James wrote:

when i was first exposed to astrology from india it was called 'indian' astrology.. that was the term used in the 70's or 80's.. then somewhere along the line it became 'vedic'.. not sure who was responsible for that, but i would be curious..

Hi James,

On the subject of taking the 'Vedic' out of Jyotish this article by Dieter Koch challenges the basic idea very directly.

http://www.astro.com/astrologie/in_vedic2_e.htm

I personally always avoid the term 'Vedic astrology'. Indian astrology, Jyotish or Hindu astrology all seem infinitely preferable.

Maybe the use of the label 'Vedic astrology' is tied to the widespread popularity of the term 'Ayurvedic' in the west as a a complementary medicine approach?

In India there are also the Hindu supremacists who want to attribute all cultural developments as indigenous rather than a result of any outside influence. Dating all astrology as indigenous and originating in the Vedic texts fits in with that kind of chauvanist mind set.

Mark

Varuna2 wrote:

Therese,
I am not suggesting you read it, only that it presents techniques that are authentic Jyotisha techniques, including Tajika, and so it is not like Behari did not transmit authentic Jyotisha in his work, which is the impression I got when I read your opinion of Behari. The text is titled: The Timing of Events. He also cites Sanskrit works that present information that is nowadays regarded as New Age or Theosophical rubbish, but there is actually a basis for some of those ideas in the ancient texts.

Varuna, based on these remarks, I found a copy of The Timing of Events on Amazon. I see that the book was published in India unlike Behari's other books that were published in America.

p.s. Frawley seemed to have oversimplified things and maybe should not have used the term 'vedic', but to his credit his dating of Indian civilization is actually based on speculation regarding actual astronomy facts, and not speculation based on prejudice and ignorance.

Well, we are discussing horoscopic astrology here, and not the dating of Indian civilization. There is no doubt about the Persian-Arabic-Greek influence on India's astrology.

Mark wrote:
Hi James,

On the subject of taking the 'Vedic' out of Jyotish this article by Dieter Koch challenges the basic idea very directly.

http://www.astro.com/astrologie/in_vedic2_e.htm

I personally always avoid the term 'Vedic astrology'. Indian astrology, Jyotish or Hindu astrology all seem infinitely preferable.

Mark

hi mark. i suppose this is 'off' topic, but very interesting article! i didn't read it all the way down but some of the quotes below i really liked! i am glad the forum here is called 'indian and asian astrology'. someone appears to have had some insight into all of this prior to making this forum!


"At the same time, it must be stated that some Indian gurus live in parallel universes, within which even the most obvious philological, historical and astronomical facts have no validity. To a western outsider, this is really difficult to understand because all these traditions believe that they teach the knowledge of the truth and the divine."

"While Indian astrology may be "Vedic" in that it is part of today's Vedic tradition, it is in fact a lot younger than the Vedas and has many elements which were not developed in India but in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece."

"Another point deserves attention: Today's "Vedic" astrology and calendar calculation are purely sidereal, i.e. they ignore the seasons, equinoxes, and solstices. In contrast, the Vedic texts attribute great importance to the season-based tropical year and its cardinal points. 9 ?atapathabr?hma?a 6.7.1.18 says that the year is based on the seasons."

"The oldest astronomical text book of India, Ved??gajyoti?a 5ff., teaches that the beginning of the month of M?gha ideally coincides with the winter solstice and a new moon at the beginning of the lunar mansion Dhani??h?."

"Another point deserves attention: Today's "Vedic" astrology and calendar calculation are purely sidereal, i.e. they ignore the seasons, equinoxes, and solstices. In contrast, the Vedic texts attribute great importance to the season-based tropical year and its cardinal points. 9 ?atapathabr?hma?a 6.7.1.18 says that the year is based on the seasons."

"The oldest astronomical text book of India, Ved??gajyoti?a 5ff., teaches that the beginning of the month of M?gha ideally coincides with the winter solstice and a new moon at the beginning of the lunar mansion Dhani??h?."

While I am in agreement with Dieter Koch on the non-Indian origins of horoscopic astrology, and recognize the frustration he feels at the unreasonable attitudes of some Indian teachers,* the above paragraphs are partly wrong and wholly beside the point. The Hindu calendar used today is as connected to the seasons as it ever was; the seasonal elements are just not seen as relevant to the zodiac issue. And really, there is no reason to assume such relevance unless you are a tropicalist of some sort -- which means that Indian siderealists are being criticized simply for not being tropicalists.

*(Not that such attitudes are unique to India; most people would feel the same way about, say, American creationist views.)

In India, the time you start saying too much of I and My you could be ignored or totally shunned.

There is a lot of that here:
http://www.astro.com/astrologie/in_vedi ... tnote23sym

What was a very detailed discussion on skyscript has become a footnote and mention of skyscript forgotten.

PD

As one who, like Therese, remembers those early Bay Area conferences and attended many of K. N. Rao's caffeinated all-night discussions, I will add my two cents worth.

The term "Vedic astrology" probably does predate David Frawley, as some here have mentioned, but it was David who turned it into the "dominant paradigm" re: describing the astrology of India.

And yes, there was a great deal of nationalistic, even Hindu right-wing influence on all of this, dedicated to "proving" that everything originated thousands of years ago in India -- despite the fact that its proponents need to make their case by arguing that mythology ought to be taken literally as history and that almost all historical records are lies invented to discredit India (yes, I really have heard any number of individuals go so far as to make that statement).

