Astrological Miscellany

Message from Mrs. Gayatri Devi Vasudev:

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You will be glad to learn that I have just launched THE NEW ASTROLOGICAL MAGAZINE, a monthly devoted to Jyotisha or astrology and other aspects of India’s rich intellectual heritage. The March 2009 issue which is now on the stands is the inaugural issue. THE NEW ASTROLOGICAL MAGAZINE seeks to uphold the highest traditions in astrological journalism pioneered by my late father Dr. B. V. Raman.

The inaugural issue of THE NEW ASTROLOGICAL MAGAZINE will be the March 2009 issue to be on the stands by mid-February and will be the “Dr.  B.V. Raman Memorial issue”  dedicated to the Father of Modern Astrology Dr. B.V. Raman. It will carry world predictions for the lunar year Virodhi (March 2009 to March 2010) apart from scholarly papers by well-known names in the field in addition to annual and monthly forecasts for the 12 Zodiacal signs.

THE NEW ASTROLOGICAL MAGAZINE will provide a platform for discussion and exchange of ideas as well as for research papers on different aspects of astrology — Phalita (natal predictive astrology), Samhita (mundane astrology) and Ganita (Indian astronomy) — as well as related areas of study. Our aim in bringing out this magazine is to continue Dr. B.V. Raman’s efforts to revive and rejuvenate the study of astrology as an academic subject. It will also strive to create respect for this ancient science for its rational and logical methods amongst the younger generation and dispel wrong notions on it in an effort to enthuse them to take to a diligent study of the subject.

It is our sincere wish that you associate with us in our work by joining our list of subscribers. I am attaching the subscription details for you to share with your friends.

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Folks, I am sorry to have kept out of touch for such a long time. A host of personal and work related commitments do not allow a lot of time to be devoted to Astrology and by extension, to this blog.

There was a question on the post of General Strength of a Bhava about Venus being a yogakaraka in 6th house. The source of this statement is a book on Jyotish – Uttara Kalamrita, pages 60 and 61 of the Hindi edition, published by Ranjan Publications.

I could have quoted the portions from Uttara Kalamrita here, but in its current form, it may not make sense to a lot of non-Hindi speaking astrologers. I thought of translating the relevant paragraph and publishing it on this site, but then I realized that it is not an easy task. I promptly ended the effort and now I wonder how astrologers who write their books in English do it. I also wonder if these works are really error free.

I have reasons to believe that there are mistakes in these books and majority of these errors are in translation and explanations provided by the authors. I will give the following example, but will refrain from telling the name of the book and the author. All I would like to say that this book is in English and the author has provided English translations for Sanskrit shlokas.

Moon and Venus are considered females in Vedic Astrology. In this book on Vedic astrology, the author does not disagree and calls them both स्त्रियौ. In the same book, there is another shloka on qualities of Venus where Sanskrit shloka reads – सुखी बली. The translation provided by the author for this phrase is “fond of comforts, manly and potent”.

IMHO, सुखी should read “full of joy”. बली can mean “full of strength” but not “manly and potent”, unless of course if “strength” can be attributed only to males and I am being extremely unreasonable. Still, a planet being defined as a “female” in one shloka and being described “manly and potent” in another is not something I as a student of Astrology can reconcile with.

I have subscribed to Express Star Teller, a Chennai based Vedic Astrology monthly magazine and have been reading it for few months now, after the disappointing closure of The Astrological Magazine.

My initial impression of this magazine was (a) not very good editorials and (b) too many ads, as obviously the hangover from the previous favourite remains. Well, there are a lot of ads compared to AM, but what the hell… probably the commercial angle will keep the magazine afloat for a long time to come. Don’t we put up with tons of ads in the Times of India or India Today?

Although, I must admit that Star Teller has started to grow on me. Some of the articles in the magazine are pretty good, e.g., the articles on importance of Lagna in the present issue and the astro profile of John Nash in the June 2008 issue are written by some knowledgeable authors and are a good read.

I am not very comfortable with the magazine’s emphasis on Lal Kitab remedies. However, it could be because I am not familiar with these remedies and have not been exposed to them before. Do these really work?

The purpose of this article to help a student of astrology take the first step – familiarization with a horoscope and how to make sense of the chart we see in front of our eyes. Most of the concepts here are generic but since I am myself a student of Vedic or Indian Astrology, there is a clear bias towards this branch of astrology.

