some questions concerning the ugc course in astrology

SOME QUESTIONS CONCERNINGTHE UGC COURSE IN ASTROLOGY

Kushal Siddhanta

18 AUGUST 2001. Dr. Murali ManoharJoshi, the present Union HRD Minister anda former professor of physics in the Alla-habad University, was invited to the IIT,Kharagpur, as the chief guest at an open-ing function organized on the occasion ofits fiftieth foundation anniversary. TheWest Bengal Chief Minister Mr. BuddhadebBhattacharya was another guest.

As expected, Mr. Bhattacharya in hisspeech indirectly criticized the policy of theUnion Government to introduce worn outsubjects like astrology, paurohitya, vas-tushastra, yoga and human consciousness,etc., in the universities through the Univer-sity Grant Commission (UGC). Dr. Joshiin his address, however, did not go intothe trouble of explaining why his depart-ment was so keen on funding these anti-quated subjects in the universities in spiteof the opposition of the informed people ofthe country. Instead, he took an obliqueroute and reminded the enlightened audi-ence that they should not ignore the “richheritage” of ancient India in different fieldsof life. The Indian scientists, in his opin-ion, are unnecessarily too much dependentupon the “western science”. They shouldnow engage themselves to create an inde-pendent structure of Indian science on thebasis of the knowledge available in the an-cient texts and scripts. “We are eulogizingCopernicus and Galileo for their contribu-tions in propounding and proving the helio-centric theory of the universe, but,” Joshialleged, “we don’t pay homage to the an-

cient Indian astronomer Varahamihira whoin the sixth century AD spoke about theearth’s rotation.” Citing another fact in sup-port of introducing astrology as a universitycourse, he said, 16 universities of the coun-try had already been offering astrology asa subject in various forms. So his govern-ment is doing nothing new. People shouldnot oppose the astrology and other coursesonly on political reasons. There may be de-bates and arguments over the issue. TheGovernment, he assured all, was ready tohear. So on and so forth.

It all had started when the UGC issued acircular on 23 February 2001 with a pro-posal to all the universities of the countryto introduce UG and PG courses as wellas doctoral researches in Vedic Astrologywhich it later renamed in parenthesis asJyotirvigyan (astronomy). In another circu-lar of the same date, it further proposed tointroduce two other allied courses on Vas-tushastra and Paurohitya (originally calledKarmakanda). The same UGC which isnowadays used by the Union HRD Min-istry to squeeze financial grants to the uni-versities, has expressed its commitmentsto provide all the necessary fund to initi-ate and run the courses — estimated tobe around Rs.15,00,000 per course. Onlyfor the astrology course it has decided tosanction 6 permanent posts (one professor,one reader, two lecturers, one library at-tendant and one computer operator), whichwill cost a regular recurring expenditure of10-12 lacs of rupees per university per year.

Breakthrough, Vol.9, No.2, November 2001 1

From the Breakthrough archives

Similar posts are to be sanctioned for theother courses too. All these additional ex-penses will be borne by the Union Govern-ment through the UGC. It is learnt that sofar 45 universities have applied for thesecourses of which 20 have obtained approvalof the UGC. Informed circles are wonderingas to why the same UGC which has beenasking the universities to curtail expendi-tures on all teaching menus (like journals,reference books, etc.) and to appoint teach-ers on part-time or contractual basis, is notadvising similar prescriptions in the case ofthese new courses. This indicates that theUGC has already received a green signal forliberal fund sanction by the government forthese courses.

The HRD ministry and the UGC, however,are not satisfied yet. As recently reported inthe press, they have further decided to pro-mote another course in Human Conscious-ness — this time in science — with ancientIndian elements like Yoga. Some 10 univer-sities are reported to have already agreed tostart the course with the UGC fund.

The UGC further notified that unlikeother graduate courses, the students ofthese courses will be given credit for suc-cessful completion of every academic year.The first year pass-outs will be given a cer-tificate, the second year pass-outs will beprovided with a diploma and the graduatedstudents will be conferred a B.A. degree.

This unusual move of the UGC has natu-rally evoked a mixed reaction in the coun-try. Some people were happy at this andwelcomed this exercise of the central gov-ernment to recover and cultivate the an-cient wisdom of India as stored in the an-cient texts like the Vedas, Puranas andother literatures. But many eminent aca-demics of the country sensed a danger inthe entire game and saw in it another at-tempt to vitiate education with the commu-nal ideology of the BJP, the main axis of the

NDA government at the centre. They aska very cogent question: If Dr. Joshi andhis Government were really eager to heararguments for and against, why did theynot first hear and then proceed? Once adepartment is opened — good or bad — itcannot be closed down, even if it is con-demned later by the public debate and in-formed opinion.

We don’t know what else are due in theirnext move. But what they have alreadybrought in requires an elaborate analysis.In this essay we confine ourselves in the as-trology issue.

PART — IPROBE INTO FUNDAMENTALS

The Official Arguments

At the outset we want to make it clearthat we don’t consider all or most of the as-trologers to be just a band of charlatans orcheaters, neither do we think it proper to crit-icize or reject astrology only or mainly for thevery many glaring cases of its failure. Wefirst take into account the arguments of theUGC or the HRD Ministry and some oth-ers prevalent in the society, assume thatall the official claims of and about astrol-ogy are true, and then review the conse-quences that follow from them. And finallywe undertake detailed examination of eachof these claims in terms of facts and in thehistorical perspective.

According to the UGC circular: “Vedic as-trology is not only one of the main subjectsof our traditional and classical knowledgebut this is the discipline which lets us knowthe events in human life and in the universeon time scale. The distinguishing featureof this subject is that it makes us familiarwith time, its nature and feature and its ef-fects on human life and other events andthat way it helps us to manage and make

2 Breakthrough, Vol.9, No.2, November 2001


optimal utilization of time.”It continues: “It is a common feature

that despite best method adopted for esti-mation the events happen in different waysand add to worries, tensions and frustra-tion in life. Here Vedic astrology can helpto see the unforeseen, it being the subjectdealing with the time.” The UGC believesthat introduction of this course “will alsoadd a new dimension for research in thefields of Hindu Mathematics, Vastushas-tra, Meteorological Studies, Agriculture Sci-ence, Space Science, etc.”

Prof. Hari Gautam, the UGC chairman,while addressing a function of the CentralInstitute of English and Foreign Languages(CIEFL) at Hyderabad on 12 April 2001,stated in support of their venture into thepast, “The great Indian Physicist and NobelLaureate C. V. Raman also used to believeastrology to be a science.” [1] So in his opin-ion there is nothing wrong in introducingastrology as a university course.

Let us see how far these observations ofthe UGC agree with facts and truths.

