शिक्षा व्याकरणं छन्दो निरुक्तं ज्योतिषं तथा |
कल्पश्चेति षडन्गानि वेदस्याहुर्मनीषिण:||
Astrology is reckoned as one among the six indispensable disciplines deemed to be the ancilliary to the study of the Veda, the supreme and holiest scripture of the Hindus. There is virtually no aspect of Hinduism, which is, in one way or the other, untouched by the sweeping influence of astrology.
ITS ANTIQUITY
Like the Veda itself, the origin of Hindu astrology is still shrouded in mystery. All one can say is that it is a branch of divine knowledge which was passed on to us by our ancient saints after envisioning it through their long penances for hundreds of years. The most notable among them was Saint Parasara (circa 3250 B.C.) whose system of prediction still continues to have the widest application to date throughout the Indian Union. It might not be quite out of context here to mention that he was incidentally the father of Saint Veda Vyasa, the founder of modern Hinduism.
Despite its indigenous origins, Indian astrology enriched itself with various research inputs contributed by different astrological traditions at different points of time, then-extant and now-defunct in other parts of the world. Prominent among them were those belonging to the ancient Roman, Greek, Babylonian, Egyptian and Arab civilizations. For instance, several words now being used in the professional parlance of Indian astrology sound phonetically un-Sanskrit-like and can not be traced to Sanskrit etymology.
Besides the gradual extinction of those civilizations, the emergence of new monotheistic religions had apparently served to deal a severe death blow to the continuity of those astrological traditions. Planetary and stellar gods were, perhaps, considered incompatible with the monotheism and conveniently dumped. Further, astrology and the remedies prescribed by it would have been viewed with suspicion and hatred being equated with witchcraft and black magic.
Finally, this science had no recourse other than taking refuge in the Indian States where monotheism has little or no appeal for masses.
ITS FUNDAMENTAL PHILOSOPHY
The central tenet of the Indian astrological doctrine is - that no event in man's life is a pure accident or coincidence. All experiences, whether good or bad or neutral, that man undergoes, are inescapable results of his thoughts, deeds, wishes and tendencies which were steadily and consciously cultivated by him in his previous incarnation (the life which he had lead before he was born to his present parents). Sometimes, these thoughts and deeds might date back to a few centuries as well.
God grants His child, the individual soul a trillion trillion chances to reform and refine itself through a succession of rebirths. He lets him play as he likes in this world. Man will ultimately get back to his Father when he grows mature enough to feel tired of this childish play (worldly life). The so-called hardships are in fact no punishments at all, but only a process of soul-purification and self-perfection, comparable to treatment by surgery. The stars and planets are not responsible for our destiny, for they are only indicative of our past, present and future courses, just like road signs. Astrology can somewhat acurately read these signs and crack God's cryptic code of star-planet arrangement in our birth-charts.
The visible phenomena in the cosmos are not ignorable chance-events but unmistakably have an underlying message to convey, which can be decipherd only by a trained hand with a macro viewpoint. For instance, our eyes view only a spectrum of colors. But our minds interpret them as different objects. Likewise, astronomy records various celestial phenomena and then it is the turn of astrology to explain what they hold in store for humanity. The distinguishing feature is, modern astronomy takes the celestial bodies for lifeless objects, while our ancient wisdom recognized them as divine persons or gods in the form of jyothis (lights). Hence the name jyotis-śaastram (astrology). Therefore the faith element of astrology is as vital as its empiric element.
In a way, we are all descendents of light too, having fed on the food that grows on trees by way of photosythesis with the help of sunlight. Then it is only natural that one kind of light affects or influences another. So, it is least surprising if the planets and stars impact us, our minds and thereby our deeds as well.
As evidenced by astronomy, the celestial movements have a tendency to recur with some degree of predetermined periodicity in a cyclic manner very much like the seasons and life-cycles in our terrestrial existence. Therefore the events which took place during a particular planetary combination are bound to recur, whenever the same combination repeats itself. The nature of the events depends on the nature of the (planetary and stellar) rays received and their umpteen combinations. All rays are not the same in their impact, as established by modern physicists long ago.
(To be continued)