Vedic astrology

The Vedas, the storehouses of knowledge, are the heritage of India. Astrology, or Jyotish, is a part of the Vedas. The «Rig Veda» contains about 30 shlokas on astrology, the «Yajur Veda» 44, and the «Atharva Veda» as many as 162 shlokas. The Indian sages also created other immortal classical texts known by the name of the «Puranas», which likewise contain the seeds of astrology. The sages proclaimed Bharata-varsha (the ancient name of India) «the land of Karma», where people reap the fruits of their actions. Karma and its consequences belong to the domain of astrology, although they also have a general spiritual significance.

Astrology is the science of the influence of the planets and stars upon people and upon earthly events. The movement and the placement of the planets, and time (Kala), exert an influence upon each of us. From the movement of the planets one can predict the destinies of people and of nations, sudden floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other occurrences on Earth. Astrology is a divine science that links the astronomical movements of the planets with physical, mental and spiritual reactions. Astrological science is founded on the basic assumptions of the influence of the planets upon us, of the efficacy of the law of Karma and of cause-and-effect connections, and of the continuation of life even after physical death. Particular positions and configurations of the stars and planets correspond to various events in life, and astrology helps to foresee these events.

Every science needs research, new theories, changes and evolution at all stages of its development. New ideas and systems are constantly arising. The development of a science presupposes repeated observations, the formulation of theories and final conclusions about their validity. Unfortunately, astrology has always lacked these basic elements, because of which it has turned into something like a myth and has proved unable to defend itself against the attacks of sceptics. In India astrological knowledge is scattered through numerous classical texts in different Indian languages, which makes uniting them into a single whole an overwhelming task. Superficial records and the absence of a systematic scientific approach to the development of astrology in India have been the cause of the appearance of a great many poorly educated astrologers, which has badly damaged the reputation of this divine science.

In ancient times astrological science was passed on from generation to generation by the method of shruti and smriti: from teacher to pupil in oral form, which was the accepted practice in India because of the absence of paper and printing technology. Most of the innermost knowledge of astrology was kept in the heads of the brahmins and in the sacred scriptures, but with the coming of the Muslims and the aggressive Mughals this knowledge was subjected to fanatical attacks unequalled in their prejudice. That is why the few texts and manuscripts on Jyotish that have come down to our time often lack important connecting links. Many scholars in the past have tried to reconstruct these missing elements, but their attempts met with no success and at times created still more disorder and confusion. Now, however, we are witnessing a revival of Vedic astrology. The market is overflowing with literature on the most varied astrological subjects. Let us hope that this tendency continues…

The eight elements of the analysis

Vedic astrologers use a rational method of analysis that includes eight elements:

1. The solar system. At the centre of our solar system is the Sun. Nine planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto — together with a belt of asteroids revolve in elliptical orbits around the Sun. Vedic astrologers do not use Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. On the other hand, the classical authors grant the status of planets to the Moon and to the two lunar nodes, the shadow points called Rahu and Ketu. The nodes have no physical body but are the points of intersection of the orbits of the Sun and the Moon. They are determined with the help of mathematical calculations. The planets Mercury and Venus lie in the space between the Sun and the orbit of the Earth, and are therefore called the inner or lower planets. The orbits of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn lie on the other side of the Earth, because of which they are called the outer or higher planets.

   Rahu and Ketu always move in the reverse direction, that is, they are in retrograde motion. The Sun and the Moon are never retrograde. The remaining planets move through the Zodiac in the usual direction, but sometimes certain invisible forces create obstacles in their path, because of which the planets stop for a time, «turn round» and begin to move backwards. At least, that is how it appears to observers from the Earth. In time the planets return to their natural course. This phenomenon, when a planet moves backwards, is called retrogression and occurs when the planet is close to the Earth.

   The planets form relations with one another — friendly and hostile.

2. The Zodiac. The path that the Sun travels in a year is called the ecliptic. The part of the sky that extends 8° on either side of the ecliptic bears the name Zodiac. The Moon and the planets move within this belt. The Zodiac is divided into 12 equal parts of 30°, each of which is a separate constellation of the Zodiac (rashi). Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces are the signs of the Zodiac. Each of them is ruled by a particular planet. The signs have their own special qualities and play an important role in the interpretation of astrological charts. Descriptions of their characteristics can be found in the corresponding sections of this site.

3. The stars, or nakshatras. The whole Zodiac is divided into 27 equal parts of 13°20′, known as nakshatras — the stars, constellations or lunar mansions. Every nakshatra has its own ruling planet. The first nakshatra, which begins at 0° of Aries, is under the rulership of Ketu. Then the sequence of rulers is as follows: Venus, the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Rahu, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury. The series ends in the last degree of Cancer and begins anew from 0° of Leo, finishing at the end of the sign of Scorpio. The third cycle begins with Sagittarius and ends at the end of the sign of Pisces.