‘Vedic Astrology’ — A Misnomer

Before entering into the discussion over thequestions of validity and relevance of astrol-ogy we would like to clarify a fact. The UGCas well as the Ministry of HRD tell the peo-ple a damn lie when they describe the as-trology prevalent in the country as “Vedic”.Dr. Joshi even claimed that “Vedic astrologyis the oldest system of astrology. ...Vedicastrology, as I understand it, is based oninformation provided by the scholars of theVedic times.” [2] One might say that prac-tice of astrology has a long history in India.But to brand it as Vedic is to indulge in agross distortion of facts. It may undoubt-edly help them to play upon the prevail-ing sentiment of a large number of Hindusthat ‘all valuable knowledges are ultimately

rooted in the Vedas’. The common peoplemight be made to think that the astrologythey want to introduce as a university cur-riculum is of Vedic origin, and is, therefore,not only very ancient but an original onetoo.

And yet all this is a vulgarization of facts.Those who have read all the four Vedictexts, the Upanishadas, all the Puranas in-cluding the Ramayana, the Mahabharataand the Harivansha, or the older smriti-literatures (the social codebooks), may re-call that there is no trace of astrologicalpractice or fate reading in them. It is truethat one of the Vedangas is called Jyotisha,but the phalita-jyotisha (applied astrology)that has been practised since long past hasnothing in common with Vedanga-jyotisha.It would, moreover, be wrong to think thatthe Vedangas were parts of, or, concernedwith the study of only the Vedas. In fact, inancient India the word ‘veda’ (from the root‘vid’ = to know) meant knowledge as well assource of knowledge. Hence the traditionto attach ‘veda’ as a prefix or a suffix toany subject of knowledge, like, Ayurveda,Dhanurveda, Vedanta, Vaidic Ganita, etc.The six Vedangas were written much laterthan the Vedas when it was felt necessaryto introduce the young uninitiated learn-ers to the study of the grammar, meters,rhetorics, etymology, etc. of the Sanskritlanguage as well as to the method of watch-ing the heavenly bodies and their move-ments, before they could read and under-stand the Vedas, Puranas, and other textsof literature, science etc. Vedanga Jyotisha,at that time — as it itself declared and aswe shall shortly see — was concerned withobserving the sky in order to count the in-tervals of time from the lunar phases, froma full-moon to a new-moon, and vice versa,and thereby locate some omens or specificauspicious moments for both daily choresand occasional rituals. There was no men-



tion of any planet in it — which implied itslack of knowledge about planet. Moreover,it was never concerned with the fate of anyindividual man. It goes to the credit of theancient Indian scholars that in giving physi-cal names to each of the limbs (angas) of theVedic literatures, they had rightly comparedthe Jyotisha with the eyes.

The Rigveda, the oldest available literarydocument of mankind, is a grand collec-tion of beautiful verses composed by theseers of the Vedic tribes while wanderingthrough the forests and settling in the sub-Himalayan Sindhu-Ganga terrace. Theywere astonished as well by the grandeur ofthe celestial and terrestrial objects like thesun, the moon, the mountain Himalayas,the river Sindhu, etc. as by the beauti-ful natural phenomena like the ushering ofthe dawn, the outbreak of forest fire, etc.These feelings of awe and wonder at naturalobjects and phenomena were emotionallyrecorded by them in their verses. There isno trace of any thinking among them aboutthe influence of the celestial objects on thefate of an individual man - as claimed byastrology. The Samaveda and Yajurvedaare actually anthologies of instructions andmantras (incantations) about the designand construction of the sacrificial altars,the procedures of the various rituals andceremonies, and the slokas to be uttered.The Atharvaveda is a grand book of mag-ical performances about how to extractbenefits from nature, ward off evil influ-ences of man and nature, fight out dis-eases and cause harm to unwanted peo-ple. The Upanishadas were composed asthe philosophical discourses about differentreligious questions of the time, about themysteries of life and death of man, emer-gence of the world, source of human con-sciousness, nature of the so-called atma(soul) of man, etc. We don’t find any as-trology in all this.

The Ramayana and the Mahabharata —the two main epics among the Puranic lit-eratures — also do not refer to any astro-logical feat. They contain no mention ofrashichakra, saptaha (week), bara (week-day), individual fate-reading, palmistry, orany action based on these. There are ref-erences, following Vedanga jyotish, to var-ious tithis (lunar days) with respect to thevarying positions of the moon. But thatis related to defining the auspicious or in-auspicious moments for different ceremo-nial functions of the royal court. Planningany social festival or ceremony accordingto lunar time table while following the so-lar calendar for routine activities is an oldpractice in Indian traditional culture. Bothof these time schedules are equally valid forall members of the community in question.There is nothing specific for separate indi-viduals. The tradition is still living in Indiatoday. The tithis on which marriage andother social or religious functions are sup-posed to be auspicious or otherwise — asdescribed in the almanacs — are so for allmembers of the society irrespective of theirhoroscopes.

Astrology in the current sense of the term(in which BJP and UGC are interested andwhich is called applied astrology by itspractitioners) begins at the point when dif-ferent arrangements of the celestial objectsat the time of birth of different individualsare declared to define courses of life of thoseindividuals in different specific ways. It as-cribes not only different characters to thedifferent celestial objects, but also differentbehaviours of the same object in differentconfigurations. These features are absentin Vedic and Puranic literatures.

In view of all these available facts, we maycall it Indian astrology. We should, however,also acknowledge the fact that in its origi-nal form it was brought to India from thewest — from Babylonia, Greece and Rome.



Today the BJP lobby and others are busyto conceal this fact, but the ancient Indianswere much more frank and honest to openlyacknowledge their debts to the sources.

Let us give some examples.The two important sources of Indian as-

trology were named as Romaka Siddhantaand Yavana Siddhanta, the first parts ofthe titles of which directly refer to the Ro-man and Ionian sources of the systems de-scribed therein (the Greeks were called inSanskrit Yavanas derived from the word Io-nia). Similar is the case with another astro-logical text — Paulish Siddhanta — whichhad probably been borrowed by the Indiansfrom a book written by Paulas of Alexan-dria (376 AD) in the fourth or fifth cen-tury. The absence of any astrology text withthe title of ‘Vaidic Siddhanta’ or the like isquite significant. Dr. Meghnad Saha, oneof the great scientists of India, had elabo-rately studied the original sources of Indianastrology and showed that the foundersof Indians astrology had themselves putthese facts on written record. For exam-ple, Varahamihira, the first astrologer of In-dia, in his Panchasiddhantika had clearlyplaced the classical Indian source-bookslike Paitamahasiddhanta and Vashisthasid-dhanta, which followed the lead of Vedangajyotish, much lower than the Romaka,Yavana and the Paulish siddhantas, andcalled them ”durvibhrasta” (strayed afar).[3]

One of the main source books of Indianastrology is titled as Brihat Parashara Hora,where the term Hora is surely a modifiedform of the word Horace, the sun-god of an-cient Egypt. It may be recalled here thatthe term horoscope also derives from Hora(which in Greek means hour or time, andrepresents in Indian astrology lagnakhanda— that is, fraction of time-intervals).

