On Astrology

My maternal grandmother’s father, popularly known as Kunjaaneschan, a colloquial form of Kunjiraman Ezhuthachan, was an Ayurvedic practitioner, astrologer and an avid student of philosophy. Given the subjects he studied, he must also have possessed considerable mathematical knowledge. His collection included books and palm-leaf manuscripts on predictive astrology, Gola Śāstra and astronomical calculation, Ayurveda, Vāstu, Hindu scriptures, Siddha traditions and Buddhism. Curiously, his library also contained a book on Turkish-bath therapy, among numerous other subjects that appear to have attracted his interest.

He belonged to a socially privileged Nambiar family, yet his intellectual and spiritual interests seem to have extended beyond the conventions of his immediate community. Among the Hindu images in his place of worship was an image of the Buddha, displayed prominently on a mirror. He also kept three books by Sree Narayana Guru. The mirror's presence alongside these books suggests an affinity with the philosophical and reformist traditions associated with Narayana Guru. However, I cannot know with certainty what meaning he personally attached to it. He was born in Kannapuram, in Kerala’s Kannur district, but was trained and brought up in Udupi under his uncle, Kelu Nambiar, a well-known Ayurvedic practitioner. He later returned to Kannapuram after his daughter married a railway ticket examiner working in Kannur. 

Like many daughters speaking about a much-admired father, my grandmother transformed him into an almost heroic figure. We grew up listening to extraordinary stories about him. As a child, I believed most of them. Much later, after reading Kottarathil Sankunni’s Aithihyamala, I discovered, rather amusingly, that several of her stories about her father’s miraculous exploits had apparently migrated from that book into our family mythology. Whatever the embellishments, however, he was clearly a learned and dignified man with an extraordinary appetite for knowledge. What fascinates me most is the relationship he seems to have had with books themselves. His library shelf also formed the platform for his shrine. His books and palm-leaf manuscripts stood beside the objects of worship. Knowledge, in that small domestic space, was itself treated with reverence. Although several of my grandmother’s children became engineers, very few inherited their grandfather’s interest in these subjects. Her eldest son, a gifted engineer and inventor, was perhaps the exception.

My own curiosity began during a school holiday in the early 1980s. When I started exploring the surviving collection, I found the books on astrology more fascinating than those on Ayurveda. Since then, astrology has remained an intermittent but persistent intellectual interest for me. Over the years, however, my understanding of the subject has changed considerably. I no longer think it is useful to approach astrology as either unquestionable truth or simple superstition. It is more interesting to examine what kind of intellectual system it is, how it developed, how its internal logic operates, and where its claims stop being supported by evidence. The Sanskrit tradition of Jyotiṣa is broader than what we now ordinarily call astrology. Scholarly classifications of the Sanskrit literature generally distinguish three major areas: gaṇita, concerned with mathematical astronomy and calculation; horā, concerned primarily with horoscopy and individual destinies; and saṃhitā, which encompasses mundane astrology, omens, calendrical matters and predictions concerning collective or worldly events.

Within horoscopic astrology itself, India developed a variety of schools, texts and techniques. Parāśari and Jaimini approaches are among the best known. Tajika represents another important tradition, while Prashna deals with horary questions and Muhūrta with selecting supposedly auspicious times. The Bhrigu traditions constitute another large and varied body of astrological literature. Krishnamurti Paddhati, or KP astrology, is a much more recent twentieth-century system. These should not, however, be described as seven equivalent branches of astrology. Some are textual or interpretative traditions, some are specialised applications, and others are comparatively modern systems.

Indian astrology generally employs a sidereal zodiac, whereas most modern Western astrology employs a tropical zodiac referenced to the equinoxes. Indian practice also places considerable importance on the Moon, the nakṣatras, planetary periods or daśās, the ascendant, and planetary transits. It would nevertheless be misleading to say that Western astrology is simply Sun-based while Indian astrology is Moon-based: both traditions can employ complete planetary charts. One technical issue that frequently confuses is ayanāṃśa. Because the tropical zodiac is referenced to the equinox while the sidereal zodiac is referenced to a stellar framework, precession gradually produces an angular difference between them. Ayanāṃśa is the correction used to relate these two systems.

