Working notes on learning Jyotish

So I have been trying to learn astrology in the last couple of months. Here are some thoughts that I had while learning astrology. These are working notes, not final learnings.

Difference of 22-24 days / Sayana Versus Nirayana / Temporal versus sidereal

The first thing that baffled me for several days until I learnt to unpack it. In Vedic astrology, Aries starts on Baishakh 1, which translates to Apr 14. In western astrology, Aries starts on March 21, a difference of 22-24 days. What is going on?

About 1700 years ago, when the astrological documentation system began, the dates coincided. March 21 happened on Baishak 1. But then, there is a phenomenon called the precession of equinoxes. So basically, when the earth rotates the sun, there is more than one motion going on. One is the yearly motion where the earth rotates the sun, one is the daily motion where the earth rotates around its own axis, one is its seasonal tilt where, speaking from a northern hemisphere bias, the earth tilts towards the sun in summer and away from the sun in winter. We know about all these.

Now the thing is, there is also apparently a fourth one, something I learnt the existence of only when I grappled with this problem. The fourth one is that the earth's axis is slowly tilting, very very very slowly, so slowly that it will make a full circle in 26 thousand years. But it's implication today is that because of the axis tilt, the earth completes its revolution around the sun 20 minutes faster that it is supposed to. Let me explain. Equinox happens on March 21 –day and night are of the same length. You would think that equinox would happen again when the earth completes its 360 degree rotation, but no, because the axis is tilting, it hastens the earth's journey to the equinox by 20 minutes. (Here equinox is just a point of reference, it could be any point of time in the year – the conclusion is that the earth reaches the point 20 minutes before completing a full 360). But we can go by equinox because it is a physical reality at several levels – day and night are of same lengths on this day, and also, this is the point where the earth's and sun's respective orbits cross. (here the sun's orbit means as seen from earth).

So here is the crux – western astrology takes this preponed point to be its full circle, and starts the next cycle on equinox. Vedic astrology, on the other hand, waits for the full 360, which comes 20 minutes later.

So here is the thing – the vedic year is longer than the western year by 20 minutes. Here I am talking about the western astrological calendar rather than the Gregorian calendar.

Now let's dissect the pros and cons of each calendar.

Anchors and differences

As we have already seen, the western calendar anchors itself on the equinox. When the earth reaches the equinox, its year ends and a new year starts. March 21 is the beginning of Aries – the day when days stop shortening and start lengthening. In other words, the end of winter and the start of spring.

The vedic calendar, on the other hand, is anchored to the Aries constellation. When the earth completes a full 360, the sun enters the Aries constellation. That is when Baishakh 1 happens and we celebrate new year. This is true for many vedic calendars including Bengali, Tamil, etc. We call this day Mesha Sankranti or the transition into Mesha. Nothing really happens on Mesha Sankranti except that the sun enters the Mesha constellation.

Because the calendar lengths are different by 20 minutes, it adds up to 1 day every 72 years. Which means that the western years remains the same (with its fluctuations of leap year etc) while the vedic system adds one extra day every 72 years. Again I had a problem digesting this information, wondering when and how an extra day is added, considering that our system did NOT periodically compare itself to the western system and said oh, we need to add a day now. No, the vedic system evolved without much contact with the western one until recently, so how were the astrologers realizing that they needed to add a day? The answer came in the fact that the astrologers were not particularly adding a day in comparison to the western one – they were just doing their regular calculations, and adding a day here and there every few years – for not all years have 365 days! The vedic system also offsets for things like leap years and the difference between solar and lunar months, and all that, resulting in irregular months and irregular years, so you don’t notice the extra day every 72 years because it's business as usual!

Over 1700 years, the additional day every 72 years have added up to 22-24 days, which is the reason for the gap between the beginning of western and eastern Aries.

The next question is, which is the true Aries? Or which is the authentic zodiac calendar?

Let us look at both calendars one by one to determine this.

The Western zodiac Calendar

The western zodiac Calendar does not complete the full 360 degrees. Which means, that when their Aries season starts, on March 21, the earth has NOT reached Aries constellation yet.

