community perceives the dictums of astrology as disharmonious
jumble, but at the same time, every intelligent human being has
an instinctive belief that there must be a harmony in the cosmic
design, and someday somebody will be able to reveal it to us.
Each thinking person according to his own might tries to bring
that date nearer.
For the last six thousand years, different human civilizations
flourishing independently in various parts of our globe utilized
the 'motion' of the Sun and the Moon as an instrument of the mundane
and cosmic time keeping. They noted carefully the sunsets and
sunrises, waning and waxing of the moon, the length of time between
one fullmoon to another etc. each became one of the units for
the measurement of time. The Moon's revolution round the Earth,
manifested in the form of observed periodic conjunction of the
Moon with definite cluster of stars became another unit of time
measurement (sidereal month). The apparent north south solar motion
in the sky (declination) which harbingers change of seasons became
yet another unit of time.
By 2000 B.C. most of the advanced civilizations has already formulated
their own calendars, laws of cosmic motion over this ever-changing
Earth and their attributed influence over mundane affairs. The
cosmic laws were perceived as the only everlasting, unfailing
and dependable rules. It is the nature of the human being that
he always wants to be sure about his intrinsically uncertain fortune
and future, therefore fortune-telling always thrived in every
civilization, and what could be a better guarantor of 'certainity'
than the 'never changing' rules of motion of celestial bodies?
Any aberration of cosmic laws used to cause intellectual shock
and universal anxiety till some apparently rational explanation
was not forwarded by somebody and brought in relief. The solar
eclipse created mind-numbing terror in the hearts of Vedic Aryans,
till sage Atri explained it to be a natural phenomenon (Rig-Veda
V.40, Sukta 5 to 9).
As the rules of celestial motion became better understood and
comprehensively formulated, the uncertain fortune on the earth
got hitched to the certainty of the firmament and this synchronization
of the heavenly and mundane happenings generated the 'science'
of astrology.
The present work is on an infinitesimally small but potentially
vital part of the Herculean venture in correlating worldly affairs
with the celestial movements. Our endeavor is to demonstrate,
hopefully convincingly, that the Vedic sages, astrologers and
their intellectual successors knowingly or unknowingly followed
the periodicity of intensity of variation of electromagnetic impulses
in the Earth's atmosphere, caused and controlled by different
independent and independent electromagnetic cycles originating
due to interactions between the solar and interplanetary energy
impulses with the earth's magnetic field while formulating the
astrological tenets applied in the predictive and elective astrology.
Among the scores of authors and hundreds of chapters, thousands
of laws, by-laws, exceptions and amendments constituting the bulk
of the Indian astrology we have selected the chapter 'Naksatra
karma gunaddhaya' (Stellar function on activities) of Vrihadsamhita,
the astrological classic compiled by Varahamihira, one of the
greatest astrologer/astronomer of all time (6th century, birth
505 A.D.) as the basis to establish the scientific soundness of
at least some astrological tenets and classifications because
of the following reasons :
1. As Varahmihira made use of only the lunar positions occulting
against the stellar clusters (Naksatras) in this chapter, it is
direct descendant of the Vedic astrology, and uncontaminated by
imported astrology of post Vedic age.
2. The Naksatras were classified by Varahmihirra into a number
of groups based upon the nature of the jobs or activities which
the members of that group is supposed to patronize. That means,
an activity of specific nature if commenced during the period
when any member Naksatra of a definite group is occulted by the
Moon, or the Moon is sighted in the vicinity, the endeavor is
expected to show positive results. This classification gives us
the following lead:
(a) The Naksatras belonging to a single group must have at least
one character common.
(b) As the Naksatra groups are conjoined to activities of a specific
nature demanding different levels of energy to perform it, it
is easy to correlate such classification with the required energy
fields.
(c) As the activities ruled by different classes of Naksatras
has been clearly specified, there is less chance of raising controversies
while allotting one or the other class of activities denoted by
a particular Naksatra, 'high' or 'low' energy field. There should
be no objection if we state that 'warfare' will require a greater
sustained energy level than 'merriment and pleasantries'. Similarly,
activities like planning a new township or selecting a new ruler
should require cool brain and level-headed thinking, and an energy
field with the least disturbance ought to be helpful for such
activities. 'Arson and mayhem' would indicate flaring of emotion
and energy. A merchant trading in commodities must keep a sharp
eye on the rise and fall of the market and must often take decision
on the spur of the moment; hence a fluctuating energy field is
probably more conducive for such activities.