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Jyotisha or Jyotishya (from Sanskrit jyotiṣa, from jyóti- “light, heavenly body”) is the traditional Hindu system of astrology, also known as Hindu astrology, Indian astrology and more recently Vedic astrology. The term Hindu astrology has been in use as the English equivalent of Jyotiṣa since the early 19th century, whereas Vedic astrology is a relatively recent term, entering common usage in the 1970s with self-help publications on Āyurveda or yoga.
The Vedanga Jyotisha is one of the earliest texts about astronomy within the Vedas.[1][2][3][4] Some scholars believe that the horoscopic astrology practiced in the Indian subcontinent came from Hellenistic influences, [5][6] however, this is a point of intense debate and other scholars believe that Jyotisha developed independently although it may have interacted with Greek astrology.[7]
Following a judgement of the Andhra Pradesh High Court in 2001 which favoured astrology, some Indian universities now offer advanced degrees in Hindu astrology. The scientific consensus is that astrology is a pseudoscience.[8][9][10][11][12]
Etymology
Jyotisha, states Monier-Williams, is rooted in the word Jyotish, which means light, such as that of the sun or the moon or heavenly body. The term Jyotisha includes the study of astronomy, astrology and the science of timekeeping using the movements of astronomical bodies.[13][14] It aimed to keep time, maintain calendar, and predict auspicious times for Vedic rituals.[13][14][15]
History and core principles
Further information: Indian astronomy
Jyotiṣa is one of the Vedāṅga, the six auxiliary disciplines used to support Vedic rituals.[16]: 376 Early jyotiṣa is concerned with the preparation of a calendar to determine dates for sacrificial rituals,[16]: 377 with nothing written regarding planets.[16]: 377 There are mentions of eclipse-causing “demons” in the Atharvaveda and Chāndogya Upaniṣad, the latter mentioning Rāhu (a shadow entity believed responsible for eclipses and meteors).[16]: 382 The term graha, which is now taken to mean planet, originally meant demon.[16]: 381 The Ṛigveda also mentions an eclipse-causing demon, Svarbhānu, however the specific term graha was not applied to Svarbhānu until the later Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa.[16]: 382
The foundation of Hindu astrology is the notion of bandhu of the Vedas (scriptures), which is the connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm. Practice relies primarily on the sidereal zodiac, which differs from the tropical zodiac used in Western (Hellenistic) astrology in that an ayanāṁśa adjustment is made for the gradual precession of the vernal equinox. Hindu astrology includes several nuanced sub-systems of interpretation and prediction with elements not found in Hellenistic astrology, such as its system of lunar mansions (Nakṣatra). It was only after the transmission of Hellenistic astrology that the order of planets in India was fixed in that of the seven-day week.[16]: 383 [17] Hellenistic astrology and astronomy also transmitted the twelve zodiacal signs beginning with Aries and the twelve astrological places beginning with the ascendant.[16]: 384 The first evidence of the introduction of Greek astrology to India is the Yavanajātaka which dates to the early centuries CE.[16]: 383 The Yavanajātaka (lit. “Sayings of the Greeks”) was translated from Greek to Sanskrit by Yavaneśvara during the 2nd century CE, and is considered the first Indian astrological treatise in the Sanskrit language.[18] However the only version that survives is the verse version of Sphujidhvaja which dates to AD 270.[16]: 383 The first Indian astronomical text to define the weekday was the Āryabhaṭīya of Āryabhaṭa (born AD 476).[16]: 383
According to Michio Yano, Indian astronomers must have been occupied with the task of Indianizing and Sanskritizing Greek astronomy during the 300 or so years between the first Yavanajataka and the Āryabhaṭīya.[16]: 388 The astronomical texts of these 300 years are lost.[16]: 388 The later Pañcasiddhāntikā of Varāhamihira summarizes the five known Indian astronomical schools of the sixth century.[16]: 388 Indian astronomy preserved some of the older pre-Ptolemaic elements of Greek astronomy.[16]: 389 [19][20][21][14]
The main texts upon which classical Indian astrology is based are early medieval compilations, notably the Bṛhat Parāśara Horāśāstra, and Sārāvalī by Kalyāṇavarma. The Horāshastra is a composite work of 71 chapters, of which the first part (chapters 1–51) dates to the 7th to early 8th centuries and the second part (chapters 52–71) to the later 8th century.[citation needed] The Sārāvalī likewise dates to around 800 CE.[22] English translations of these texts were published by N. N. Krishna Rau and V. B. Choudhari in 1963 and 1961, respectively.