Take a moment to digest this.

On March 21, Aries season starts in Western zodiac calendar, but the sun has NOT moved into Aries yet. The sun is still in Pisces.

BUT. This is called Aries.

Why?

Susan Miller has a long and detailed explanation about this. I am going to give the gist. According to Miller, (and the western astrologers preceding her, I assume), the stars do not give us anything – for example the qualities of Aries sunsign. These qualities are given by the lord of the zodiac sign in question – in this case Mars. But of course, every zodiac sign has its lord, and I had never paid attention to it prior to learning about this phenomenon. So anyways, according to western astrology, it is not the Aries constellation that is called 'Aries sign', it is the section of sky, the first 30 degrees in this case, and so on. A bit complicated, but there it is.

In other words, the western zodiac calendar moves with respect to the stars – hence it is called the Sayana system, where Ayana means movement. The vedic system does not move in relation to the stars, and hence is called Nirayana system, or without movement (actually both move relative to each other so either could be Sayana and Nirayana, in my view). The difference between these two is called ayanamsa – or portion of movement. There are different formulae for calculating this ayanamsa depending on your school of learning, but it's usually around 20-22 degrees currently. Personally I am planning to focus on Nirayana and completely bypass Sayana because I want to focus on vedic system (despite the fact that Susan Miller is the astrologer I read the most and she is sometimes scarily accurate, I want to learn my own heritage).

Since the western calendar moves in relation to the stars, we have already mentioned that over 1700 years it has moved backward by 24 days (both move in relation to each other, but for the purposes of this conversation we will take the accepted view that the western zodiac is sayana). Currently, this means that a person born under Pisces constellation will be assigned the Aries sunsign in western astrology. In time, the sayana will move more and more backwards, until approximately 11 thousand plus years later, a person born under diametrically opposite constellation, Libra, will be assigned an Aries sunsign. At the end of 26 thousand years, the zodiacs will align all over again. Sigh.

The Vedic zodiac Calendar

I had always thought that the vedic calendar must be superior to the western one, because it is luni-solar and it incorporates quite detailed and exact calculations. Until I encountered the precession of the equinoxes. Sure, the vedic calendar is more detailed AND takes the moon into account, which means it contains some depth and knowledge than the western one is missing. However, the vedic calendar itself is missing one vital piece of information – the seasons.

When talking about the seasons, I am going to talk with a northern hemisphere bias. The seasons are caused by the earth's tilt – when the earth is closest to the sun in June, we have summer. When the earth is farthest from the sun in December, we have winter.

The problem with the vedic calendar is that it is not keeping in touch with the seasons.

Why?

Because of the precession of the equinoxes, the earth completes its rotation around the sun and starts a new cycle 20 minutes before it is supposed to, every year. Technically, when the earth crosses the distance between two equinoxes, it has not completed the full circle. However, for the earth, a new cycle begins, even though early. This is a geocentric view, for sure, rather than a technically sound one. Or perhaps geo-centrism itself is technically sound because we live on earth and experience these phenomena from the earth. So our cycle completes and starts 20 minutes ahead of time. 20 minutes does not sound like much, but as we have already discussed, over 1700 years it accumulated into 24 days. And the result is that the earth's cycle begins 24 days ahead of the vedic year, and the seasonal celebrations do not make any sense for us. For example, what are we celebrating new year for? Baishakh 1 is Mesha Sankranti, and we are supposed to be celebrating the equinox, the end of winter and beginning of spring, but the actual event happens on March 21 so celebrating new year on April 14 makes no sense any more. Same thing for Shrawan Sankranti which happens 24 days after summer solstice and Makar Sankranti, famed as the festival celebrated by most people in the world, and most of whom are in South Asia I'm sure, celebrating the end of winter, but what exactly are we celebrating? We call it Uttarayan, but Uttarayan started 24 days ago in December….