Different Indian astrological schools employ slightly different ayanāṃśa conventions. Lahiri, or Chitrapaksha, became the standard adopted in connection with India’s Calendar Reform Committee and official ephemerides, while astrologers also use Raman and Krishnamurti ayanāṃśas. This distinction matters: the disagreement is not because modern astronomy cannot calculate planetary positions accurately. Modern astronomy can calculate positions to very high precision. The difference arises primarily from the convention chosen for establishing the zero point of a sidereal zodiac.

The zodiac is divided into twelve rāśis, each occupying 30 degrees of the 360-degree ecliptic. The traditional system also uses twenty-seven nakṣatras, each measuring 13°20′. Each nakṣatra is further divided into four pādas of 3°20′. Consequently, each rāśi contains the equivalent of 2.25 nakṣatras, not 2.5. Parāśari astrology also employs divisional schemes known as vargas. The important set of sixteen is properly called Ṣoḍaśavarga, rather than Ṣaḍvarga, which refers to a different six-fold grouping. The sixteen-fold scheme includes the Rāśi chart, Horā, Drekkāṇa, Navāṃśa, Daśāṃśa, Triṃśāṃśa and Ṣaṣṭiāṃśa, among others. The received Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra explicitly describes sixteen such divisions and assigns them different interpretative functions.

Traditional astrology works with nine grahas: the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, together with Rāhu and Ketu. Astronomically, Rāhu and Ketu are not planets but the ascending and descending nodes of the Moon’s orbit. Systems such as Vimśottari Daśā assign periods to these nine grahas. The resulting interpretative system is extraordinarily complex. Planetary positions, signs, houses, nakṣatras, aspects, divisional charts and daśā sequences can produce an enormous number of possible combinations.But complexity should not be confused with statistical validity. Astrological interpretation certainly deals with uncertainty and possible outcomes, and its enormous number of combinations can resemble a probabilistic system. But traditional astrological rules were not derived through modern statistical sampling, controlled experiments, probability distributions or reproducible empirical testing. It is therefore inaccurate to describe predictive astrology itself as a branch of statistics or probability science.

Its astronomical calculations may involve sophisticated mathematics. Its classificatory systems can also be intellectually intricate. But these facts do not scientifically validate the predictive conclusions drawn from them. Modern controlled tests have generally failed to demonstrate that natal astrology predicts personality or events with reliable accuracy beyond chance. One influential double-blind experiment published in Nature, for example, found no expected correspondence between natal-chart interpretation and independently measured personality profiles. Philosophers of science accordingly generally classify astrology as a pseudoscience rather than an empirical science.

This does not make the history of astrology intellectually uninteresting. On the contrary, Jyotiṣa occupies an important place in the history of Indian astronomy, mathematics, calendars, cultural practice and attempts to understand time. After decades of studying astrology, I have become increasingly interested in it as a language of possibility rather than certainty.There is a saying frequently repeated within astrological circles that an astrologer may indicate what might happen, but certainty about the future does not belong to the astrologer. I find the philosophical restraint contained in that idea far more useful than deterministic prediction. I would, however, hesitate to attribute this saying directly to Sage Parāśara unless a reliable textual source can be established.

Nor can we accurately claim that the Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra treats planets merely as neutral statistical markers. The text, in its received form, attributes qualities and effects to the grahas and includes chapters prescribing planetary worship, mantra and charity as remedial measures. My own preference is different. I find it more intellectually useful to regard planets as temporal and symbolic reference points within an interpretative system, rather than as physical agents controlling individual lives. But that is my philosophical interpretation of astrology, not a claim about what all classical astrological texts actually teach.

One aspect of astrology that continues to fascinate me is its conception of time.Astronomical phenomena are profoundly cyclical. Day and night, lunar phases, seasons and planetary orbits recur in mathematically describable patterns. Astrology extends this perception of periodicity into human affairs and attempts to relate individual lives to larger temporal cycles. As a philosophical metaphor, this is powerful. As a scientific proposition, however, it requires another step. The fact that planetary movements are cyclical does not, by itself, demonstrate that marriages, illnesses, careers, deaths, or psychological changes recur according to corresponding celestial cycles. The distinction between analogy and evidence is important.

