CHAPTER 1

History of Indian Astrology

TO TRACE THE EARLIEST roots of astrology in India, it is helpful to go back tothe third and fourth millennia (between 4000 and 2000 B.C., the approximatedates of the Age of Taurus) when there were four major Eastern civilizationswhose communities centered around fertile river valleys. The locations of thesethriving cultures were the Nile Valley in Egypt, the valley between the Tigrisand Euphrates Rivers in Sumer, or Southern Mesopotamia, the Hwang Ho Valley inChina, and the Indus Valley in India. Due to advanced irrigation techniques,agriculture flourished and food was abundant in these valleys. Sailors andmerchants from India and Sumer traded profitably with each other, and these twoareas were introduced to the other's cultural and natural resources. What eachof these agrarian cultures ultimately had in common was their commitment toself-sufficiency, maximum productivity, and economic stability—qualities of thesign of Taurus from which this era derives its name.

These early farming communities depended upon seasonal changes andmeteorological conditions to stimulate their crops, and they adjusted theirplanting methods accordingly. By directly observing the patterns in the sky,they came to understand how certain configurations affected weather conditionsand, in turn, their harvest. They were soon able to predict auspicious times forplanting based not only on the seasonal changes but on the prominence of the Sunand the phases of the Moon. In Sumer, China, and India, the Sun was viewed as adestructive entity due to its intense heat which scorched the earth and left theland parched. The Moon, on the other hand, was revered as a creative power whichbrought the cool night air and promoted growth. Planting during the waxing phaseof the Moon was common among the farmers of these cultures and is practiced eventoday. In fact, it is still said that a project should begin during the waxingmoon, but never during a waning moon.

Between approximately 3500 B.C. and 1750 B.C., Southern Mesopotamia (present-dayIraq) was populated by the Sumerians who probably migrated there from the East.When Semitic tribes from southern Arabia known as Akkadians (named for theirSemitic dialect) settled the region around 2350 B.C., the area was initiallyrenamed Sumer-Akkad to designate the cohabitation and cooperation between thesetwo cultures. The Akkadians proved to be the stronger power, however, and theyeventually took over the region. The great civilization of Babylonia wasinaugurated around 1848 B.C., with Babylon as its capital, replacing Nippur, theformer capital of Sumer-Akkad. Northern Mesopotamia (present-day northern Iraqand Turkey), inhabited by Indo-European tribes who hailed from the Russiansteppes and dispersed throughout England, Rome, Greece, Iran, and, eventually,India, was taken over by the Semitic Assyrians around 1400 B.C.

The Babylonian Empire gained prominence throughout the ancient world for itsintellectual and scientific advances, including astrology. In their role assoothsayers, Babylonian priests developed an extensive method of divinationlinking certain events and growing patterns to earthquakes, floods, winddirections, thunder, lightning, and other meteorological phenomena which theythought to be manifestations of the divine will. These conditions guidedBabylonian farmers in the timing of their harvest, the king as to when he couldtravel, and merchants and sailors in planning their voyages. Precision andattention to detail made the priests impeccable record keepers and many of theiromens were recorded on clay tablets as early as 1750-1500 B.C. By studying theheavenly bodies, however, the Babylonian priests soon found the luminaries to besuperior omens from which they could efficiently anticipate natural phenomenaand their accompanying significant events.

Within the hierarchy of Babylonian society, the priests were the scientists and,as such, the most educated class. They were given access to the libraries andobservatories, where they spent countless solitary hours observing the sky usingthe most advanced instruments of their day. In Babylonia, as well as in Greece,India, and China, these early observations of the Sun, the Moon, and the planetswere made with the gnomon, a vertical stick which measured astronomicaldistances by the length and direction of the shadow it cast. By methodicallystudying planetary configurations, Babylonian priests were able to timeplanetary cycles, estimate astronomical distances, and observe celestialrelationships. In time, they developed a more advanced method of prediction bywhich they could chart recurring configurations such as eclipses, phases of themoon, and the positions of the most prominent "stars"—The Moon, the Sun,Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Mercury, and Mars. These phenomena were coupled withwhat appeared to be coinciding events, growing patterns, or meteorologicalcondition. With this knowledge, they were soon able to predict, with amazingregularity, weather patterns, auspicious planting times, and whether the ensuingperiod would bring peace or hostility. Though all ancient civilizations wereaware of the correlations between the timing of celestial movements and mundaneconditions, the Babylonians methodically logged this information and are thuscredited with creating the first recorded astrological system.