How the two calendars should have been corrected

I thought about this for long and hard, about the correctness of the 360-degree circle versus the geocentric view taken by the western zodiac, and came to the conclusion that we live on earth, so not incorporating the geocentric view is foolish. It's ok if the vedic calendar is based on the full 360 degrees circuit, but then, it must have some mechanism for accounting for the precession of the equinoxes and the corresponding shift in seasons. Shifting the seasonal celebrations (equinoxes and solstices) backward by a day every 72 years, parallel to the precession, would have been great. And they don't have to be called this and that Sankranti which would refer to the stars and the 360-degree circuit. They would have to be called by their seasonal names, like Uttarayan, Dakshinayan, and Vishuvat, and would have to be celebrated on those particular days.

Which also does not mean that the western zodiac calendar is perfect. Because what it is called 'Aries' today has little to do with the Aries constellation, and will have less and less to do with it in future. So the names they have given to their zodiacs are confusing. Or rather, the names they have continued to carry long past the end of their relevance is confusing. What they should have done is named their zodiac signs something else (I know they call it zodiac sign and not rashi or constellation, but it is still confusing). Maybe they could have just numbered their zodiac signs from 1 to 12? And it's not like they are shy of making changes to ancient knowledge systems, they have added Uranus, Neptune and Pluto to their astrology as late as fifty years ago, so they can do it!

Current seasonal celebrations

I was also going to do a comparison of seasonal celebrations in western and Hindu calendars, but I will put it for another time.

Remnants of female traditions in Jyotish

As I delved deeper and deeper into Jyotish, initially I felt like Jyotish must be based on women's traditions. Here are the reasons I thought so:

Timekeeping traditions

As I was reading Light on Life, the writer talks about timekeeping at the basis of jyotish. He talks about things like how the word month comes from moon, and how this word is related to the Sanskrit word for measurement (the root ma which gives words like mapan, matra, pariman, man (as in taapmaan), miti, etc). He wonders why the year, which consists of 365 days, is divided into 12 months, or why the lunar month consists of 28 days. In all this, he does not mention the female traditions, and female knowledge which would make these things obvious.

A lunar month does not have to be 28 days – a synodic lunar month (360 degree rotation of moon) is 27+ days and a sidereal lunar month (the time it takes for the moon to reach the same position with respect to the earth, or in other words, duration between one full moon and another) is 29+ days. So why pick 28? The reason of course, is that a woman's period is 28 days long (on average), it coincides with the lunar cycle, and the earliest timekeeping traditions reveal these links. For example the links that the author talks about while omitting the contributions of female traditions: month and moon share the same roots. Elsewhere, I have described how the word Rtu, which means seasons (including the fertile season of human women), leads us to Rt, cosmic order, and how the words for blood, especially menstrual blood, share the same roots, like raja and rajaswala, meaning that menstrual blood is the cosmic order. I will not go into detail here, but to every woman, all these facts are clear as day. And it is also sad and obvious that modern jyotish traditions have not kept these memories alive. 

And why is the year divided into 12 months? Because there are 12+ menstrual cycles in a year, coinciding with 12+ lunar cycles. However, 12*28 gives only 336 days, and if you account for the fact that menstrual/lunar cycle lengths vary and some are 29 days long, 12*29 still gives 348 days. But the year is 365 days long, which means that the knowledge of the earth's cycle around the sun was known to the ancients. Both the Vedic and western Jyotish traditions have their own ways of accounting for the extra days in their solar and luni-solar calendars. The Vedic tradition adds a day here and there according to solar movements, but it still keeps the lunar months intact, so that even while you know the year, you also know the month. But western tradition completely erased the lunar calendar and focused only on the solar one, leading to erasure of knowledge of lunar/menstrual cycles, and the larger contributions of women's traditions, in western astrology.

Despite all this, the deeper you go into Jyotish, the more it is revealed how it was born out of women's traditions. And it is clear that in ancient days, timekeeping was much more flexible than it is today. That it was not necessarily measured only in solar cycles, which are fixed, but relatively in relation to ever changing lunar and menstrual cycles.

