ARTICLES ON VEDIC/HINDU/SIDEREAL SUBJECTS
OR THE ASTROLOGY OF THE ANCIENTS
Here you can read from my growing collection of astrology articles.
The English menu is found at the bottom left.
Links to the individual articles (presently under translation) are found at the bottom of this page.
All my articles are based on Chandra Om's integrated system of astrology, the Astrology of the Ancients – indeed, most of them are edited translations from Chandra's lectures. (Copyright © is reserved on all texts here by Chandra Om and Kartikeya - Janos Melocco, Budapest, 2001-2012. You may freely quote us with notification of this author and designating the source of your quotation in an appropriate way, but you may not print or publish quotes in a book or an article form without our prior written approval).
This is a lengthy introduction on
- what kind of astrology we researched and tested;
- why I am calling it the Astrology of the Ancients;
- and why will you see some Western elements in it.
If you are not curious, just go straight to the bottom of the page for the individual articles.
INTRODUCTION
and my explanation of the term “the Astrology of the Ancients”
For want of a better term, I now call this system “the Astrology of the Ancients.” The reason is that during my apprenticeship, I began to realize that what we are studying is not just standard Indian astrology. Interestingly enough, Chandra Om had been a practicing professional astrologer for years before adopting Indian astrology and Indian techniques. This is a subject that is not easy to define. First of all, much has to adapted from Hindu classics to start out with. A lot of what you can read on Jyotish, Hindu Astrology, or Indian Astrology comes from a collection of medieval writings which often tell you that the elephant is going to die in the well when this or that kind of planetary confluence is experienced, or that the roof of the house is bad if another constellation is seen, or that the King is going to be angry at you. These obviously have to be "translated," so you can say truck instead of elephant, or the Tax Authority instead of the King's wrath. But the difficulty of translation comes mostly from the fact that the classics usually do not tell you why this is so. (Or sometimes they do, but you wonder why suddenly a certain astrological principle is emphasized as opposed to others…) It is said that Jyotish Pandits in India teach the underlying principles personally to their students, likewise the hierarchy of the underlying principles. But as far as I know, they might be content in simply having their disciples (who usually begin at an early age) memorize lots of tables and interpretations, and either supply them with the principles later or simply let them find out such on their own. Finally, most people who study traditional astrology in India start at a very early age.
The astrology literature of modern India is somewhat more informative from this point of view, but you must keep in mind that classic works like the Brihat Parasara Hora Sastra (“BPHS”) were compiled in an age when all sacred learning was encoded in brief, cryptic Sanskrit verses (sutras), to which various people wrote commentaries. Books often did not survive turbulent history, but in India they are often memorized word by word – anyway, since Hindu pandits memorize portions of the Veda sound by sound, it is not surprising that the abbreviated sutra form was used in astrology as well.
Now sometimes the truth comes out (in principles) if one looks at the part of Western astrology which is basically identical in the Indo-Tibetan system, such as the twelve signs (rashis), their traditional rulers, explained by virtue of higher principles - cycles of growth and decay and trascendence. Europeans, in my opinion, when they lost the original sidereal zodiac (astrology was banned by early Christians and when it returned in the Renaissance, there was no awareness of the gradual work of precession, due to which there is now about 24 degrees difference between the tropical – traditional Western – zodiac and the sidereal one), gradually turned to analogies and higher principles concerning the story of the self and the ego, and indeed, many traditional Western astrologers even say that their science is not about foretelling the future. (And yet, Nostradamus was able to foretell the death of the King, together with its precise manner and time…) Again, from the point of view of Hindu techniques, there are many sub-charts, thus it is conceivable that the simpler, annual, Sun-based zodiac of the Europeans (which has for the past centuries little to do with the actual constellations) is only one sub-chart among the others, one based on the Sun’s annual cycles, and since the Sun is the significator of the Higher Self (atman), but also the ego, in both systems, one could arrive at the conclusion (as did James Braha) that tropical charts are good for analyzing a person’s psychology, but in foretelling events, Hindu techniques are mostly superior. In other words, Western astrology (using the tropical zodiac) is solar, while the Indo-Tibetan one is basically lunar.