Introduction

The path of movement of planets through the sky is divided into twelve signs or constellation – Aries through Pisces. These signs are fixed in the sky and provide a backdrop for creating a horoscope. Planets, which revolve around the sun, pass through these signs in the sky during their course of movement. We look at the the planes and signs as viewed from a place on Earth and create a horoscope. Therefore, a horoscope can be accurately called as a “map of heavens” at the time of casting it.

The signs should be visualized as a belonging to a belt in the sky that is formed by one sign following another – Aries is the first sign, followed by Taurus, Gemini and so on. As earth rotates around its axis, what is viewed from a position from earth changes and we can one sign rising and other setting while others are in the queue. We can see stars and signs rising and setting in a day of length of twenty four hours and as there are twelve signs, it takes almost two hours for a sign to rise or set.

If you look at the skies, the perceived size of various signs is very different, e.g. Scorpio and Leo look much larger than Taurus. However, the belt that we discussed earlier does not contain the entire sign from head to tail. Without complicating matters, lets just consider all signs to be of the same size for now and allocate 30° to each of the twelve signs. 360° ÷ 12 = 30° and we are all good.

Signs

Signs are numbered one through 12. The name of the signs and their “rulers” are mentioned in the following table. The significance of the rulers will be explained later in the article.

Ascendant is defined to be the sign that is rising in the east at the time of casting of horoscope. Since it takes two hours for a sign to rise completely, the degree if the ascendant is the measure of the extent to which a sign has risen.

Horoscope

Consider a horoscope to be a chart of the skies where you see these constellation or signs. There are twelve houses because there are twelve signs. Each house corresponds to a sign. The houses start with the ascendant – that’s the house 1. Counting from the 1st house, we have 2nd, 3rd and so on till we reach the 12th house. Each house in a horoscope corresponds to a field of activity. 1st house corresponds to

Thanks, “Interested in Astrology”. I have corrected a typo as pointed out by you on the help page.

Just wanted to point out a typo on the below link – maximum points is 36, not 38 as you have indicated in the line “For a 100% match, the value would be 38”. Please do correct when you get a chance.

All, the page is horoscope-compatibility-matching-help.

I have updated the Vedic astrology reference book page with a small description of each book. I hope to keep this list current as and when I get new books on this subject.

My primary language of learning astrology is Hindi and I tend to think in this language whenever I look at a horoscope. Therefore, I try to purchase books in Hindi and you would a lot of Hindi books here. English editions of these classics are available most of the time, from the same publisher, although editors and/or translators would be different.

My opinion of these books should not be thought of as their review because one can not pass judgement on ones gurus and teachers. While reading any book on any subject, it is not just the subject matter that affects me. I get affected by the style of writing, lack or abundance of examples on the subject being presented, language and even a simple thing like typeset affects me and an opinion is formed. That said, even if the style of a teacher does not suit the student, the student still learns something and gains from the association.

My subscription cheque for “The Astrological Magazine” has been returned with a note from them:

We regret to announce that due to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control, the publication of The Astrological Magazine will stop with the December 2007 issue. All unexpired subscription amounts will be refunded shortly. We thank all our subscribers for their kind co-operation in this matter.

Cynics may find satire and irony in this statement, but its very sad indeed for the followers of this magazine.

Panch (Five) + Anga (Parts). Panchang is used to determine auspicious and inauspicious parts of the day. Any Vedic calendar contains this information for each day of the month. Start and end times of festivals is determined using Panchanga, as are muhuratas for performing rites etc. This application generates information for 1. Vaar (Day of the week), 2. Tithi, 3. Nakshatra, 4. Yoga and 5. Karana.

Whenever someone takes any jyotishi’s service, it is customary to pay him/her some money as dakshina. However, I do not run this site for money.
Back in 2001, I wrote a small program for myself to generate charts. I then showed it to some friends and they suggested that I should design an interface and display the horoscope somehow on the web. So basically the chart maker program is purely a result of a hobby. Why should I charge money for something that I am interested in? Continue reading

A very happy new year to all the Blog Readers. I was supposed to publish varshaphal on my blog, but personal and professional life is keeping me bit busy… I hope to do it soon.

Shall let you folks know.