The conception is the birth

One jyotishi said to me, "in Jyotish, conception is the actual birth". And all matters related to conception come from women's traditions. When to conceive? When is a good time for conception? Or even, what leads to conception in the first place? All these knowledges were held within women's groups only. Women gained the knowledge by living it, while men gained the knowledge from afar, by observing. Hence, the primary knowledge of conception found in Jyotish must come from women's traditions. This is including the fact that in ancient times, intercourse performed for the purpose of conception was done according to what we call saeet in Nepali – auspicious times determined by Jyotishis (This same jyotishi is now doing a PhD in Jyotish ways to conceive excellent children). But how do the male Jyotishi even know the auspicious times? It is not enough to look at the stars, the most important thing is whether or not the woman is fertile, or in other words, ritumati. And that knowledge definitely comes from the woman herself and no other.

Venus

Perhaps the most telling clue which points to women's traditions is Venus and the stories attributed to it, and the meanings attached to it in Jyotish and mythology.

Venus is bright, the brightest thing in the sky. It rises before the stars in the evening, and stays on in the sky after the stars have disappeared. That is why it is called the morning star, and the evening star. It is called Shukra in Sanskrit, the word Shukra also meaning white and shining.

And now, Venus is associated with love and sexuality for the following reasons:

-          That it shines at dawn and dusk, the time when lovers are most active.

-          The brightest and whitest part of a man's body, the semen, is also called Shukra.

Both these points are also linked with conception. And there is another, major reason to associate it with birth: between its phases of appearance in the sky, it disappears for some time, and that time is 263 days, the number of days required for human gestation. This is why it is strongly associated with women and fertility, and gives rise to stories such as Shukracharya and his Sanjeevani – the knowledge of bringing the dead back to life.

Which man would know the exact days of human gestation, unless a woman told him? And wouldn’t it make more logical sense that the women themselves noticed this first, that the days of Venus' disappearance exactly match the day of human gestation?

The importance of Chandra Lagna

In Vedic Jyotish, the udaya lagna, or deciding your rising sign, gives your chart. The moon symbolizes the mother. But then, one Jyotishi said that charts can be constructed in several ways, and one way is to make the moon's location the first house. Since the moon symbolizes the mother, this would give your mother's chart. But then, it could also be read as your chart, one that gives more importance to the Chandra. And whichever chart is more powerful between the udaya lagna and the Chandra lagna, that is the one which plays out in your life.

To me, this seems to be saying that we are all just subsets of our mother. The mother's graha is so powerful that it constructs the children's. This seems to suggest a time when the father was not important, or even recognized – where marriage was not invented, children were raised solely by mothers, and the mother decided the child's life path and everything.

House of true love

According to Susan Miller, your fifth house is the house of true love, as well as children. And your seventh house is the house of all kinds of partnerships, including the most important partnership of marriage. This gives rise to several thoughts in my mind.

First of all, that Jyotish recognizes that marriage is a human construct – a social contract, that does not necessarily include love. If you look at Hindu marriage vows and rituals, you will also see that they rarely ever speak of love. Sure, there are traditions of romantic poetry and literature and sculpture, but they are not necessarily related to marriage. And sure, there are married deities who are also in love – like Shiva Parvati, Ram Sita, or Krishna Rukmini, and they find a place in folk poetry surrounding marriages, but such romantic love does not find a place in official marriage rituals and vows. Marriage vows and rituals mostly talks of roles and duties, of managing the household together, etc. They are also preoccupied with status – changing the wife's name and gotra and having her perform subservient actions, etc, but we will not delve into them because they are not central to this article. The point here is that Jyotish recognizes that marriage is not necessarily about love, it is a partnership, a social contract. This makes me wonder how to tell a man and a woman's kundali part, because marriage means vastly different things for each gender.

The second thing here is that the same house houses both true love and children. And now, which man would go and say that his children are his true love? But almost every mother will say that the ones she loves the most are her children….

House of children reflects house of sisters

When I was first learning Jyotish, I had this question: if there are nine planets and twelve house, then at least three houses are empty, if not more. So how do you read these empty houses? Since, I have learned that there are many, many, many ways to read for empty houses. And one important way is aspects: planets in particular houses can influence house X by 25, 50 or 100 percent. And a 100 percent influence comes from the house that is diametrically opposite – (this gives rise to many other thoughts, including, how can diametrically opposite be exactly the same? But that is for another day).