Then, looking at the history of astrology, it is possible that the twelve houses and signs (rashis) were not originally Indian. Some names and meanings appear as if taken from the Greek, which is otherwise rare in anything Sanskrit. The 27 nakshatras or lunar mansions appear in the Vedas, as do the seven visible grahas (planets – Indians look at the North and South Nodes of the Moon as grahas, but naturally they are aware of the fact that they are just points on the sky, and not real planets), however, there is no mention in the Vedas of the 12 signs or the 12 houses. The Arabs have a similar lunar map in their astrology, called manzils. So nakshatra-based astrology should be timewise the most ancient of the rpesent systems.
Despite that, today’s Indian astrology (with the exception of Krishnamurti Padhati – “KP”) generally does not use nakshatras or nakshatra rulers as actively as the Ancient system I am about to describe. In their daily life, Indians look at the Moon’s course every month through the nakshatras (one nakshatra is roughly how much the Moon covers in a single day). They add this effect to the weekday. In India, as well as in China, Tibet and Europe, the seven days of the week have corresponded since time immemorial to the seven visible planets in the same way. Thus, if you make a sacrifice to Saturn, you'd better do it in a Saturday. This is how they arrive at lucky or unlucky days for a person and the areas of daily forecasting. Applying the nakshatra system by counting the nine nakshatra rulers from the birth nakshatra of the Moon is called the Tara system. (We'll return to that in a separate article.)
However, again with the exception of KP, Indian astrology does not connect the nine nakshatra rulers to their natal or transiting planets in chart analysis. The main use many Indian astrologers put nakshatras to is that they are the basis of calculating the planetary periods (mostly Vimshottari, and sometimes other nakshatra-based Dashas). Among the Western astrologers who studied the nakshatras and collected the lore about them, there is considerable curiosity about this ancient system, though (see the writings of David Frawley for example.) On web pages on Indian astrology one sometimes runs into a discussion of various nakshatras as to the ruling influence on one’s life (mostly based upon the nakshatra of the Moon, or sometimes the Ascendant). But in most places you will not be able to read any explanation as to why this nakshatra behaves differently from another similar one. Again, I know of no book which categorizes planets separately in nakshatras, such as, how is Saturn in Bharani different from Jupiter in Bharani, or what the difference is between Saturn in Aswini and Saturn in Bharani in the story of the individual’s life and its main challenges. (If you know of such book, please write to me! The only person I have been able to locate on the Web so far with a similar approach is Joni Patry in Texas, who practices and teaches a nakshatra-based astrology. Chandra Om had also been a Western astrologer for a long time before launching into Jyotish.) There is mostly mythology and lore. David Frawley summarized these excellently in his book on the Nakshatras. But here again, science is mostly coded into ancient stories, and we are at a loss when looking for principles.
Another point is that – at least in the Northern Indian astrology I learned – there is much less use made of the meanings of the 12 signs themselves (which is a favorite topic with Western astrologers). There are detailed studies on which house ruler affects which other house ruler if in a friendly or undfrendly or temorarily friendly place, but one cannot find tables or courses given on planets in signs as you do in Western basic books. Apart from medical astrology, mostly it is only the properties of signs that are measured in a very careful way, mainly from the point of view of how well a certain planet fares in a sign, based on whether its ruler is friendly to the graha or how far you are from the exaltation point, moolatrikona etc. Indian astrologers award points to these forces, assess their vriaous strengths, which are then put to practical predictive use, but they rarely look at the stories of energy contained in the signs, and their cycles: the story behind the principles ruling the giant cycle of the 12 signs remains mostly unexplained.
Now even though James Braha makes a point in his books to separate Western (tropical) astrology from traditional Hindu one, and says both have their respective realms of interpretation, my underlying curiosity has always been piqued, since the signs are the same in both systems, their respective rulers and their elements and natures (fixed etc.) are also the same (we’ll digress on the co-rulership of the Western outer planets later). There is considerable agreement in respect of the exaltation and fallen signs of the traditional seven planets, too.
