presiding deity, is his traditional companion remedy. Pacified, Ketu gives the finest of his gifts: penetrating insight and genuine contentment.

Ketu's wider regimen matches his renunciate nature: charity of mixed grains, blankets or an umbrella to the poor; feeding stray dogs, the animal of the nodes; and the deliberate simplification of life — fewer possessions, fewer entanglements — which the tradition reads as cooperating with Ketu rather than resisting him. His gemstone is cat's eye (lehsunia), worn only under proper astrological advice. Those in Ketu dasha are counselled to take up meditation and pilgrimage, the two activities Ketu is said to reward beyond all others.

The Ketu Mantra - Om Sraam Sreem Sraum Sah Ketave Namah above is given in both Devanagari (Sanskrit) and Roman transliteration so you can read it in whichever script you are comfortable with — switch between the two using the buttons above, share the link, or download a PDF.