As an example of how intense the advocates of the "India first" school can be, most of this crowd has what I can only describe as a fierce hatred for the work of David Pingree and regard him as an "enemy" of "true" Jyotish. Most seem unaware that he taught himself Sanskrit at the age of 15, studied in India, that Sanskrit was his first love among his many languages, and that he wrote on many occasions that no one could understand the history of science unless they were familiar with ancient India. I also know many people who visited him in hopes of discussing Hellenistic astrology, but he kept wandering off topic and back to India. All the same, he is perceived as an antagonist because he doesn't support the "India first in all things" theory propounded by Feuerstein, Kak and Frawley.

As for the title of Behari's third volume.... Originally, there wasn't one. Passage Press received a large box, all beat up and in bad shape because it had been mailed from India. Inside it were about 1200 pages, on thin rice paper, typed on an ancient machine with several letters broken, and written in very poor English. It was all a single work, not three separate ones. By that time Passage had already published "Myths and Symbols" under Frawley's editorship, but he didn't have the time to edit Behari's magnum opus, so the job was given to me, with David acting in an advisory capacity (he lived about a mile away from me at the time). It was clear that the work was so long that we would have to publish in multiple volumes. The titles of the first two volumes were chosen by Robben Hixson of Passage Press, David, and me. I had already fully edited and type-set the third volume, which was ready to go to press when Passage collapsed. Behari got the copyright back and brought Vol III out in India, under the title you have indicated above (can't remember it at the moment).

And just as an addendum to my post above, in as much as Behari's books were so popular with Western jyotishis in the 90s and there have been so many questions about his Theosophical influences, here are a few more details.

The original type-written ms. we received at Passage was written ENTIRELY in Theosophical terms straight out of Blavatsky, and would have been almost incomprehensible to anyone who was not familiar with her work, or that of Ledbetter, Olcott, et. al. But since Blavatsky "borrowed" so many of her ideas from Hinduism, one could usually trace her terms back to some sort of Sanskrit original. David and I tossed out all the technical Theosophical jargon and replaced it with Sanskrit cognates. Still, the end product came out as more of a hybrid than a classically oriented Jyotish text, with Western influence still fairly obvious. Behari's somewhat Westernized approach seems to have been what made his works so popular in the North America and Europe, but as the one who had to edit the whole thing into some sort of readable English, I can tell you that the original typescript was one hundred percent Theosophical in its terminology.

Thank you, Kenneth, for these two very interesting posts. Much appreciated keepers!

Therese

Thank you, Ken, for these two very interesting posts.

And yes, there was a great deal of nationalistic, even Hindu right-wing influence on all of this, dedicated to "proving" that everything originated thousands of years ago in India -- despite the fact that its proponents need to make their case by arguing that mythology ought to be taken literally as history and that almost all historical records are lies invented to discredit India (yes, I really have heard any number of individuals go so far as to make that statement).

I can confirm that -- in fact, I very recently ended up in a discussion of this kind with a leading figure in the 'western Vedic' movement.

I also agree and sympathize with what you say about David Pingree, who was definitely a trailblazer and a great, though not infallible, scholar. I do have occasional reservations about his Sanskrit translations, which can give the impression of having been made in a hurry -- but then I may have an advantage over Pingree, as I taught myself Sanskrit at 13 rather than 15.

martin and others fwiw -

i note dieter koch updated the article this july 18th that mark initially shared with us here on july 14th. the passage that martin quoted from my post was changed to read differently as follows - "The oldest text of Greek-inspired Indian astrology, the mentioned Yavanaj?takam by Sphujidhvaja, in its last chapter fixes the cardinal points of the year at the beginnings of the signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn[48] and has the sun traverse all signs within 365,2303 days. This year length is closer to the tropical (365.2422) than the sidereal year (365.2564) and was most probably determined by observation of the solstices and equinoxes."

perhaps for anyone interested it is best to read it in context in the revised article that koch updated here - http://www.astro.com/astrologie/in_vedic2_e.htm

Martin Gansten wrote:

"Another point deserves attention: Today's "Vedic" astrology and calendar calculation are purely sidereal, i.e. they ignore the seasons, equinoxes, and solstices. In contrast, the Vedic texts attribute great importance to the season-based tropical year and its cardinal points. 9 ?atapathabr?hma?a 6.7.1.18 says that the year is based on the seasons."

"The oldest astronomical text book of India, Ved??gajyoti?a 5ff., teaches that the beginning of the month of M?gha ideally coincides with the winter solstice and a new moon at the beginning of the lunar mansion Dhani??h?."

While I am in agreement with Dieter Koch on the non-Indian origins of horoscopic astrology, and recognize the frustration he feels at the unreasonable attitudes of some Indian teachers,* the above paragraphs are partly wrong and wholly beside the point. The Hindu calendar used today is as connected to the seasons as it ever was; the seasonal elements are just not seen as relevant to the zodiac issue. And really, there is no reason to assume such relevance unless you are a tropicalist of some sort -- which means that Indian siderealists are being criticized simply for not being tropicalists.

*(Not that such attitudes are unique to India; most people would feel the same way about, say, American creationist views.)

In the light of recent critical examinations of Pingree's edition of the Yavanaj?taka, I would say that any argument based on that edition rests on very uncertain ground indeed.