Wednesday, April 23, 2008

INTRODUCTION TO JYOTISH

In India, jyotish is one of the six vedangas. Origin of the basic premises is traced to Vedas, and allegorically jyotish represents the eyes of the Ved Purush. The key concept of jyoti is very profound: it represents the primaeval light of Brahma. There are three manifestations of this jyoti: ut, uttar and uttam belonging to prithvi, antarksha and dhyu lokas respectively. Vigyan is transcendental knowledge, i.e. beyond the sensorial experiences (indriyaateet). Thus the term Vedic astrology or Vedic science does not make sense. Of course, the knowledge of the materialistic world is also retained in Vedas as we learn from Rigved. Jyotir-vigyan is founded on the recognition of the supreme conscious Brahma, unity of the universe encompassing sentient and non-living beings.

All of the living or nonliving beings derive the light from the primaeval jyoti, and all events including those belonging to human affairs are placed in relation to the time elapsed since the creation of the universe. No event is isolated or independent in the universe. Mundane application of this vigyan constitutes the popularly known jyotish. Here two aspects have got mixed up: influence of astronomical events and observational correlations of them with human affairs and natural phenomena on earth. A person is believed to be born with the samskaras of past births and vasanas. These are like initial conditions for determining the destiny of the person. Unlike other beings, human beings are endowed with free-will and purushartha. A person can control vasanas and change the course of the trajectory of the destiny by purushartha.

The prevalent system of prescribing rituals to change the effect of planets/stars appears to be a crude and vague form of this principle. Rishis – the seers of truth declare in the Vedas that one’s penetration of vision determines the level of truth one reaches.

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