In the modern empirical meaning of the word science, predictive astrology has not established the reproducible empirical evidence required for it to be considered a scientific discipline. But Jyotiṣa remains historically important because it contains, and developed alongside, substantial traditions of astronomy, mathematics, calendrical calculation and observational knowledge. The history of Indian astral sciences cannot simply be divided into a modern binary in which everything labelled “astrology” is intellectually worthless and everything labelled “astronomy” is valuable. Historically, these domains were deeply intertwined.

Astrology may also have a reflective or counselling function for some people. It can provide a structured vocabulary for thinking about uncertainty, relationships, transitions, and choices. However, this function should not be confused with scientifically validated psychological diagnosis or prediction.

Is astrology essential to human life? Certainly not.

Billions of people live meaningful, successful and intellectually rich lives without consulting a horoscope or believing in astrology. Although I have studied the subject since my school days, there have been major events in my own life during which I never thought of looking at my horoscope. At one point, when I finally examined the chart prepared for me, I discovered it had apparently been calculated incorrectly. Its daśā sequence didn't even match the birth data I was using.

That experience reinforced something important for me: no person should surrender responsibility for life to a horoscope. At most, astrology may serve as one among many interpretative frameworks for someone seeking perspective during a period of uncertainty. It should never replace reason, medical knowledge, professional advice, evidence or personal responsibility. Its internal complexity is immense, but complexity itself does not guarantee truth. The enormous number of combinations involving grahas, houses, signs, nakṣatras, daśās and divisional charts also makes retrospective interpretation remarkably easy. After an event occurs, one can often find a combination that seems to explain it. This is precisely why predictions require careful testing before anecdotal success can be treated as evidence.

My own experience with rules such as Maṅgala doṣa has made me particularly sceptical of deterministic interpretations. I have not personally found justification for frightening people with claims that a particular configuration inevitably threatens a spouse or marriage. That observation remains personal experience rather than scientific evidence, but it is sufficient reason for me to reject absolute pronouncements. The same caution should apply even more strongly to astrological calculations claiming to determine the time of a person’s death. Different traditional longevity techniques can produce different answers, and there is no scientifically validated method by which a horoscope can reliably determine an individual’s lifespan.

Contrary to what I once believed, it would be incorrect to state that Parāśari literature simply excludes ritual remedies. The received Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra contains sections prescribing worship, mantra recitation, charity and other acts intended to propitiate grahas. Science cannot establish that such practices alter planetary influences or change externally determined events. A mantra, prayer or ritual may have religious, psychological, communal or contemplative significance to a practitioner. That is a different proposition from claiming that it physically changes the action of Saturn, Mars or Jupiter upon a human life.

Likewise, gemstones may possess beauty, monetary value, cultural symbolism, and mineralogical properties. Still, no established scientific evidence shows that wearing a gemstone alters a planetary influence or corrects the course of a person’s destiny. The two questions should therefore remain separate:

Does a practice carry cultural, spiritual or personal meaning? and Has its claimed causal effect been demonstrated scientifically? They are not the same question.

Because human beings have always attempted to understand the relationship between time, pattern, uncertainty and existence. Astrology is one of the most elaborate systems humanity has created in that attempt. I find its history fascinating, its astronomical framework intellectually significant, its visual systems extraordinarily rich and its methods of organising time worthy of study. I am also interested in how an astrological chart transforms many variables into a single visual field—something relevant to my broader interests in knowledge systems, representation, and data visualisation. But intellectual respect for a historical knowledge system does not require us to accept every claim made in its name.

After several decades of engagement with astrology, I find myself occupying a position somewhere between fascination and scepticism. I can study its structures without surrendering to determinism; appreciate its cultural history without calling unsupported prediction science; and use it occasionally as a device for reflection without allowing it to replace evidence or human judgement.

Perhaps that, finally, is where astrology has value for me:

not as a machinery for revealing an already written future,

but as an old and extraordinarily complex human attempt

to think about time, uncertainty and possibility.

 14.07.2021