Another system of Indian astrology iscalled Tajika Jyotish which is also knownby its other name Neelakantha Tajika af-

ter its propounder who admitted having re-ceived it from the Arabs in 1587. Tajika inSanskrit means an Arab. Thus the Arabswere another source, or, at least anothermedium for the passage of astrology fromthe west into India.

Shukra or Shukracharya in the post-Vedictradition is an antigod, the teacher of theAsuras, and a distinctly masculine entity.But the current Indian astrology describesShukra as the planet—goddess of love,which is in definite accord with the clas-sical Greek tradition of describing Venusas the goddess of love, and sharply con-tradicts the ancient Indian tradition. Sim-ilarly, Chandra, the moon, has been con-sidered a masculine member of the Puranicpantheon with not less than 27 prominentstars as his ‘wives’. But in the Indian as-trological literature the same moon has be-come a feminine ‘planet’ — again in conso-nance with Graeco-Roman characterizationof the goddess Luna or Diana, etc.

It may also provoke a curious reader hereto ask why the planet Mars, which wascalled by the ancient Indian observers asMangala (goodness), was converted by theIndian astrologers into its direct opposite torepresent amangala (harmfulness), again instrict conformity with Graeco-Roman tradi-tion.

Palmistry, the system of study of the fur-rows in one’s hand palm to ‘read’ his or herfate has been studied in traditional astrol-ogy in a treatise called Hasta SamudrikaShastra (trans-oceanic study of the palm).What is this if not an irrefutable recordof the fact that it had come to India fromoverseas? It further illustrates the enviablehonesty of the ancient Indians.

It is also interesting to note that thenames and images of the 12 rashis (con-stellations — through which the sun isobserved to proceed) in Indian astrologyclosely resemble those of the Graeco- Ro-



man tradition: mesha (ram — aries), vr-isha (bull — taurus), mithuna (sex relation— gemini), karkata (crab — cancer), sinha(lion — leo), kanya (maiden — virgo), tula(scale — libra), vrishchika (scorpion - scor-pio), dhanu (man with a bow — sagittarius),makara (crocodile — capricorn), kumbha(pitcher — aquarius) and meena (fish —pisces). Had it originated independentlyfrom within the Vedic and Puranic tradi-tion it would have been more natural toadopt the names of kurma (turtle), varaha(pig), vamana (dwarf), hanumana (monkey),jambuban (bear), byaghra (tiger), garura (abird), ashva (horse), gaja (elephant), sarpa(snake), etc. Apart from fish, which is ac-tually a common element in the mythologyof many ancient cultures including those ofBabylonia and India, none of the ancient In-dian elements has been taken. This is quitea strong evidence of the real source of In-dian astro(nomy + logy).

Moreover, as far as facts are known, an-cient Indians were better conversant withthe movement of the moon, which is why allthe important ritual and social functions ofthe Hindus are situated in the lunar cal-endar, on specific tithis — that is, lunarday. In fact, in Manusmriti the brahminsare advised to worship, among others, themoon, as the only celestial object consid-ered a deity. The sun, an important god ofthe Rigveda, is relegated to insignificance.This means that by the time astrology hadappeared in India the ancient people hadfound it easier to study the movement ofthe moon than that of the sun. They hadrightly noted that the place of moon-rise ev-ery night shifts from the neighbourhood ofone bright star to that of another. So theystudied the moon’s ecliptic in terms of such27 nearby nakshatras (groups of stars) andnot the solar ecliptic with its rashis. Thesolar calendrical system had been first de-veloped by the Chaldeans in the Babylonia

wherefrom it passed on to Europe. Prob-ably, it had entered India during or af-ter Alexander’s imperial invasion into India,with the Greeks. That explains the identi-cal rashi- images and many other facts. Buteven after adopting solar studies into its as-trology, the Indians astrologers — unliketheir European counterparts — still deter-mine the horoscopes of the people with ref-erence to the varying positions of the moononly.

Swami Vivekananda, who was a greatHindu revivalist preacher of the 19th cen-tury, emphatically said: “I think the Greeksfirst gave astrology to India and took fromthe Hindus the science of astronomy andcarried it back with them to Europe.”[4] Thegreat scholar of Indian languages and cul-ture, Suniti Kumar Chatterjee is also re-ported to have said that, “India acceptedGreek astronomy in toto as being more ac-curate than the Vedic astronomy which sheabandoned by A. D. 420.” [5]

Although there are many more evidences,we hope that these will suffice to make thepoint clearer. It is totally unhistorical toattach the epithet ‘Vedic’ to Indian astrol-ogy. It is not only a misnomer but a sheeruntruth. It neither had originated in Vedictimes nor was independently developed inIndia. The RSS lobby has been trying, withthe shameless backing of the BJP govern-ment, and through the person of Dr. Joshi,the HRD Minister, to disown the historicalfact of its origin and get that officially ac-cepted by the academics.

Astrology versus the Concept of Time

Now let us examine whether astrology canat all provide any idea about time, or‘events happening in time scale’. It is truethat the ancient Indian philosophies dealtwith a concept of time (kala or mahakala)which irretrievably absorbs or consumesall events of nature and human life. For



the ancient people with primitive ideas andlimited experience it was definitely a com-mendable effort to comprehend and repre-sent the concept of time. As far as mea-surement of time was concerned, the an-cients could not count below a small andsubjective unit called prahar roughly equiv-alent to three hours (the whole day beingdivided into astaprahars). The still smallerunits called pal were highly subjective.

Is man’s idea of time still confined to thatsubjective concept? With the invention ofthe mechanical clock in the 15th century inEurope man was able for the first time tocount time precisely as well as objectively.In India the clock entered still 200 yearslater. Today modern science has devel-oped the concept of time much further andshown it to be an objective entity, relatedto motion of matter or change of events,a dimension in which motion or change ofevents takes place. Can we extract thismodern idea of time from any ancient In-dian text, let alone astrology?

��

S

E r

Figure 1: Earth-Sun system as per astrology.

Can astrology explain events happeningin time-scale? Let us check with a simpleexample. Astrology held and still holds thatthe sun moves round the earth in 24 hours.This implies that the velocity of the sun inspace is

��kmph, where

�is the dis-

tance of the sun from the earth (see Fig.1),which is more than one thousand times the

actual value now known, involving an er-ror of the same order 1. Can such a subjectwhich gives so gigantically erroneous a con-cept of motion of the sun so familiar to us,provide us with any idea of time today?

