Modern Jyotish: The Element Error
Posted: Tue May 15, 2018 6:06 pm
Modern Jyotish: The Element Error
I’m posting this under Sidereal Astrology rather than Indian Astrology because it’s become common to think of sign triplicities in any sidereal system as having elemental traits similar to those in tropical astrology. Study of India’s classical texts reveals that the cardinal directions (north, east, south and west) were assigned to sign triplicities but nowhere are elements noted as connected to sign triplicities.
Against all reason, the belief persists today that sidereal signs are duplicates of their tropical cousins. If tropical Aries is impatient and aggressive, then sidereal Aries must be the same. If tropical Taurus is stable and stubborn, then those traits are transferred to sidereal Taurus. This belief has come about largely due to contemporary Jyotish astrologers attaching tropical astrology’s four “elements??? (so-called fire, earth, air and water) and their associated meanings to India’s sidereal signs.
Often sign descriptions in contemporary Jyotish books sound as if they were copied from tropical texts of the 20thcentury. To make matters worse, the four elemental triplicities have become attached to houses of the horoscope. Thus the so-called “water??? houses are now called “Moksha??? (liberation) houses due to their association with Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces, water signs in the tropical zodiac.
Researching texts in the 20th century it appears that this element error very likely began with Indian’s most famous astrologer, B.V. Raman. In his earliest days Raman studied western astrology and compared it to what he knew of India’s astrology. As his family was poor, Raman was not yet able to study most of India’s classic texts. He had the good fortune, however, to receive as gifts some books on western astrology. Raman writes that he finally rejected western astrology in 1941. (Autobiography of a Vedic Astrologer, 1996, p. 69). Prior to that time however, he had already authored books which included the four (western) elements in descriptions of zodiac signs.
I have two Jyotish textbooks in my library by modern India authors who relied on classical texts: Gopesh Kumar Ojha’s Predictive Astrology of the Hindus (1972) and M. Ramakrishna Bhat’s Fundamentals of Astrology (1967). Following classical texts, these books make no mention of elements related to signs of the zodiac. Neither does western author and Sanskrit scholar Ph.D. Valerie J. Roebuck’s carefully researched text on India’s astrology, The Circle of Stars (1992). Valerie Roebuck notes that India assigned the cardinal points to the triplicities, but elements were traditionally assigned to the planets.
(The fact that the modern Brihat Parshara Hora Shastra includes elements in the description of zodiac signs betrays modern interpolations in the text, if not the entire text having less than ancient sources.)
This element error in Jyotish has resulted in incorrect traits being assigned to sidereal triplicities in modern Jyotish texts being authored since at least the early 1990s. This is largely the source of the irrational belief that sidereal signs have the same traits and quality of energy as tropical signs of the same name, though they lie in different areas of the ecliptic.
Even Kenneth Bowser in his Introduction of Western Sidereal Astrology (American Federation of Astrologers, 2012) mentions the elements in relation to zodiac signs. (Some Fagan school sidereal astrologers reject the association of elements with signs.) As I’ve written elsewhere, we get a more accurate picture of the sidereal zodiac if we forsake that are called tropical elemental properties and instead assign Aristotle’s four qualities (hot, cold wet and dry) as well as Hellenistic triplicity lords to signs of the zodiac.
http://users.snowcrest.net/sunrise/aatr ... es2013.htm
I’m posting this under Sidereal Astrology rather than Indian Astrology because it’s become common to think of sign triplicities in any sidereal system as having elemental traits similar to those in tropical astrology. Study of India’s classical texts reveals that the cardinal directions (north, east, south and west) were assigned to sign triplicities but nowhere are elements noted as connected to sign triplicities.
Against all reason, the belief persists today that sidereal signs are duplicates of their tropical cousins. If tropical Aries is impatient and aggressive, then sidereal Aries must be the same. If tropical Taurus is stable and stubborn, then those traits are transferred to sidereal Taurus. This belief has come about largely due to contemporary Jyotish astrologers attaching tropical astrology’s four “elements??? (so-called fire, earth, air and water) and their associated meanings to India’s sidereal signs.
Often sign descriptions in contemporary Jyotish books sound as if they were copied from tropical texts of the 20thcentury. To make matters worse, the four elemental triplicities have become attached to houses of the horoscope. Thus the so-called “water??? houses are now called “Moksha??? (liberation) houses due to their association with Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces, water signs in the tropical zodiac.
Researching texts in the 20th century it appears that this element error very likely began with Indian’s most famous astrologer, B.V. Raman. In his earliest days Raman studied western astrology and compared it to what he knew of India’s astrology. As his family was poor, Raman was not yet able to study most of India’s classic texts. He had the good fortune, however, to receive as gifts some books on western astrology. Raman writes that he finally rejected western astrology in 1941. (Autobiography of a Vedic Astrologer, 1996, p. 69). Prior to that time however, he had already authored books which included the four (western) elements in descriptions of zodiac signs.
I have two Jyotish textbooks in my library by modern India authors who relied on classical texts: Gopesh Kumar Ojha’s Predictive Astrology of the Hindus (1972) and M. Ramakrishna Bhat’s Fundamentals of Astrology (1967). Following classical texts, these books make no mention of elements related to signs of the zodiac. Neither does western author and Sanskrit scholar Ph.D. Valerie J. Roebuck’s carefully researched text on India’s astrology, The Circle of Stars (1992). Valerie Roebuck notes that India assigned the cardinal points to the triplicities, but elements were traditionally assigned to the planets.
(The fact that the modern Brihat Parshara Hora Shastra includes elements in the description of zodiac signs betrays modern interpolations in the text, if not the entire text having less than ancient sources.)
This element error in Jyotish has resulted in incorrect traits being assigned to sidereal triplicities in modern Jyotish texts being authored since at least the early 1990s. This is largely the source of the irrational belief that sidereal signs have the same traits and quality of energy as tropical signs of the same name, though they lie in different areas of the ecliptic.
Even Kenneth Bowser in his Introduction of Western Sidereal Astrology (American Federation of Astrologers, 2012) mentions the elements in relation to zodiac signs. (Some Fagan school sidereal astrologers reject the association of elements with signs.) As I’ve written elsewhere, we get a more accurate picture of the sidereal zodiac if we forsake that are called tropical elemental properties and instead assign Aristotle’s four qualities (hot, cold wet and dry) as well as Hellenistic triplicity lords to signs of the zodiac.
http://users.snowcrest.net/sunrise/aatr ... es2013.htm