So the point here is that the fifth house is the house of children. And the house diametrically opposite is the eleventh house – the house of gains, and also the house of siblings, and especially older siblings (the third house belongs to younger siblings). But one Jyotishi said that the third house belongs to brothers, and the eleventh house belongs to sisters. This got me thinking – so the house of siblings directly impacts the house of children, especially older siblings, and especially sisters. And so sisters are also similar to gains in life because the eleventh house is the house of gains. At the same time, brothers live in the third house -a dusthana, probably because they cause so much strife. This reminded me of the results of a study I read somewhere – about what leads to success. We all know that for a man, a wife leads to success. And for a woman? A sister leads to success. And again, we all know why. It is because women take up the burden of household work, leaving you free to focus on your career. In a marriage, the load is often invisible and carried almost entirely by husbands. In a sisterhood though, what happens most often is that the load is recognized and shared, so that sisters help each other succeed. It is interesting that Jyotish had recognized this fact long ago. The state of your older siblings and especially sisters reflects directly on the state of your children. If you have good siblings/sisters who help take care of your children, they turn out well.

This probably also harks back to the days of sibling marriage – for a man, naturally, the state of his sister reflects on his children. And for a woman, the children were raised by a sisterhood, so naturally children are a reflection of sisters.

Maternal uncle

In a kundali, there are houses for almost every relative. However, among the grahas, the planets symbolize very few relations – the mother, father, children, obviously, and spouse, siblings, grandparents. But the only member of extended family that you find here is the maternal uncle or the mama, symbolized by Budha. Again, I believe this harks back to ancient matriarchy, a time before the invention of marriage – when children did not necessarily recognize their fathers, and were raised exclusively by their mother and her family. So of course children would know their mama, but not anyone on the father's side. Going further back in history, this could also again reflect sibling marriage.

Evidence of male traditions in Jyotish

But then again, there are many things which reflect male traditions and patriarchy in Jyotish.

Importance of sun

In both Vedic and western astrology, the sun is very very important. It symbolizes your life path, your public personality, and many other things. In fact, it is so important in western astrology that people identify their zodiacs by the sun sign, where the sun resides in your kundali.

And the sun is associated with the father.

This denotes our current patriarchal structure where things like life path and status, especially status, are often determined by the father.

House of mother-in-law

Just a few days ago, a friend told me that the tenth house is the house of the mother-in-law. Traditionally, it has been associated with father, and all the things I have discussed which generally come from father – career, public life, status, etc.

Why would it be associated with mother-in-law?

I believe this is also a reflection of current patriarchal society -  for men, career, status, etc often come from father, but for women in patriarchal settings it comes from MIL - serving MIL is the buhari's career after all. The tenth house is where the sun is at its zenith that is why it represents public life where all is visible. And after I got married, I distinctly remember thinking that marriage is like suddenly being thrust into the harsh glare of sunlight, where all you do is public, like you can't have a single private moment, action, or even thought after marriage. So maybe in that way also, it makes sense to associate the tenth house with mother-in-law to whom all is visible after marriage. Even today, a girls' career depends a lot on how supportive the MIL is, especially regarding housework and childcare – in a lot of cases a woman can excel if MIL supports these aspects, otherwise not. So it makes sense to associate tenth house with MIL, especially for women. And this association is a direct result of current patriarchal social structure.

Logic at the basis of Jyotish

Light on Life also talks about the logic at the basis of Jyotish, at least Vedic Jyotish. And it contains ideas that are so intuitive that we don't even think about it, but struggle to articulate. At least, I do.

Let me try.

Let us begin with the logic system which Jyotish draws from. The logic of parallels, where one thing signifies another – let us call them signifier and signified, and where the signifier is believed to have the qualities of the signified. For example, in Nepal every ritual begins with the worship of Diyo and Kalash, a mud lamp and a full water pot respectively. The mud lamp signifies several things including sun, fire, etc, which are essential to life. The full water pot signifies life – because life is supposed to have begun in water, and because the full, round pot of water represents a life-giving womb in many cases.