Today in the light of the relativity the-ory we know that time-scale differs withmotion of the frame of reference with re-spect to which it is measured. Astrology,just like pre-relativity science, did not obvi-ously know this. However, there are peoplein India who never think twice before ex-tolling ancient Indian wisdom to any fanci-ful height: “The ancient Indians showed akeen interest in the metaphysical characterof the universe and an almost Einsteinianunderstanding of time.” [6] These people donot understand that Einsteinian concept oftime has developed simultaneously with theEinsteinian concept of space. One is insep-arably related with the other. Ancient as-trology had no idea of space at the extra-terrestrial level (it placed all astronomicalobjects at the same distance from the earthon an imagined ceiling in the sky — onthe inner surface of the so-called celestialsphere), and, therefore, no idea of time inthe large scale. But has it acquired thisknowledge even today? Obviously no! Ithas not absorbed the knowledge of scienceat the level of Copernicus or Newton till to-day. How could it approach Einstein? Aswe shall see below, astrology by its very na-ture is insulated from any new knowledge.Hence it is not possible for astrology to giveus the correct concept of time.

Astrology and Future Forecast

According to the UGC circular, astrology“lets us know the events happening in

1Since �� km., the velocity becomes� � �� ! kmph or �� " kmps, whereas the actualvalue is nearly

� � �#�$��" kmph. This is an absurdlylarge velocity comparable only with the velocity of light,and hence impossible.



human life and in the universe on timescale”. Moreover, while the events in reallife happen differently than expected and”add to worries, tensions and frustration”,they claim, “Vedic Astrology can help to seethe unforeseen”, and relieve us of the wor-ries etc.

Let us examine the claim in detail.The so-called predictions of astrology are

based on two basic tenets, namely, (1) thecourse of events in a man’s life is pre-determined by the special arrangements ofthe celestial objects in the sky at the time ofhis or her birth; 2 and, (2) astrology, beingable to study all such arrangements of theplanets and stars at that time, can calcu-late the influences of these celestial objectson the life of that man and foretell his/herfuture.

Let us for the time being agree withastrology and then consider the followingquestions. 1) If the planets like Mercury,Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can ex-ert influence on a man’s life — good or bad— then why cannot the other planets likeUranus, Neptune and Pluto do the same?2) If there is an influence of the moon onman’s life, then should not the satellitesof Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Nep-tune — some of which are much bigger thanthe moon (see Table-1) — also be supposedto exert influence?

But no. Astrology did not acknowledgethe existence of the four new planets dis-covered by astronomy, namely, Uranus,Neptune, Pluto and our earth, as the mostinfluential planet. Instead, it continued touphold the two imaginary planets (in theirparlance shadow-planets) — rahu and ketu

2Indian astrology considers the following threethings at the time of the child’s birth, to prepare theirhoroscopes: a) janmalagna — the rashi which rises inthe eastern horizon of the sky; b) janmarashi — therashi in which the moon is supposed to stay; and, c)janmanakshatra — the bright group of stars which isnearest the moon.

Table 1: Satellites of Other Planets Compa-rable to Moon.

planet satellite radius mass (0ne(km) moon unit)

Earth Moon 1738 1.000

Jupiter Io 1816 1.214Europa 1563 0.663Ganymede 2638 2.027Callisto 2410 1.463

Saturn Tethys 530 0.010Dione 560 0.014Rhea 765 0.034Titan 2575 1.849Iapetus 730 0.026

Uranus Titania 840 0.016Oberon 850 0.011

Neptune Triton 1900 0.776

Source: L. Berman & J. C. Evans Exploring The Cos-

mos; Little, Brown & Co., Boston; 1983; Table 6.5,

p.125

— and the related explanation of eclipses,even when man could also observe the par-tial eclipse of the earth from the moon (whowould eat up the earth during a vishvagra-han, dear astrologers?). It could not lookmuch farther beyond the 18 degree zodiacto see the other stars. It knows only the fiveplanets correctly and the sun and the moonwrongly; it does not even know that the sunis a star and the moon is a satellite and thatthey are not planets. In addition, it knowsnone of the asteroids in between the Marsand the Jupiter, none of the known 600comets, none of the other so far known 72satellites (see Table-2) of the Mars, Jupiter,Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Theseobjects simply do not exist for astrology.



Astrology which sought to predict man’sfuture from the influences of the stars andplanets forgot to calculate the influence ofthe earth on a man’s life — where he lives,collects foods from, receives the impact ofthe weather of, so on and so forth, that isto say, the maximum share of influencesexerted by the most important planet forman. It does not know even today what isthis earth — a planet, a star, or a satellite!But again no! There is no satellite in theastrological dictionary! It continues to talkof moon as a planet influencing man’s lifein certain ways even when some men havealready set foot on the lunar surface andsaw the earth as a celestial luminous ob-ject. What to speak of the lay astrologers,even Dr. Joshi is reported to have askedwith exclamation “why then does the posi-tion of the moon affect the tides and evenmould conditions of the human mind”. [7]However, on this later. Let us go back toastrology’s fund of knowledge.

Astrology knows about the influence ofonly 108 stars in the above mentioned 27groups of stars in the sky. However, thereare approximately 12000 stars in the skyon both sides of the hemisphere visible withthe naked eyes (let us forget for the time be-ing the actual number of stars in the uni-verse in billions of billions, as found outby modern astronomy with the help of tele-scope, radio-telescope and other means).That means, astrology fails to take into ac-count the influence of 99.094 per cent ofthe nearer and/or visible celestial objectswhich it claims to know and apply (seeTable-2). How can a subject with such anacute paucity of knowledge in its own spe-cialized field tell the future events?

They say they can tell the future of a manby calculating the influences of the starsand planets. But actually, as seen fromthe above table, they are ignorant aboutthe existence of more than 99 per cent of

Table 2: Celestial Objects and AstrologicalKnowledge Bank.

Name of Actual Astrologyobjects number knowsplanet 9 5satellite

Earth 1 ��Mars 2Jupiter 16Saturn 17Uranus 15Neptune 21Pluto 1

Total 73 � �asteroids big 6 & 0

many smallcomets 600+ 0visible stars 12001+ ��Total 12689 ��

Source: 1) Berman & Evans op. cit.; 2) Dr. Partha

Sarathi Gupta Vigyaner Aloy Jyotish (Bengali); New

Horizon Book Trust, Calcutta; 2001

* Of course its ideas about the sun and themoon is wrong.** One may add the two so-called shadow-planets of Indian astrology – namely – Rahuand Ketu. But it does not increase the knowl-edge bank of astrology, rather shows its fur-ther lack of knowledge about the sky.

Hence, Astrology Knowledge Quotient =� �� %And, Astrology Ignorance Ratio = 99.094%

the planets, satellites, comets, and visiblestars, and, therefore, also about the sameamount of their influences. How will theycalculate?