Additionally, the separation between the users of the two zodiacs is not nearly as neat in practice as you would gather from Mr. Braha's thoughtful writings, since many Western astrologers use the sidereal system also – or exclusively. So-called Karmic school of astrology which actively seeks reincarnational explanations is usually based on a sidereal zodiac. The world-famous author Robert Hand used sidereal, but his writings can also be used in tropical astrology. And probably since in the past thirty years Europeans and North Americans traveling en masse to the East discovered that the astrology of the Hindus (and the kartsi astrology of the Tibetans) is different, the popularity of the sidereal zodiac has grown even further.
It may be that instead of rectifying the zodiac by precession, modern Western astrologers actually developed a different, new system of astrology, which has a different application from ancient astrology, or could be considered a part of it. Theirs has become a different branch of the sacred science known as astrology by now.
If the two were softwares, you could say that the Western one also has a smaller predictive modul, but the Indian one is far superior in that with many more techniques. Conversely, the European science is great for self-knowledge and depth psychology. But, considering all the above, the conclusion offers itself that historically the two systems must have had a common system of origin with respect to the use and classification of the twelve signs and houses and the seven visible planets. So it would be a worthy task to try to reconstruct their common ancestor and put it to today's use. It would gain extra power from both sides.
We do not know where this ancient system originated from (most likely from around Mesopotamia, Persia and Egypt), but we do know that some of the knowledge has been preserved in the techniques and the books of the Hindus, while some has been preserved or was re-discovered by Westerners. (In order to gain a totally different counting and outlook on the sky, we have to get as far as to the natives of the New World).
Now, back to why I think Chandra Om's experience and interpretations matter, and cannot be replaced by what we knew so far: Chandra Om has made the original discovery that
1. the ancient principle of bhavat bhavam could actually explain some properties of the nakshatras stated in books and lore, and experienced by practicing astrologers;
2. the traditionally given effects of the planets (grahas) in signs and nakshatras can mostly be explained by Parasari aspects and rulerships of the involved planets.
As far as I know, there is no book or even an article on this subject today (in English at least). Since India safeguarded the greater part of the ancient astrological tradition, it is possible, though, that an Indian pandit who has never published teaches these principles to his pupils. One can never know...
Chandra Om has made it a priority to explain those parts of astrology which are very relevant here, and which are fully in accord with Parasari principles, but which are missing from most of today’s handbooks of Indian astrology published in Western languages.
Another advantage of learning with Chandra Om has been a vast array of experience. For decades Chandra has seen clients and remembered most of their important planetary positions. Curiously enough, Chandra started with Western astrology, Karmic astrology and reincarnational astrology. Then, on the advice of Chandra's Yoga Guru, Chandra Om began to explore Indian techniques. Chandra can recall thousands of charts with an incredible memory. Within our study group, there has been a gradual selection and testing of many different techniques in the light of Chandra's experiences with clients as well as that of disciples. The arudha padas won, for example, and so did Jaimini’s Chara Karakas, Narayana and Shoola Dasa. There are some others, however, that a Vedic astrologer coming from a firm basis of Western astrology would see as cumbersome and hence not use, since some parts that are missing from the Indian books (and web writing) are better and simpler explained by Western (particularly Karmic) astrology.
To sum it up, studying Chandra Om's astrology, and doing a lot of research and experiments, after years, I arrived at the conclusion that what Chandra is really doing is not integrating two alien systems of thought, rather, rediscovering an ancient system which is the ancestor of both Indian and Euuropean astrology. This is explained in a book I recently published in Hungarian (Út és Sors), of which an English edition is forthcoming soon.
If people in a hitherto unknown ancient civilization, thousands of years ago knew astrology (and why shouldn’t they), it could have been like this. It must have had nakshatras, for that is how much the Moon covers in one day. This is so simple that it must have come before taking into account the numbered strengths of planets. It must have had harmonics (navamsha and the others), which John Addey rediscovered in the West. For correctness’s sake, we must add that the three-part division of signs (decans) was known to the Egyptians, but their interpretations of these did not survive. But those of the Indian nakshatras and Tibetan gyukars did. And in India, there is a well-known three-part division as well, the drekkana (with no set rulers, though).
