ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Aryan sages
of the Vedic period accepted astrology as an enlightenment, beyond
the mundane sphere of knowledge (Jnyan chakshu). On the other
hand Vishnu Gupta Chanakya, one of the most knowledgeable persons
of ancient India derided astrology as 'mere superstition.'
Votaries of astrology all over the world call astrology the
"mystic science", the "occult science" or
"secret science" etc. adding the suffix science without
over caring to establish its scientific rationale. The die-hard,
incredulous scientists dismiss astrology as rigmarole and superstition
without even caring to know what astrology comprises of.
The word superstition is defined in the standard English language
dictionaries as, "ignorant, irrational and unfounded general
belief". Andre Nataf in his Dictionary of the Occult (1994.p.66.
The Wordsworth.) stated, "superstition may derived from a
degraded form of ancient knowledge".
Every major civilization of the ancient world practised some
form of astrology. Astrology can be defined as an applied branch
of knowledge where the mundane affairs are linked with the spatial
observations of the celestial bodies, and with the help of statistical
calculations the future is predicted on the basis of precedents.
This fledgling 'science' degraded itself to superstition probably
owing to the following reasons:
(A) Capability of correctly predicting future events
being a powerful tool in the hands of the priestly class, to intellectually
subdue laymen, it was declared as a 'divine gift' and the subject
an esoteric one. All knowledge in this direction was kept confined
to the immediate family or to close-knit school of disciples.
With this aim, all astrological rules were composed in a cryptic
way. As for example, "The native having sun on this first
house will have a disease prone childhood", simply means
a child born during the early morning period, in general will
have weak constitution in tender age.
(B) The 'science' of astrology is purely statistics based,
and the causative principles were never studied and understood
properly. From its advent, astrology was considered as a part
of religious cults and the priests/astrologers hedged their ignorance
with the 'divine will'. Even when the astrologers knew any occurrence
to be a natural phenomenon, and its causative factors, even then
they did not care to take the public into confidence. Two classic
examples are:
(i) The Mesopotamians could not have drawn the basic
design of the natal-zodiacal chart and attribute the 'ownership
of houses to various planets', as they did, without knowing definitely
that the six planets of the solar system known at that time (including
Earth) revolve round the Sun and also the relative positions of
the solar planets in this system. To the best of our knowledge
they did not leave any record explaining how they could come to
this true conclusion sans 'Newtonian mathematics', 'Copernican
revolution' and Aristotelian philosophy'.
(ii) During the period of Rig Veda itself the sage Atri
in all probability understood the celestial mechanism of the solar
eclipse (Rg. Ve. V. 40. 5-9). It was after a lapse of nearly two
thousand years Varahmihira evulgated the sacrosanct knowledge
that 'solar eclipse occurs because of the shadow of the Moon',
and that the 'great snake', the 'demons' or the nodes have got
nothing to do with eclipses. (It will be interesting to note that
the myth of great serpent swallowing the Sun during the solar
eclipse was evolved in ancient Egypt at the minimum of 3000 B.C.).
(C) Nearly all the ancient and many thriving religions
consider divination as a part of a religious cult. Astrology is
also included in 'divination', but there is an inherent contradiction
between religion and astrology. Astrology puts a limit to the
omnipotence of the 'God' by stating that the 'divine will' too
follows certain mathematical laws and rules of precedents. The
propagators of monotheism understood this contrariety, and in
all the three 'Religions of the Book', astrology is an anathema.
To the true believers of Buddhist and Jain philosophy of karmic
'crime and punishment', astrology would be superfluous, but still
they indulge in divination.
Few ancient emperors used to decapitate the astrologers, medieval
religious zealots preferred auto-da-fe, and political dictators
even today incarcerate them. The modern scientific community ridicules
astrology and astrologers. Facing all these onslaughts, through
the ages astrology could survive only because in all probability
it is a "degraded form of ancient knowledge".
The present author, a product of the modern technical education
and believer of Fortean philosophy, which advocates "temporary
acceptance rather than absolute belief", came in contact
with astrology through rather prosaic a material- gemstones.
In India, ninety percent of the 'ring-size' gemstones are purchased
and worn on the advices of the astrologers to placate the wrathful
and encourage the benevolent planets. The most cavalier attitude
of ours towards gem-therapy and interlinked astrology suddenly
took a drastic turn when yours truly decided to write a book on
"Ancient Indian Gemology". As we had to delve into various
'Puranas', 'Sastra', Samhitas', 'Rasayanas' and 'natal-Jatakas',
dealing with medicinal and astrological uses of different gemstones
in ancient India, what impressed us most was that the ancient
and medieval scholars of India followed a definite system of investigation
which was based on meticulous observations and repeated experimentation.
Astrological and astronomical tenets were revised repeatedly in
the light of new experiences and calculations. It was never a
blind adherence to 'earlier workers opinion'. They are social
documents and not religious literature. When in these literature
rational causative explanations are not available, it was not
because of the lack of intellectual curiosity and capability of
the scholars, but because of technical inadequacy of that time.
At present there is a big communication gap between the scientists
and the astrologers, and false pretences of both the parties have
increased the chasm. Before trying to lessen this rift, it would
be proper to point out that:
(a) Astrology is just a system of general prediction
of a trend, comparable to stock-exchange prognosis. Any accurate
fulfillment of an 'improbable and detailed prediction' would surprise
the astrologer concerned even more than this clients. As a rule,
the astrologer is not able to repeat this
feat at will, and often he may not be even able to support his
successful prediction with appropriate texts from classical astrological
works. Such successful predictions probably belong to the realm
of 'intuition' and parapsychology. In the ancient India of 'Puranas'
and 'Epics', to obtain an accurate picture of the future, sages
were supposed to take recourse of meditation (Dhyana) and not
of astrology.
(b) The most banal objection raised against the Indian
astrology is that the 'Rahu' and 'Ketu' (the nodes) are accepted
as 'planets', whereas no such planets exist in reality within
the solar system. It is no fault of the astrologers that the word
'Graha' in Sanskrit has been wrongly translated into the English
word 'planet' (Sun too is a graha in the Indian astrology). Varahmihira
clearly stated that Rahu and Ketu are not celestial bodies, nor
have they got anything to do with the solar or lunar eclipse.
Rahu and Ketu are simply two points of 'hidden effect' (Pravaba,
or Chayan graha).