Another point. The UGC tells us to be-lieve that astrology knows the events hap-pening “in the universe”. But what are thelength and breadth of this universe of as-



trology? Its knowledge-base does not covereven one-tenth of the solar system as such,let alone the milky way galaxy of which itis only an imperceptible point, and the bil-lions and billions of other galaxies beyond(see Fig.2). With this vast expanse of (al-most total) ignorance about the real uni-verse it is made to enlighten us about theevents ”happening in the universe” at thedictate of the UGC and BJP pundits! Theirignorance about the universe really enlight-ens us about the universe of their igno-rance!

To foresee the future is a much coveteddesire of mankind which is but very diffi-cult to fulfill. Man has always sought af-ter some tricks to know the future in ad-vance. Although man could correctly pre-dict the eclipses of the moon and the sunonly on the basis of empirical observationssince very ancient times, an idea prevailedamong them that some wiser men couldforesee the future events in the life of anindividual with their special power.

Astrology has been considered one suchmeans they could adopt for the purpose.But all such efforts were proved unsuc-cessful. It is only with the emergence andgrowth of modern science since the renais-sance that man has been able to know someof the future events in advance. The powerhas gradually increased with the sequentialincrease in his knowledge. Even then thepower is very limited compared to what manwants to know.

When the learned members of the UGCclaim that other “best methods of estima-tion” fail to correctly foretell the future, theyshould have discussed the reasons. The de-gree of accuracy of prediction depends onthe background knowledge. If the knowl-edge about an event is more or less com-plete the prediction can be fairly good. Incase the knowledge is not yet available, itwill not be possible for anybody to predict

anything.Let us take two simple examples of these

two kinds in order to make the pointclearer. If an average Indian unemployedyouth asks whether he will get a job in nearfuture, it can be answered with 90% suc-cess rate that he will not — whatever hisstar-signs be. If the father of a newbornbaby wants to know the blood-group of thechild, he has to arrange a blood test. In thefirst type of cases astrology is simply un-necessary. In the second type of cases it ishopelessly helpless.

So before claiming that astrology can“help us to see the unforeseen”, it befallsthe UGC as a duty to elicit their claims withsome concrete cases of predictions wheresciences have failed and astrology has suc-ceeded — unless they want to prove tobe a group of charlatans of the street as-trologers’ type.

We have, however, some cases at hand:the disastrous supercyclone of Orissa in1999, the devastating flood of West Bengalin 2000, and the catastrophic earthquakeof Gujarat in 2001. The possibilities of allthese natural calamities were precisely pre-dicted by the concerned scientific commu-nity well in advance. The fact remains thatthe State Governments of Orissa, West Ben-gal and Gujarat — run by different politicalforces — showed equal kind and degree ofdeafness to the warnings. Side by side, noastrologer of the country had even remotelyhinted at such disasters to the people af-fected. How would the honourable mem-bers of the UGC explain this?

The simple point is that astrology by itsvery nature could not foresee these calami-ties. Because, according to it, the life anddeath of every individual man are uniquelycontrolled by his or her particular star-signs, which are usually different for dif-ferent men. So any two neighbours takenat random in Paradeep, Bhuj, or Nabadwip,



with different dates and times of birth, dif-ferent star-signs and hence different fates,could not be predestined, per se astrology,to die in the same incident. Or we have tocome to the conclusion that “all the horo-scopes of a cyclone or earthquake victimswill reveal the same date [and also time] of[birth and] death” — which, according to Dr.H. Narasimhaiah, a former Vice-Chancellorof the Bangalore University, and well knownscience activist, it would be simply “prepos-terous to believe”.[8]

This implies either of the two things:1. Astrology could predict these natural

events on some other basis than indi-vidual star-signs, which would be com-mon to all to be affected; in which casethe time-honoured theoretical founda-tion of astrology would be proved inef-fective for any future forecasting; or,

2. Astrology would stick to its principles,look into the individual signs of the zo-diac for every individual and predictseparate results for each of them; inwhich case it would obviously prove it-self wrong.

Planetary Influence: A Case Study

When an educated man like Dr. Joshiequates the gravitational force of the moonwith its so-called control of the humanmind, it reminds us a comment of Ramen-dra Sundar Trivedi, a great scholar of theearly 20th century Bengal and a reputedscience popularizer. While discussing thepros and cons of astrology, he warnedagainst the use of misplaced correlation offacts: “Don’t argue in the way that if themoon can cause high and low tides in theGanga, why cannot it also cause Mr. Ra-makanta to get a judge’s job?” [9] The es-sential point of this slant was that one can-not put at random a “because” and a ”there-fore” between any two clauses of a sentence.Such a sentence will be meaningful only if

there is a real causal connection betweenthe two phenomena that the two clausesdescribe. Joshi’s quip can be rendered onsimplification as: “Because the moon exertsa tidal force on the earth, therefore it mayalso affect the mental conditions of man.”This only demonstrates the need of cultivat-ing Trivedi’s words with greater attention.

However, we are thankful to Dr. Joshi forgiving us a chance to examine the claimsof astrology with a concrete case study,namely, with respect to the influence of themoon on some specific aspects of man’sbody and mind.

Ancient people thought that the moonwas somehow responsible for mental dis-orders (incidentally let us remember thatthey did not call the phenomena as men-tal problems — this is a modern concep-tion), that is , for the peculiar behaviour ofmen under stress. They looked for materialcauses for material phenomena — althoughin most cases they wrongly associated onething with another as cause and effect sim-ply by observing some overt similarity be-tween them. The idea, in this particu-lar case, occurred to them probably fromthe apparently erratic and irregular dailymovement of the moon, that is, the dailychanges of its shape and of the space andtime of its successive appearances in thenights (which is known today as the cycli-cal phases of the moon). Hence the termlunatic was derived from Luna, the moon.

Modern psychology had long back sal-vaged the study of mental phenomena —both normal as well as abnormal — fromthe domain of magical cult like shamanism,possession, etc. In the process it has alsoshown, despite Joshi and his Vedic astrol-ogy, that man’s moods and mental diseaseshad no relation with the movement or grav-itational pull of the moon. The two Amer-ican astronauts Neil Armstrong and EdwinAldrin, the first men to land on the moon in



1969 in the Spacecraft Apollo 11, confirmedthat their stay for one hour on the sur-face of the moon created no mental stressor strain in them, apart from the ecstasy ofthe adventure. One might of course refer tothe changing romantic moods of the poetsthe world over centring round the moon’sappearance in the sky. But what has as-trology or UGC or Joshi to do with it?

There is another popular argument aboutlunar influence on man — this time on hisphysical being. Those who have joint pain(arthritis) often complain that the pain goesup with the lunar cycle of full-moon andnew-moon and subsides thereafter. Doesit not show that moon exerts a direct in-fluence on our life? And if moon can ex-ert influence why not also the sun? And soon. Some people advance further and try toadduce a ‘scientific’ argument in support.Since the gravitational pull of the moon in-creases on those special days, it causes theoceans to undergo bigger high-tide. Life onthe earth originated in the sea water. Soeven today man’s life feel the pull of themoon on these days.

