an e magazine from ASSAM & NAGALAND      

SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE FOR VEDIC ASTROLOGY

- By Dr. Pranav Jyoti Deka

A scientist generally observes what he has been trained to see, and then too he recognizes only that what he expected to see. It is not strange that the scientific

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.