The Babylonians methodically recorded the movements of the planets with theiraccompanying celestial occurrences as early as 1701 B.C. with the writing of theVenus Tablet of Amisaduqua, listing the cycles of Venus. But it was not untilthe Middle Babylonian Period (1000 B.C.) that the astronomical data for eachplanet, along with accompanying effects, was recorded onto thousands ofcuneiform tablets and compiled in a volume called Enuma Anu Enlil. The mostcomplete extant volume was excavated from the site of the palace of the AssyrianKing Ashurbanipal at Nineveh (668-635 B.C.) and is presently stored at theBritish Museum. Cuneiform writing entailed scratching marks and symbols onto wetclay tablets with a pointed stick or reed stylus. By uncovering and translatingthese tablets, which had lain buried for thousands of years, archaeologists inthe 19th century were not only able to decipher astronomical and astrologicaldata, but to learn about life in Mesopotamia itself.

The desire to know beforehand when to expect certain climatic conditions,holidays, and other phenomena brought about the creation of a calendar andaccurate scientific data to back up the calendrical listings. Sinceapproximately 3000 B.C., the Egyptians had been using a completely solarcalendar which based the year on successive heliacal risings of Sirius, the dogstar, which average 365 days apart. The Babylonians, on the other hand,constructed a soli-lunar calendar which fit lunar months into the solar year byintercalating, or adding, an extra month every few years. The Egyptians had beendividing their year into three seasons of four months, each marked by distinctclimatic changes; by contrast, the Babylonians divided their year, the way westill do today, by the spring (vernal) equinox, summer solstice, autumn equinox,and winter solstice—the four cardinal points. The months were marked off by thephases of the Moon and the days were divided by the appearance and disappearanceof the Moon rather than by the rising and the setting of the Sun. The calendaralso included planetary placements and conjunctions, phases of the Moon, andlunar and solar eclipses. It was with the gnomon that the equinoctial andsolstitial points, along with other lunar measurements included on the calendar,were discovered.

In the eyes of the priests, the celestial bodies were manifestations of theirgods and goddesses. To this end, many religious holidays held in their honorwere celebrated in accordance with the New Moon or Full Moon, whereas otherpagan festivities occurred on one of the equinoxes or solstices. The Babylonianscelebrated their New Year around the spring equinox, the time of reaping theharvest, whereas the Sumerians before them had celebrated their New Year aroundthe autumn equinox, the time of sowing the crop. By marking off the holidays ontheir lunar calendar, the Babylonians knew in advance when to make the necessarypreparations for these rites, which were such a vital part of the religious andsocial life of the community.

Influenced by the Persians, who conquered Babylonia in 539 B.C., the Babylonianscontinued to make great strides in the fields of both astronomy and astrology.These advances included the discovery of the astrolabe (an instrument used tomeasure altitudes), the perfection of lunar measurements, and the early use ofthe zodiac. Records of the period indicate that the oldest extant individualhoroscope is dated 410 B.C. The earliest horoscopes were most probably thecharts of kings and other royal personages whose destinies represented the fateof the nation. Until this time, the Babylonians had been concerned primarilywith agricultural planning as well as political and economic forecasting.

The philosopher Herodotus and the mathematician Pythagoras were among the Greekintellectuals who visited Babylonia in the fifth century B.C. and brought backimpressive astronomical data which included lunar measurements, the equinoctialand solstitial points, the constellations of the zodiac, and the construction ofindividual horoscopes. When Babylonia was finally conquered by the Greeks in 331B.C., this information was transmitted intact to Greek scientists who combinedBabylonian findings with their own astronomical theories. Unlike the combinedfield of Babylonian astronomy and astrology, Greek astronomy had been, up untilthis time, neither mathematically sophisticated nor religious. It was only whenBabylonian astronomy was introduced into Greek culture that the planets took onqualities similar to those of the Greek gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus.Gradually, as in our own culture, two sciences developed side by side—astronomyand astrology. While astronomers mapped out the positions of the Sun, the Moon,and the planets which determined, among other things, the length of the year andthe timing of the seasons, astrologers raised these physical bodies to the levelof religious deities or other influential symbols.

The Greek astronomers Hipparchus and Ptolemy delved deeper than their Babyloniancounterparts by calculating the rate of the movement of the equinoxes calledprecession. Likewise, Greek astrologers—whose philosophy emphasized the inherentdignity and self-determination of man—lifted the horoscope beyond its religiousand mundane aspects in order to view the fate of the individual. These earlyGreek astrologers greatly influenced the way we approach astrologicalinterpretation today.

As the Euphrates River changed direction, the canals could no longer transportwater, and the once-fertile Mesopotamian Valley became dry and barren. With thewater supply practically cut off, the great agrarian communities of the MiddleEast slowly disappeared and the population the region could support wasdrastically reduced. Egypt was conquered by Caesar in 44 B.C. and, by the timeof the Christian Era, the Roman Empire ruled the ancient world. The Juliancalendar, implemented throughout the Roman Empire, was not initially calculatedaccording to Christian dates. Later on, however, the Christians introduced theirown holidays, which were Hebrew in origin. Most of the ancient astrologicalcuneiform tablets were either destroyed or buried when Babylon was finallypillaged by the Romans in the first century A.D.