The argument is self defeating. Even ifarthritic pain cycle and lunar cycle werecollateral, the point is, does it work ac-cording to the time table of the individuals’birth? Is it not, on the contrary, supposedto be common for all arthritis patients, ir-respective of their horoscopes? This provesthat astrology cannot claim it as an argu-ment in its favour regarding planetary influ-ence on man according to their positions atthe time of the man’s birth. It goes againstastrology. Then again, if the ‘scientific’ ar-gument is true, why should only the arthri-tis patients feel the moon’s pull? Why notother patients and the healthy people too?And in that case how does it agree with as-trology?

Secondly, the fact, as it is already knownfrom the science of medicine and from clin-

ical reports, is that the arthritic pain risesand subsides in a cyclical pattern no doubtfollowing its own pathological conditions,but not in an exactly 29-day cycle, norstrictly from a full-moon to a new-moon.Those who believe in astrology mentallymake the two cycles parallel and cotempo-ral. One may check the fact from a doc-tor’s clinic and/or a medicine store. If thepain really increases on full-moon and new-moon, visitors to the physicians will in-crease on or around those days comparedto the other days. Similarly, the sales ofanalgesic medicines also will go up on thosedays and diminish on others. None is thecase.

Thus the only physical case study whichit is possible to conduct and observe by anybody at any large scale, simply demolishesthe claims of astrology about planetary in-fluence on man without the slightest shredof doubt.

Research in Astrology?

The UGC assures us that the astrologycourse “will also add a new dimension forresearch” in the field of — among others —“space science”! A bold, although baselessclaim! A well-informed person may feel un-easy in a discussion like this. But we can-not avoid it since the point has been raised— and that too by some learned people.

Let us note at the outset that a subjectcan promote research if and only if (1) it isitself grounded on some positive knowledge;(2) it can assimilate all relevant advances inknowledge in the allied areas; and (3) it hasthe potence to advance its frontier to thebenefit of human knowledge and society.

Does astrology satisfy any of these twocriteria? Let us check.

1) Astrology, as we have already seen,does not know most of the things about thesky. Its knowledge bank is absolutely poor.It makes the entire universe rotate round



the earth. It does not even know that inspite of being much smaller in size thanJupiter by a fraction of 1/72, the moon ex-erts a much greater gravitational force onthe earth, and in fact, the greatest propor-tional tidal force among all the membersof the solar family including the sun (seeTable-3). These are only the most rudimen-tary knowledge about the celestial objects,and, astrology is ignorant of even thesethings — let alone the higher body of knowl-edge! What will it teach others?

2) As to the second criterion, the pictureis still worse. More than four centuries hadpassed since science came to know that thesun is a star and not a planet and that it isthe earth which moves round the sun, notthe vice-versa. Astrology could not learnor absorb this rudimentary lesson in these458 years! Dr. Joshi told the KharagpurIIT teachers that long before Copernicus itwas Varahamihira in ancient India (6th cen-tury AD) who had been the first to propoundthe heliocentric theory. Forgive the learnedMinister for his two minor mistakes thatit was not Varahamihira but the great as-tronomer Aryabhatt who in the year 499 ADhad actually propounded the diurnal mo-tion of the earth, and not a heliocentric the-ory. But with reference to this fact Joshihas to answer a more pertinent question:Why Indian or “Vedic” astrology could notabsorb even this ancient Indian knowledgeabout the earth’s motion during the last1502 years?

3) Lastly, if we look at the history of as-trology and its contributions, we find noth-ing it has given man in the form of knowl-edge or application. No new knowledge hasbeen gained from the study, cultivation andapplication of astrology. Neither has a newbranch of knowledge developed from thewomb of its practice. No problem in the lifeof man has been solved by astrology.

In fact, the UGC members who are ex-

horting about new dimension added by as-trology in promoting research, had betterread the following, a very cogent remarkof the astrological authorities themselves:“Some astrologers today, noting that sci-ence had discovered three more planets andnumerous asteroids, assert that Jyotish issomehow incomplete and can be improvedby adding these new bodies to its repertoire....Jyotish needs no more than these NinePlanets 3 to describe reality because, as weshall see, these Nine Planets are more thanmere material entities. Those who seek toadd new planets to Jyotish do so only be-cause they have not yet comprehended itsheart.” [10]

Thus it is clear that astrology is ignorantabout the things it talks about, and it couldnot learn anything new at least for the last1500 years. At the heart it does not wantto learn these new information. Can it helpany learning activity — let alone research?We invite the UGC members to think overand answer the question.

Man has learnt a lot of things down theages. In the wake of expanding knowl-edge in different fields of life, the differ-ent branches of natural and social sci-ences have been created and gradually en-riched. Man has extracted three fundamen-tal lessons from this history: (1) Knowledgein each and every field of life is cumulative;it grows slowly and bit by bit by gather-ing and synthesizing the truths learnt overtime; (2) Knowledge must be accommoda-tive; that is, man has to incorporate anynew information into the appropriate bodyof knowledge; for this, it may also be nec-essary to modify or even reject some exist-ing elements which are incompatible withthe new knowledge; and, (3) Knowledge indifferent branches or fields are contiguous,that is to say, a truth acquired in one field

3This refers to the 9 planets as understood in as-trology and not by modern science.



Table 3: Proportional Tidal Forces of the Solar Family Members

name mass distance force(kg) (a.u.) (a.u.)

Mercury �� 0.55 198Venus � � �� " 0.29 19964Mars �� 0.40 1003Jupiter �� ! 4.40 2229Saturn � � �� 8.60 89Total 23483sun �� 1.00 �� moon(perihelion) 7.348 � � �� 0.00239 �� (aphelion) 7.348 � � � �� 0.00272 ��

The tidal force is given as: �� , where, � = proportional tidal force, � =

mass of the concerned body,�

= the distance of the object from the earth.Source: Farhad Mahmood Jyotish Bishwas: Kichhu Prashna; in Tapan Chakraborty and Bhavani PrasadSahoo (ed.) Dui Banglar Kusanskar Virodhi Vigyanchinta (Bengali); p.49

or branch cannot contradict another truthgathered in another field or branch.

Astrology fails in all these respects: 1) Itsbody of knowledge did not grow beyond thepoint it started with in the sixth century ADin India, and still earlier elsewhere. 2) Itcould not accommodate the new truths ac-quired by the sciences, because, it was notprepared to modify or reject any of its tradi-tional beliefs. 3) It does not bother when itsclaims about the sun or moon do not agreewith the current astronomical knowledge.In this sense, in the history of man’s intel-lectual development astrology today repre-sents a branch of ”rejected knowledge”, likewitchcraft, demonology, occultology, magic,spirit-cult, etc. which are still practised bythe so-called medicine men among a largecross-section of the tribal and rural peopleall over the world 4.