Modern Hindu astrology
Nomenclature of the last two centuries
Astrology remains an important facet of folk belief in the contemporary lives of many Hindus. In Hindu culture, newborns are traditionally named based on their jyotiṣa charts (Kundali), and astrological concepts are pervasive in the organization of the calendar and holidays, and in making major decisions such as those about marriage, opening a new business, or moving into a new home. Many Hindus believe that heavenly bodies, including the planets, have an influence throughout the life of a human being, and these planetary influences are the “fruit of karma“. The Navagraha, planetary deities, are considered subordinate to Ishvara (the Hindu concept of a supreme being) in the administration of justice. Thus, it is believed that these planets can influence earthly life.[23]
Astrology as a (pseudo)science
See also: Astrology and science
Astrology has been rejected by the scientific community as having no explanatory power for describing the universe. Scientific testing of astrology has been conducted, and no evidence has been found to support any of the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological traditions.[24]: 424 There is no mechanism proposed by astrologers through which the positions and motions of stars and planets could affect people and events on Earth. In spite of its status as a pseudoscience, in certain religious, political, and legal contexts, astrology retains a position among the sciences in modern India.[25]
India’s University Grants Commission and Ministry of Human Resource Development decided to introduce “Jyotir Vigyan” (i.e. jyotir vijñāna) or “Vedic astrology” as a discipline of study in Indian universities, stating that “vedic astrology is not only one of the main subjects of our traditional and classical knowledge but this is the discipline, which lets us know the events happening in human life and in universe on time scale”[26] in spite of the complete lack of evidence that astrology actually does allow for such accurate predictions.[27] The decision was backed by a 2001 judgement of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, and some Indian universities offer advanced degrees in astrology.[28][29] This was met with widespread protests from the scientific community in India and Indian scientists working abroad.[30] A petition sent to the Supreme Court of India stated that the introduction of astrology to university curricula is “a giant leap backwards, undermining whatever scientific credibility the country has achieved so far”.[26]
In 2004, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition,[31][32] concluding that the teaching of astrology did not qualify as the promotion of religion.[33][34] In February 2011, the Bombay High Court referred to the 2004 Supreme Court ruling when it dismissed a case which had challenged astrology’s status as a science.[35] As of 2014, despite continuing complaints by scientists,[36][37] astrology continues to be taught at various universities in India,[34][38] and there is a movement in progress to establish a national Vedic University to teach astrology together with the study of tantra, mantra, and yoga.[39]
Indian astrologers have consistently made claims that have been thoroughly debunked by skeptics. For example, although the planet Saturn is in the constellation Aries roughly every 30 years (e.g. 1909, 1939, 1968), the astrologer Bangalore Venkata Raman claimed that “when Saturn was in Aries in 1939 England had to declare war against Germany”, ignoring all the other dates.[40] Astrologers regularly fail in attempts to predict election results in India, and fail to predict major events such as the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Predictions by the head of the Indian Astrologers Federation about war between India and Pakistan in 1982 also failed.[40]
In 2000, when several planets happened to be close to one another, astrologers predicted that there would be catastrophes, volcanic eruptions and tidal waves. This caused an entire sea-side village in the Indian state of Gujarat to panic and abandon their houses. The predicted events did not occur and the vacant houses were burgled.[41]
Texts
Time keeping
[The current year] minus one,
multiplied by twelve,
multiplied by two,
added to the elapsed [half months of current year],
increased by two for every sixty [in the sun],
is the quantity of half-months (syzygies).