During the Christian era, astrology was rejected as heresy by the Church, anddid not resurface in the Western world until the Renaissance, when it was onceagain taught in universities and revered as a science. Only since the ancienttablets were recovered during the 19th-century excavations in Iraq have welearned that it was not the Greeks who originated the astrology we use today—thoughthey did indeed perfect it—but the Babylonians.

It is the consensus of most archaeologists and historians that astronomical andastrological knowledge was disseminated throughout the ancient world by sailors,merchants, and, most important, by conquering peoples. The Babylonian system ofstar gazing and time measurement was the forerunner of most modern astrologicalsystems and it especially influenced the lunar-based system of India which isstill used today. Though each culture used its own particular observations todevelop an astrological system which best suited its religious and culturalneeds, the origins of astrology, as we know it today, lie in ancient Babylonia.

The Development of Astrology in India

2500-1600 B.C.

Contemporaneous with Egypt and Sumer, the progressive Harappan civilizationlocated in the Indus River Valley was named for its largest excavated cities,called Harappa and Mo-henjo-daro. Not much is known about these people exceptthat their sailors and merchants most probably traveled to the Near and MiddleEast, where information as well as goods was shared. Like the Egyptians and theSumerians, these Indians were adept at working with metals and bronze and wereinnovators in the arts and sciences. On the symmetrical avenues and streets oftheir well-planned cities stood architecturally advanced buildings used forliving quarters, government offices, and temples. There were courtyards, bathingfacilities, and even advanced drainage systems. Irrigation techniques made themsuccessful farmers, and their cities prospered and became great commercialcenters. It has been surmised that the Indus River floods which occurred around1700 B.C. devastated the land and destroyed many of the cities.

1500-1000 B.C.—Vedic Era

Sometime during the second millennium, India was, according to some scholars,inhabited by Indo-Aryan tribes from the Russian steppes who resettled the IndusRiver Valley and formed their own communities in the Ganges River Valley. In thesame way that the Akkadians overran the Sumerians and conquered SouthernMesopotamia, the Indo-Europeans, more adventurous and aggressive than the earlyIndian farmers, are thought to have taken possession of the land, inheritedtheir cities, and merged their two cultures.

This period is famous for the Mahabharata and Ramayana, two great epics of theearliest heroes of Hinduism.

The Epics were passed on by word of mouth.... The longest of the two Epics isthe Mahabharata, ... the longest poem in the world. ... It is the story of agreat civil war in the region where now is located the city of Delhi. Its mostfamous portion is the Bhagavadgita. The second of the two great Epics, theRamayana, tells the story of Rama, a heroic Aryan king of Vedic times. Itrelates the adventures of Rama as he undertakes to rescue his wife Sita, who hadbeen kidnapped by a devil-king of Ceylon.... Originally the tales in theEpics were told to preserve the memory of the deeds of famous Aryan warriors.However, as the stories were passed down from generation to generation theybegan to take on religious significance. Many of the basic beliefs of modernHinduism became embodied in the tales.

These Indo-Aryans are also credited by some scholars with authoring the Vedas,the primary source of religious knowledge, which were probably composed andorally transmitted as early as 1400 B.C. Considered to be the "Hindu Bible,"the Vedas, a rich body of literature comprised of sacred hymns and poems, mapout the basic creation myths and legends of the people. These scripturesoutlined the original tenets of Hinduism, the religion of four-fifths of today'sIndian population.

The Vedic hymns are said to have been revealed by the seven stars or planets,called rishis, literally meaning "to shine." The priests who wrote the Vedaswere called Brahmins and they dedicated the Vedas to their God, Brahma, thesource of life. The Vedas, as well as other religious and astrologicalscriptures that followed, were written in Sanskrit, the original language of theHindu people. The following passages from the Vedas illustrate some of the ideaswhich form the doctrine of Hinduism.

1) The essence of all things is one supreme energy which permeates every aspectof the universe. It is an impersonal, immaterial, unborn, and undying force. Itis called Brahman.

2) There are individual souls which are unbreakable and eternal parts of theuniversal soul. They are named Atman. Brahman and Atman are one and indivisible,yet the Atman living in the world of senses as nature, seems to exist apart fromBrahman.... This apparent separateness is Maya or illusion.

3) Nature is the manifestation of the supreme energy ... Brahman, and is incontinuous evolution according to its immutable law.

4) So long as we live in illusion we place our faith in ever changing things ofnature. The effect of the fickle nature incites our pains and pleasures asexperiences in our life. Only through the realization or reabsorption of oneselfinto Brahman can one become free from worldly sensations of pain and pleasure.