4We ask the readers to notice the term “rejectedknowledge” as distinct from another cognate term“pseudo-science”. The former is used in the caseswhich carry into the present history the burden of the

PART — II: ASTROLOGY INHISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Origins of Astrology

To grasp the point it is necessary to knowhow astrology had evolved in history. Itmay be pointed out here that in the re-mote past astrology had appeared in his-tory as an empirical study of the luminousobjects of the sky (called jyotiska in San-skrit), which were visible with the nakedeyes, in relation to daily human affairs. As-trology was then identified with astronomyat its primitive stage, namely, study of thestars (in Sanskrit, similarly, it was calledJyotish shastra as it was engaged in thestudy of the jyotiskamandal). At that timethe luminous heavenly bodies were, appar-

past, the ancient man’s ideas and conceptions, provedwrong long back; and, the latter denotes those caseswhich represent the wrong application and/or inter-pretation of the present body of scientific information,with faked experimentation, e.g., social Darwinism, IQtheory, parapsychology, etc.



ently, related with the day-to-day strugglesfor existence of the earthly men. The sunwas a constant source of light and heatin the day, the moon was another sourceof light for some of the nights for differ-ent lengths of time, and they together werealso guides of man to differentiate time —day and night, summer and winter, dry andrainy seasons, high-tide and low-tide in therivers and seas, etc. Similarly, the biggerplanets like the Jupiter and Saturn, or thebrightest planet, the Venus, etc., were alsoguides for man in the nights through thedense forests, in the rivers, lakes or moun-tain valley, for finding the way from and totheir shelters. All the human groups in theworld were then living a nomadic life withthe most primitive tribal form of social or-ganization.

However, human society has never beenan immutable system. It continued toslowly change, evolve and take on newforms. In the wake of his relentless strug-gle with nature for existence and survival,man with his magnificent brain went onstudying nature. While often he misun-derstood it, in between he grasped something correctly and therefore advanced inhis mode of living. It was in this pro-cess that the palaeolithic culture which hadlasted for one or two millions of years, wassubsumed in the neolithic revolution. Somegroups of men in the “fertile crescent” ofwest Asia invented agriculture while oth-ers in the western hemisphere started do-mestication of animals. The heavenly bod-ies assumed now greater importance in thisnew form of productive activities of man inshowing him the proper sowing season fordifferent crops, the mating season of differ-ent livestocks, the time of river-flood or ofheavy or poor rainfall, etc.

Moreover, the different positions of theseobjects in relation to one another indicatedproper times for the cultivation of differ-

ent vegetables, the time of availability orscarcity of various hunting games, etc. Inorder to locate these time-points more andmore precisely, the agriculturist tribes hadto learn to count time. The attempts thereofgradually led to the birth of the earliestforms of annual calendar — somewhere so-lar and elsewhere lunar — depending onwhose movements they studied in greaterdetail for the purpose.

To achieve this they started observingthe sky along the path of the sun and themoon and in the process located there someprominent stars in different periods of time.For their limited purpose it was sufficient toidentify the stars falling on the imaginaryorbital path of the sun and the moon inthe sky, called krantivritta (ecliptic), as seenfrom the earth within an approximate an-gular width of, say, 18 degree — called thezodiac. And they did it superbly. Since theapparent orbits of the sun and moon viewedfrom the earth almost coincide, there wasno major differences in their study. As theydiscovered it, the same specific stars are as-sociated with the sunrise as well as sun-set for some specific time period of the year,which are replaced after that time by otherstars, and so on, until the first group is re-peated when the same kind of season is re-peated. Each of these associations of starswas called a constellation (sign of the zo-diac) or rashi. Thus the now well-known 12rashis were differentiated and given names.Each of them was allotted a house by di-viding the 360 degree ecliptic into 12 equalparts and each of them was seen to makea complete rotation around the earth in aday (actually they appear to rotate becauseof the earth’s diurnal motion). Each of therashis, as we know today, also appears tomove eastward (owing to earth’s orbital mo-tion) by approximately one degree per day(360 degrees in 365 days). So each of themstays in nearly the same position in the



Table 4: From Stars to Months

name of international Indianthe star name monthBishakha � Librae BaishakhaJyestha � Scorpionis JaisthyaPurba Ashada

�Sagittarii Ashada

Shrabana � Aquilae ShrabanaPurva Bhadrapada � Pegasi BhadraAshvini � Arietis AshvinKrittika � Tauri KartikaRohini � Tauri AgrahayanPushya

�Cancri Pousha

Mogha � Leonis MaghaUttara Phalguni

�Leonis Phalgun

Chitra � Verginis Chaitra

sky with respect to the sun for about onemonth. It is this clockwise movement ofthe rashis that had helped ancient man tocount time with precision.

This is how the ancient astronomersconstructed the idea of the so-calledRashichakra (Signs of the Zodiac). To re-member the constellations, as we have al-ready seen, they attributed various imagesof man, animals and things on to each ofthem. Then it was easy for them to definethe various units of time in the descend-ing order starting from year, through sea-son and month, to week, day, etc. It wasnow also easy to divide the day in some stillsmaller units called hour.

It is to be remembered here that the an-cient Indians had observed quite correctlya specific feature of the moon. The moonrepeated its full-moon phase almost afterevery 29 days, but every time near a newgroup of stars. The names of the monthsin the ancient Indian calendar were givenin accordance with each of these stars (seebelow):

Although the months are now adjusted

against the solar calender year, and havetherefore shifted from the monthly cycle ofthe full-moon by quite a large magnitudes,the importance of these observations can-not be underestimated.

All these were commendable achieve-ments of the ancient men. They mustalso be given the credit for another signif-icant discovery — the distinction betweenstars (taraka or tara) and planets (graha).They called those luminous objects planets(in Greek — wandering objects) which rel-atively quickly changed places in the skycompared to the stars. It was according tothis definition of theirs that they identifiedthe sun and the moon also as planets, sincethese two objects are daily seen to changeposition in the sky very quickly. The mis-take that was involved in this was a prod-uct of their narrow empiricism. It requireda wider database as well as a high powerof abstract thinking and reasoning to over-come the limitation.

There were other limitations too. As pertheir psyche born out of the then magicalculture, the primitive men considered ev-ery moving thing to be animated, living likethemselves — the flowing river, the surgingsea, the quaking earth, the sliding moun-tain rocks, the raging storm, the heavydownpour from the sky, and so on. Simi-larly, the planets and stars in the sky werealso animated, given names like man’s, andprovided with man-like social and family re-lations among one another. They were sup-posed to possess volition, facilitate or dis-parage man’s livelihood, according as theroles their movements appeared to play inhis life. The sun and the moon were ob-viously good for man. The Jupiter andthe Venus — also very luminous objects,observed over a longer period, and there-fore helpful — were considered benevolentto man. On the other hand, the Mercurywhich because of its proximity to the sun is



rarely seen and the Saturn which with itspeculiar ring moves slowly were supposedto be inauspicious. The Mars being reddishin appearance was supposed to contributeto warfare and bloodshed. So on and soforth. The primitive people of all countriesmore or less adopted this kind of character-ization of the planets. Like their other rit-uals the primitive people had devised somemagic procedures to propitiate the benev-olent and exorcize the malevolent planets.The astrology of the time also had absorbedall these features.