Now this much is clear that the lamp is not the sun, and the kalash is not a womb. But still, for the purposes of the ritual, we believe so.

This is the logic that the Jyotish draws from. And it is up to you whether or not you believe it.

Now I will try and summarise/paraphrase Light on Life about how this logic is implemented in Jyotish.

Planets

The qualities attributed to the planets come from their movements in the sky.

·       Sun – obvious inferences of light, lifepath, sustenance, visibility, etc

·       Moon – lunar cycle aligned with menstrual cycle gives obvious inferences of femininity, mother. Its speed around the earth links it with travel. And the romance of the night links it with imagination, feelings.

·       Mercury – Quick movements signify quickness, exchange, trade, etc

·       Venus – already discussed above

·       Mars – independent movements that do not match expectations signify independence and waywardness

·       Jupiter – many children, as in satellites possibly linked with fruitfulness. I need to recheck this one. Perhaps large size indicates plenty?

·       Saturn – extremely slow rotation around the sun linked with slow results

Houses

·       The first house of your chart is the sign that is rising in the east at the time of your birth. Again, this is so intuitive that we don't even question it. Why east? Because the sun rises from there. What does that have to do with anything? The sun's rise marks the beginning of the day, and thus, it symbolizes beginnings. The first house thus symbolizes the beginning of your life, and to some extent, your life path, your public face.

·       Let me try to make it a little bit visual. Picture this: the first zodiac (for reference purposes, let's say this is Aries) is rising out of the east. Then, the second sign, Taurus, will be just below the horizon, and so on. The fourth house will be deep in the netherworld, the seventh house will be in the western horizon opposite to the first, and the tenth house will be right on top of you where the midday sun would be. This is how the houses are ordered. And so are their meanings:

o   The fourth house is the house of mother and childhood home. Why? Because at midnight we are usually home with mother.

o   The seventh house is the house of partnerships including marriage. Why? Because marriages are supposed to be active in the evening, just after the sun has set. And also because it is the house that is the furthest away from your own house, the first house.

o   The tenth house is the house of career, public life, and status. Why? Because this is where the sun is at its zenith, and everything is visible here.

The planets which are situated in these respective houses at your birth are supposed to shape those respective areas of our life. For example, a Jupiter in your tenth house gives a good career and status, the tenth house being of career and Jupiter meaning plenty.

Do we believe this logic, this symbolism? For myself, I DON’T believe this logic. HOWEVER I am amazed that the astrologers who know a lot can actually divine a lot of things correctly, by using this very logic.

There are many problems with this basic logic of parallels. It is something that I have been fighting all my life. Which a lot of women in my generation have been fighting all their lives. Let's discuss a few of those reasons below.

The toxicity

Hindu ways of life and rituals are often based on this law of parallels. For example, we are told that the right hand is auspicious, and we are supposed to give and take everything only with our right hand. This has led to unfortunate things like leftie being forced to use right hands, being beaten if they use their dominant hands, etc.

The other thing is the symbolism attached to various kinds of women. For example sadhawa versus vidhawa and fertile versus banjhi. Certain rituals are only allowed for sadhawa women, the logic being that their married status is auspicious and those qualities will transfer to whatever rituals they are performing. Certain other rituals are not allowed for women who do not have children, due to the fear that their infertile status will transfer to whatever they are doing. There are reflections of these ideas in daily life as well. Vidhawas and childless women, considered inauspicious, may be shunned during auspicious or even normal moments, they may not be allowed to hold children or do many other things. This law of parallels is at the base of patriarchal and discriminatory practices, so I am definitely against it. But then again, how do I get into Jyotish which is based on these laws?

My conclusion here is that like with everything, we don't have to take the while vidya. We have to take note of patriarchy and reject it. So it is a difficult process to sift through the information, identify patriarchal bias, identify why it is wrong and figure out a feminist interpretation.