There are a few additional remarks I should state here, before launching my first subject: if you follow the system set out by Krishnamurti, that is by far more complex. Krishnamurti, for those that do not know, had the original insight to apply the divisions of the Vimshottari dasha to the zodiac in several degrees, and he calculated his own ayanamsha as well. It is a good system on its own, with impressive results, but it is by far not simple to master, and one wonders if all the rest of this science - particularly simpler things, like Jaimini dashas or karakas - were really left out of an ancient system. And if you are out to discover the common root of all these sciences (which, to Krishnamurti's credit, was not his aim), you are going to start with something simple in the beginning, and progress gradually to complexity of understanding. Also, Krishnamurti was apparently so taken by the insights in applying Vimshottari Dasha in novel ways that he did not make use of other systems of planetary periods, nor the teachings of Jaimini, as far as I know. Nor does he explain the properties of signs based on Parasari aspects (corect me if I'm wrong). There are many other systems of dashas explained in the BPHS (42 altogether), although since computers and cultural interface resulted in a world-wide renaissance of Indian astrology (calculations are so difficult that before computers it must have taken days for a single client), Vimshottari Dasha was responsible for perhaps the greatest successes if you look at techniques foreign to the traditional Western astrologer. Yet, it is not the only one.
Bepin Behari also wrote very seminal books on the role of signs in Indian astrology from a Karmic point of view, but without the above two explanatory principles. Finally, there are three further areas of research that are very legitimate from the point of view of the practicing astrologer: the correspondence of cultures to signs and nakshatras, exact transits and the outer planets.
The first was covered originally by Ptolemy, and European astrologers, particularly Karmic astrologers would expound upon those principles later, classifying cultures and epochs to various signs. For instance, it may well be that a person with a Taurus (Vrishabha) Ascendant may have had an important past life in a culture such as modern Germany, which is thought to be connected to Aries, his twelfth house. The classification of cultures is by far incomplete today, for example, we have no good experience to differentiate between, say, a Hmong or a Thai person on this basis. Karmic Astrologers in Europe and North America only applied these principles to the countries and ages they knew in the beginning part of the last century, but this area, as far as I know, is not taught or researched in traditional Indian astrology, nor is it found in veritable classics.
The second subject is to be understood as follows: within the traditional whole Parasari aspects of transiting planets, for example, the periods when a certain planet has an exact aspect on another residing in the house will obviously be a period (experienced by Western astrologers) when the converging influences are the strongest. Between the two degrees of influence, it is important to note when a transiting planet crosses a certain nakshatra boundary within the sign. For example, Saturn is now (in the winter of 2007) in a Venusian nakshatra, Purva Phalguni in Leo. The effects will be all the stronger on Venusian significations like love relationships, and more so for natives whose Saturn is in some way (sign, nakshatra, aspect) connected to their Venus etc. This is explained by certain modern Indian jyotish authors.
The third area is outer planets. This is controversial to some Hindu astrologers, who feel that their sacred science must not be subject to any new inventions. However, I must point out that if astrology existed in an ancient civilization (such as Atlantis), these guys must have had telescopes and may very possibly have had dealings with Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Hindu astrology works fine without them, and you may choose to do so, since the majority of Western astrologers also hold that these are not personal planets, they have in themselves no effect upon the personal fate, they rather affect entire generations. However, we simply found it useful to look at their placements in Indian charts sometimes. For example, the fact that G. W. Bush kept his power in 2004 as the President of the U.S. could be simply explained by adding the effects of Pluto and also looking at his nakshatras. I am sorry to disappoint purists by this – although I agree that pure Indian astrology does not use these planets, and you may read these notes with or without regard to these three. I had to take account of them, however - far too much has been written on them in the West to ignore them in all cases. However, in many cases you may ignore them, if you choose to stick with Indian traditions only. I think they were part of Ancient Astrology – true, in matters of rulership (which are paramount in Indian techniques) you do not always have to count with the “co-rulership” of Pluto with Mars of Scorpio (Vrishchika), Uranus with Saturn of Aquarius (Kumbha), and Neptune with Jupiter of Pisces (Meena). But sometimes you can, as research, and you can arrive at meaningful conclusions. Again, some of you may know that Pandit Rath teaches that Rahu is co-ruler of Aquarius and Ketu is co-ruler of Scorpio, so much so that dashas calculated by his methods are given in the software Jagannatha Hora (and they work, too!).