— Rigveda Jyotisha-vedanga 4
Translator: Kim Plofker[42]
The ancient extant text on Jyotisha is the Vedanga-Jyotisha, which exists in two editions, one linked to Rigveda and other to Yajurveda.[43] The Rigveda version consists of 36 verses, while the Yajurveda recension has 43 verses of which 29 verses are borrowed from the Rigveda.[44][45] The Rigveda version is variously attributed to sage Lagadha, and sometimes to sage Shuci.[45] The Yajurveda version credits no particular sage, has survived into the modern era with a commentary of Somakara, and is the more studied version.[45]
The Jyotisha text Brahma-siddhanta, probably composed in the 5th century CE, discusses how to use the movement of planets, sun and moon to keep time and calendar.[46] This text also lists trigonometry and mathematical formulae to support its theory of orbits, predict planetary positions and calculate relative mean positions of celestial nodes and apsides.[46] The text is notable for presenting very large integers, such as 4.32 billion years as the lifetime of the current universe.[47]
The ancient Hindu texts on Jyotisha only discuss time keeping, and never mention astrology or prophecy.[48] These ancient texts predominantly cover astronomy, but at a rudimentary level.[49]Technical horoscopes and astrology ideas in India came from Greece and developed in the early centuries of the 1st millennium CE.[50][19][20] Later medieval era texts such as the Yavana-jataka and the Siddhanta texts are more astrology-related.[51]
Discussion
The field of Jyotisha deals with ascertaining time, particularly forecasting auspicious day and time for Vedic rituals.[14] The field of Vedanga structured time into Yuga which was a 5-year interval,[42] divided into multiple lunisolar intervals such as 60 solar months, 61 savana months, 62 synodic months and 67 sidereal months.[43] A Vedic Yuga had 1,860 tithis (तिथि, dates), and it defined a savana-day (civil day) from one sunrise to another.[52]
The Rigvedic version of Jyotisha may be a later insertion into the Veda, states David Pingree, possibly between 513 and 326 BCE, when Indus valley was occupied by the Achaemenid from Mesopotamia.[53] The mathematics and devices for time keeping mentioned in these ancient Sanskrit texts, proposes Pingree, such as the water clock may also have arrived in India from Mesopotamia. However, Yukio Ohashi considers this proposal as incorrect,[19] suggesting instead that the Vedic timekeeping efforts, for forecasting appropriate time for rituals, must have begun much earlier and the influence may have flowed from India to Mesopotamia.[52] Ohashi states that it is incorrect to assume that the number of civil days in a year equal 365 in both Hindu and Egyptian–Persian year.[54] Further, adds Ohashi, the Mesopotamian formula is different from the Indian formula for calculating time, each can only work for their respective latitude, and either would make major errors in predicting time and calendar in the other region.[55] According to Asko Parpola, the Jyotisha and luni-solar calendar discoveries in ancient India, and similar discoveries in China in “great likelihood result from convergent parallel development”, and not from diffusion from Mesopotamia.[56]
Kim Plofker states that while a flow of timekeeping ideas from either side is plausible, each may have instead developed independently, because the loan-words typically seen when ideas migrate are missing on both sides as far as words for various time intervals and techniques.[57][58] Further, adds Plofker, and other scholars, that the discussion of time keeping concepts are found in the Sanskrit verses of the Shatapatha Brahmana, a 2nd millennium BCE text.[57][59] Water clock and sun dials are mentioned in many ancient Hindu texts such as the Arthashastra.[60][61] Some integration of Mesopotamian and Indian Jyotisha-based systems may have occurred in a roundabout way, states Plofker, after the arrival of Greek astrology ideas in India.[62]
The Jyotisha texts present mathematical formulae to predict the length of day time, sun rise and moon cycles.[52][63][64] For example,The length of daytime = {\displaystyle \left(12+{\frac {2}{61}}n\right)}
Water clock
A prastha of water [is] the increase in day, [and] decrease in night in the [sun’s] northern motion; vice versa in the southern. [There is] a six-muhurta [difference] in a half year.— Yajurveda Jyotisha-vedanga 8, Translator: Kim Plofker[65]