4. Time. We are all familiar with such measures of time as local mean time, the standard time of a particular country or time zone, and Greenwich mean time. But there is also another system of measuring time — the so-called sidereal time, which is determined by the rotation of the Earth relative to a fixed star. The length of a sidereal day is 23 hours 56 minutes. Time measured by the sidereal day is called sidereal time. When the beginning of the constellation of Aries (by the Sayana system) crosses the observer’s meridian, the sidereal time is 00:00. In astrology the first house of the horoscope is taken to be the point of the Lagna. The Lagna, or Ascendant, is the sign of the Zodiac rising on the eastern horizon at a particular moment of time. It is the point of intersection of the ecliptic and the line of the horizon at a particular geographical place and at a particular time. The position of the Lagna depends on the rotation of the Earth about its axis, that is, it depends on the sidereal time at the given geographical place at the given moment. The calculated degree of the point of the Lagna forms the cusp of the first house of the horoscope.

   The hour of birth is rarely known to the minute, and the Lagna changes sign about every two hours — that is why the time of birth is refined by rectification.

5. The houses of the horoscope. There are 12 houses in all. The first house takes the sign in which the point of the Lagna falls. The next constellation determines the second house, the one after it the third, and so on.

   In the Jyotish system a sign is equivalent to a house of the horoscope. In Western astrology the picture is somewhat different: there the starting point of a house is represented by the cusp, and the first house is formed by a space of 30 degrees beginning from the cusp. In the Vedic system, however, the cusp represents the centre of the house, and the house itself extends 15 degrees on either side of the cusp.

   Since the Zodiac is in constant motion, in 24 hours each of the signs has the opportunity to be in the status of Lagna.

6. Janma rashi. This is the sign in which the Moon stands at the time of a person’s birth. The janma rashi also bears the name of Chandra Lagna (the lunar Lagna) and plays a no less important role than the Lagna itself.

7. Aspects. By an aspect is meant a particular distance between two planets or points of the Zodiac at which they act upon one another. In Indian astrology all the planets aspect the house opposite to themselves. In addition, Jupiter aspects the 5th and 9th houses from its position, Mars the 4th and 8th houses, and Saturn the 3rd and 10th. Western astrologers determine aspects on the basis of the distance in degrees between two planets or between a planet and a cusp.

8. Ayanamsha. The imaginary sphere within which the whole Solar system is contained is called the celestial sphere. The projection of the Earth’s equator onto this sphere forms the celestial equator. When the Sun moves from the south to the north of the celestial equator, it crosses it at the point of the vernal equinox. The other point of intersection of the celestial equator and the Sun’s orbit, which is formed as it moves from north to south, bears the name of the point of the autumnal equinox.

   Observations show that the point of the vernal equinox, which also serves as the beginning of the sign of Aries, does not stay still. Every year, when the Sun reaches the point of the vernal equinox, it turns out that the position of the Earth relative to the fixed star Revati has shifted by an angular distance of about 50.3 seconds in a westerly direction from its position on the equinox day of the previous year. It follows that the equinoctial points move slowly along the ecliptic in the reverse direction. The angular distance between the starting point of the fixed Zodiac and the point of the vernal equinox is called the Ayanamsha. The Indian system of astrology uses the fixed zodiac, also known as the Nirayana zodiac, where the first degree of Aries is counted from a particular fixed star in the constellation of Revati. Western astrologers, for their part, use the moving zodiac, also called the Sayana zodiac, and take the point of the vernal equinox as the first degree of Aries. It has been calculated that in the year 285 of our era the two Zodiacs coincided. In 2008 the Ayanamsha was 23°58′. To calculate the positions of the planets in the Nirayana zodiac (Jyotish) one must subtract the value of the Ayanamsha from the corresponding values of the planets’ coordinates in the Sayana system (Western astrology).

Where to read further

The eight elements above are the alphabet of the subject; every one of them is taken apart in its own section of the site.

• Planets — the nine grahas of Jyotish: their nature, friendships and enmities, and the periods they rule.
• Zodiac signs — the twelve rashis, their rulers, elements and qualities.
• Nakshatras — the twenty-seven lunar mansions, their rulers and their four padas.
• Houses of the horoscope — what each of the twelve houses is responsible for.
• House lords — what the lord of one house gives when it stands in another.
• Planetary yogas — the combinations that make a chart strong or weak.
• Rectification — how the time of birth is refined from the events of a life.
• Vedic astrology by Agarwal — the theory of Jyotish laid out step by step.
• «Surya-Siddhanta» astrology school — the school’s materials and its approach to teaching.

The chart itself can be calculated right here: give the date, the time and the place of birth on the main page and the site will build the rashi and the divisional charts, the dashas and the reading of the houses. What the day itself is fit for is shown by the calendar, a date for an undertaking is chosen in date selection (muhurta), and a chart read by an astrologer rather than by a program is what a consultation is for.