Is western astrology accurate?

[rajputistan]

Never trust any ancient science of West. It would be nothing more then fantasy. And why to study the ancient art of culture who:

1. Though Earth is flat and sun and rest revolve around it.

2. Tooooo many superstitions about disease. They thought it is due to planets(great scientist Galen.)

3. Who differentiated stars and Sun.

4. Thought that they would fall in hell if they cross the flat earth.


Western Astrology is of no use. You can study Hindu Astrology if you want as Hindu view of universe is never proved wrong. In vedas, there is accurate distance between Earth and Moon= 2 Gau and Earth and Sun= 1000 Gau. 1 Gau= 150000 Kms.(approx...).
Vedas says Earth is spherical and revolves around Sun. Sun inturn revolve around center of Galaxy and Galaxies constantly moves. I also talks about infinite universes.

I think when you are born as Hindu, you have the correct knowledge who far behind West is from us then why to even waste time in West?

[Jainarayan]

Even Carl Sagan was astonished at the virtual accuracy of Hindu cosmology and the relationships in the sun's, moon's and Earth's distances calculated by Hindu astronomers milennia ago.

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namasté

In vedas, there is accurate distance between Earth and Moon= 2 Gau and Earth and Sun= 1000 Gau. 1 Gau= 150000 Kms.(approx...).

Can you offer the ṛks, their location or the śloka-s so I may study them ? In return , let me offer you this:

Sāyaṇācārya is a recognized interpreter and commentor of the ṛg ved and other works. Many see Sāyaṇācārya's interpretations for ritual use only, and suggest the spiritual (adyātama) is lacking. This is for others to debate.

What is of interest to me is a note he adds to a mantra of the ṛg ved 1.50.4. There are 13 mantra-s in this section that are dedicated to sūrya. The ṛg ved 1.50.4 mantra says the following:

O' surya you are the ferrier, object of all sight and the creator of light. You shine illumining all.

Sāyaṇācārya offers the following comment on this mantra:
tatha cha smaryate yojanānām sahasre dve dve shate
dve cha yojane ekema nimiṣārdhena kramamāna

This says, thus it is to be remembered , you (O' Sun)
who traverses 2202 yojana-s in one half nimeṣa

To make sense of this we need to understand a few numbers. A yojana योजन is considered ~ 9 miles. A nimeṣa निमिष is considered a moment, a twinkling of the eye ; the root 'miṣ' is a wink, blink. This nimeṣa time as I have looked about is suggested to be 16/75th's of 1 second or 0.21333 seconds. Hence 1/2 half nimeṣa ( as it is stated in Sāyaṇācārya's comment) is 0.10667 seconds.

So in 1/2 a nimeṣa (0.10667 seconds) the sun, says Sāyaṇācārya, travels 2202 yojana-s or roughly 19,818 miles ( 9 miles X 2202 yojana-s). How far is this in 1 second?

1 second / 0.10667 seconds = 9.3741. Take 19,818 miles x 9.3741 and this gives us 185,787.94 miles per second.

The question is what is the sun traversing? Is this the speed of the sun? The distance from here to the sun? Or is this the speed of light figure?

Ole Christensen Romer was a Danish astronomer who first took a stab at the speed of light calcuations around 1676. Yet Sāyaṇācārya is talking of this speed during his age in the 1300's.

Today we know this speed as 186,282.397 miles per second or 299,792,458 meters / sec . Sāyaṇācārya's number is 185,787.94 / 186,282.397 = 99.735% of todays calculations.

praṇām

[Ramakrishna]

Namaste,

Even Carl Sagan was astonished at the virtual accuracy of Hindu cosmology and the relationships in the sun's, moon's and Earth's distances calculated by Hindu astronomers milennia ago.

"The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which time scales correspond, no doubt by accident, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long, longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scale still."
-Carl Sagan

Indeed.

[Adhvagat]

Yajvan, are you familiar with an indian astrologer named Vinay Jha? I found a website of his with "tutorial" (not very newbie friendly) to astrology that dealt with all the issues with western astrology.

He comments about the issues with ayanamsha (latitude longitude corrections, sidereal vs tropical problems): http://jyotirvidya.wetpaint.com/page/Ayanamsha

Also about issues with Vimshottari Dasha system that some softwares don't use lunar day calculations: http://jyotirvidya.wetpaint.com/page/Vimshottari+Dasha

The whole tutorial can be found here: http://jyotirvidya.wetpaint.com/page/Tutorial

Notice that some tutorial pages can only be found through the drop-down menu on the left, so check both the main page and the menu.

Just passing the information along that I read some pages of the tutorial and his other articles and I found them great!

He mentioned that no software to date used the mentioned corrections, but the article is some years old, as of today in Jagannatha Hora you can use Surya Siddhanta planetary model and ayanamsha.