Then some may ask, where will we stop? If there is really a tenth and an eleventh planet behind Pluto (as an Indian opponent quoted recently in his fiery speech against using the outer planets), you are looking at such incredibly long periods of time (already Pluto is nearly 250 years) that they would truly be insignificant in personal astrology, perhaps only the study of history and the Great Ages would gain from them. The Western astrologers who integrated the three known "outer planets" wanted to discover more about persons (as well as countries). It is useless to tell a person today that he lives in a modern age which uses technology, and not in the age of the cavemen or the Ancient Greeks and Romans. He or she already knows that. That is only relevant in the study of astrology of a dynasty lasting for throusands of years. Pluto, however, can be analyzed with respect to reincarnation as a component that is shared by many births. Also, its meaning, as deciphered by Western astrologers, contains the fact that it represents the archetypal Last One, the limit, the farthest depths. There are many other things in the sky that could be questioned or brought into this framework, such as asteroids. Chandra Om did study Lilith, and Chiron has gained the respect of other discerning astrologers in the West. I must point out, however, that since Indian techniques use a much greater number of charts and variations, we already have far too much data to establish the basics of the system and an individual's story (and that should be our first task). Relating the meaning of planets in signs as represented by Parasari aspects among other things is a far more important task in my mind (albeit it may prove useful in the future to research Chiron for example).
Despite the above Western elements and the general adherence to deriving instances from principles, we will stick to te simplest English terms or Indian terms where no Western equivalent exists, because I feel that the major part of her Astrology of the Ancients consists of fundamental Vedic astrology, albeit understood in a novel way. In most lectures there are digressions to describe fundamental astrological principles helpful to beginners of Vedic astrology as well as anecdotes. My own commentaries will be in cursive (except if it is not from a lecture by Chandra Om).
Keep in mind, though, that the following texts on the Astrology of the Ancients will read as both more and less like a Vedic primer. They are firmly based in the fundaments of Vedic astrology (for which several good introductory books are sold in English and in German, for example by James Braha, and a good book is available online by Joni Patry who also teaches a nakshatra-based approach), with the above listed Western additions. Therefore we will continue to use Indian terminology, and keep referring to Hindu myths and usages, except for simple basics like the English (basically Latin) names of planets and signs.
One final note: using sidereal astrology, I must state that we are not yet in the Age of Aquarius. Those who say we are, have usually no solid arguments to back it up, except for their intuition. I will write and link a separate chapter on this subject later, but let us say for the time being that the exact translation of the term “being in the age of anything” is that the spring equinox is placed in a given sign. Well, according to the Indo-Tibetan tradition and sidereal astrology, we are still in the age of Pisces, and continue to be there for at least another three hundred years. Thus the autumn one is 180 degrees opposite in Virgo. If you do the chart for the spring equinox of one of these years, you will end up on the far side of the sixth degree of Pisces. However, if you are a strict adherent of tropical astrology, and one who disregards precession’s effect upon astrology, not only not useing but not even allowing sidereal zodiac, there can be no ages for you whatsoever, since Aries will be always counted from the point of the spring equinox! Period. What remains is New Age phantasizers who say that channeled information told them that this was already the Age of Aquarius. (Nevertheless, in sidereal astrology, you may notice that there are important aspects to Aquarius these years, e.g. now Uranus is there, its co-ruler, with Rahu, opposed by Saturn. That is indeed a rare transit.)
There is some disagreement over the exact placement of the twelve signs (Krishnamurti, for example, has a slightly different ayanamsha than the default Lahiri in the programs, and the creator of the Kala software has also established his own). But none of these results in as much difference as to be able to place the Equinox into Aquarius (and consequently, the autumn equinox into Leo)! What is more, records exists in the Indian tradition of certain signs and nakshatras containing certain fixed stars, so why not rely upon those? (As for how long the current "sign age" lasts, most people today agree that it should be around 2,160 years. Scientific research on precession has simply not yet given us enough data – but the ayanamsha - the difference between the tropical zodiac and the sidereal one - is non-linear and it has been steadily growing since the last 150 years of measurement. Anyway, these days the whole cycle is said to last 25,970 years.)
Janos T. Melocco
This is where you will soon see some links to individual articles on various planets, signs and nakshatras. They are under translation/editing presently.