Some interesting articles by him:

Rainfall prediction

http://jyotirvidya.wetpaint.com/page/Annual+Rains

http://weatherindia.wetpaint.com/pag...in+Forecasting

http://jyotirvidya.wetpaint.com/page...y_CAOS%2C_IISc

National astrology

http://jyotirvidya.wetpaint.com/page...edini_Jyotisha

Dreams

http://jyotirvidya.wetpaint.com/page/Dreams+and+Moksha

Astrological aspects of world events

http://jyotirvidya.wetpaint.com/page/Tsunami2011

http://jyotirvidya.wetpaint.com/page...+2009-Mar+2010

[Adhvagat]

Regarding the OP question, according to this astrologer (Vinay Jha), western astrology is a product of ignorance that sprouted of the original Jyotish:

At around 499 AD according to Indian system and around 285 AD according to modern science the value of ayanāmsha was zero, after which it began rising. Therefore tropical and sidereal positions of planets coincided. As a result many astrologers began using tropical system in succeeding ages. We have ample proof of the fact that sidereal system was used by Europeans before 300-400 AD, after which confusion arose due to negligible difference between tropical and sidereal. This problem was componded by the ignorant astrologers of Europe during Dark Ages. Western tropical astrology is a product of Dark Ages and scientists are not wrong in declaring it pseudo-science.But Vedic Astrology is not a pseudo-science, because it produces true results.

http://jyotirvidya.wetpaint.com/page/Ayanamsha

[TheOne]

Never trust any ancient science of West. It would be nothing more then fantasy. And why to study the ancient art of culture who:

1. Though Earth is flat and sun and rest revolve around it.

2. Tooooo many superstitions about disease. They thought it is due to planets(great scientist Galen.)

3. Who differentiated stars and Sun.

4. Thought that they would fall in hell if they cross the flat earth.


Western Astrology is of no use. You can study Hindu Astrology if you want as Hindu view of universe is never proved wrong. In vedas, there is accurate distance between Earth and Moon= 2 Gau and Earth and Sun= 1000 Gau. 1 Gau= 150000 Kms.(approx...).
Vedas says Earth is spherical and revolves around Sun. Sun inturn revolve around center of Galaxy and Galaxies constantly moves. I also talks about infinite universes.

I think when you are born as Hindu, you have the correct knowledge who far behind West is from us then why to even waste time in West?

1. Those are not "Western" ideas those are the ideas of the Church which happened to operate in the west.

2. There are just as many hilariosly supersticious things in hindu dharma.

3. I personally have yet to meet any astrologer who could tell me anything that isn't vague.

[Sahasranama]

Never trust any ancient science of West. It would be nothing more then fantasy. And why to study the ancient art of culture who:

1. Though Earth is flat and sun and rest revolve around it.

2. Tooooo many superstitions about disease. They thought it is due to planets(great scientist Galen.)

3. Who differentiated stars and Sun.

4. Thought that they would fall in hell if they cross the flat earth.

You have made some good points. Western astrology is based on innacurate facts of the heavenly bodies, that alone is reason enough not to take it serious. In ancient times astrology and astronomy went hand in hand, if the astronomy was incorrect, what to say about the astrology? Hinduism is a holistic approach and it teaches that diseases can be caused even by the grahas or bhutas, but it also recognises scientific causes such as bacteria* which are already described in Ayurveda. I don't believe that it is superstition, I know pandits who have cured people doing pujas to relieve grahas or bhutas.

*In the ashtanga hridaya:

जन्तवोणवः। अपादा वृत्तताम्राश्च सौक्ष्मयात्केचिददर्शनाः॥
jantavoṇavaḥ| apādā vṛttatāmrāśca saukṣmayātkecidadarśanāḥ||

These organisms are unicellular (anu) round and wihout limbs (vritta, apaada), and invisible to the naked eye due to their highly minute structure. (saukshmyaad adarshana).

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast�


The original question - Is western astrology accurate ?

I think the question can also be framed , Is Western Astrology Useful ?

It has its place. It clearly recognizes the tattva's as drivers and influencers.


praṇām

[Adhvagat]

You have made some good points. Western astrology is based on innacurate facts of the heavenly bodies, that alone is reason enough not to take it serious. In ancient times astrology and astronomy went hand in hand, if the astronomy was incorrect, what to say about the astrology? Hinduism is a holistic approach and it teaches that diseases can be caused even by the grahas or bhutas, but it also recognises scientific causes such as bacteria* which are already described in Ayurveda. I don't believe that it is superstition, I know pandits who have cured people doing pujas to relieve grahas or bhutas.

*In the ashtanga hridaya:

जन्तवोणवः। अपादा वृत्तताम्राश्च सौक्ष्मयात्केचिददर्शनाः॥
jantavoṇavaḥ| apādā vṛttatāmrāśca saukṣmayātkecidadarśanāḥ||

These organisms are unicellular (anu) round and wihout limbs (vritta, apaada), and invisible to the naked eye due to their highly minute structure. (saukshmyaad adarshana).

Sahasra, can you talk more about this sloka of the Ashtanga Hridaya and also a bit more about the Ashtanga Hridaya itself?