Even then astrology was not called uponto foresee the fate of individual man. Be-cause both these concepts — fate and indi-viduality — were still unknown to the prim-itive man. From the enormous volume ofdata collected by sociology and anthropol-ogy about the culture and social organiza-tion of the primitive people of different partsof the globe, it is fairly certain that humansociety was till then divided into small unitsof tribes and clans living in scattered settle-ments on the river-sides, mountain caves,forest clearances, etc. Every communitywas a unified whole with no division into aprivileged small group and a deprived ma-jority. A member of a tribe or a clan hadnothing like his or her personal interestapart from the group interest, and none hadtime or scope to be concerned about his orher own affairs. Every body lived in andthrough the collective — blindly but rigidly.The idea of some supernatural power calledFate, an invisible but inexorable distributorof the consequences in the life of an individ-ual was then unthinkable.

The Rigveda, a valuable document of theancient people in India, is a very goodrepertoire of evidences in point. In mostof the verses in it the poets expressed theirdesires for corns, games, cattles, children,victory in war with the Dasas and Dasyus(the other heterogenic tribes) for a whole

community, and not for this or that indi-vidual. Almost all the prayers and appealsto the nature-gods were meant to cater tothe needs of us and not of me. [11]

Naturally, the primitive man elaboratedthe role of the planets and stars in their lifealso in terms of their collective existence.All the objects had equal imports for all.Some of them indicated good crops for allmembers of the community, easy huntingfor all of them, victory of their tribe againstthe other, on the one hand, and, some oth-ers stood for dangers like flood, landslide,hail-storms, drought, scarcity of foods andgames, pestilence, etc. for them all alike.Astrology or jyotish till then was not con-cerned with the effects of the celestial ob-jects on the life of individual men.

Class Division and Its Consequence

Advent of agriculture — the first technolog-ical revolution of mankind — led in courseof time to the first social revolution withtwo important consequences. On the onehand, it could sustain an increasing pop-ulation with the relative certainty of foodsobtained, and at the same time requiredparticipation of a larger number of peopleto carry out the complicated and multifari-ous jobs of cultivation. In the process sev-eral tribes were compelled to unite into abigger whole, thereby creating the possibil-ity of a non-tribal form of societal organiza-tion. On the other hand, for the first time inthe history of mankind, some stable prop-erty — namely, the cultivable land — wasbrought into being which could be located,preserved and multiplied.

From this resulted a major rupture inthe common human relations within soci-ety creating class division. Until then when-ever two tribes used to meet, (1) they wouldinvariably clash with each other, and onegroup would rout the other; or, (2) the vic-torious group would kill all the members



of the other; or, (3) one group would sel-dom absorb the other to form a bigger com-munity. But by now man had the experi-ence that animals could be harnessed byhim into his farming activities. So it grad-ually occurred to some people that mem-bers of the defeated tribes instead of beingsent away or killed could rather be capti-vated and enforced into labour for the vic-tors. This is how slavery had once started.However, it was not confined among theenslaved members of captured tribes only.The experience of employing slave labourgradually prompted a section of the victori-ous tribes to introduce it within their owncommunity too. A small group of peopleconverted all or most of the resources of thesociety into their private property and be-came the owning class and the masters ofthe society. The larger bulk of the remain-ing people were subjugated and enslavedunder them.

From this historical moment there arosea separate personal interest of each mem-ber of the society. The present course oflife and hence the future prospects — de-scribed under a sublime title of ‘fate’ —of men were no longer same for the twoclasses but were directly opposite to oneanother, in compliance with their respec-tive social position. Here again some per-tinent evidences can be cited from the latersections of the Rigveda, where for the firsttime an entity called bhaga appeared, dis-tributing resources among some chosen fewand depriving others. It is from this bhagathat the idea of bhagya — also called niy-ati (meaning fate) — and the term bhagavan(powerful/resourceful) originated in the In-dian tradition. In the 10th mandala (sec-tion) of the Rigveda, the primary intent ofthe prayers is seen to have been changed;it is no longer for the benefit of us, but forme.[12]

The course of life, and hence, the ‘fate’

of man ever since this moment of historyhad become different for different individu-als. Most of the people then — as they arestill now — were unaware of the real fac-tors at work behind this sharp division. Sothey sought for an explanation in fictitiousthings or they themselves imagined things.Looking at the social order maintained by aking or any other ruler they contrived a gov-ernor of the entire natural and social order— a God. The heavenly luminous bodies,as distinct from this mundane earth, wereconsidered to be the soldiers of this God.They carried his orders to define the fates ofdifferent men in different ways by sitting inspecial positions at the time of their birth.

These changes in men’s social positionsand their outlooks were, therefore, also re-flected in the sphere of their knowledgeabout the sky. Before the emergence ofthe class divided society, the celestial bod-ies too, like the terrestrial objects, wereviewed by man as animated beings, andnot as supernatural entities. But now withthe change and the split in men’s socialpositions and functions, their attitudes tothese entities also changed. These werethought to be possessed with some God-given supernatural and occult powers, in-cluding the power to decide and control thecourse of events in the life of every individ-ual man in particular ways. The kings andslave-masters were the first to have becomeinterested to foresee their future:

If they go out for imperial expansion andexpeditionary war, will they be success-ful? When is it the most propitious timeto launch the battle? Suppose, there aremany expectants in a royal family waitingto occupy the throne; who will succeed? Soon and so forth.

So the first generation of astrologers wereall deputed to serve the royal families. Inour country they were called in Sanskritthe Rajajyotishi [13]. That is why, whereas



Aryabhatt, the great scientist of ancient In-dia had engaged himself in the study of as-tronomy, men like Varahamihira, one of thenine jewels of the court of Ujjaini, devotedthemselves in astrology. His Panchasid-dhantika can be considered to be the firstauthentic treatise of Indian astrology. Simi-lar thing had already happened in the west-ern countries.

From this time onwards astrology lostits original function, namely, to study theheavenly bodies to learn about their move-ments. It stopped to study them any furtherbut took things till then known for grantedand final. On the basis of that knowledge itbuilt up an esoteric system about the rolesand functions of the handful of stars andplanets it knew, and began to prognosticatetheir mystical influences on the life of anindividual man in virtue of their special po-sitions at the time of his or her birth.

Astrology now changed its function butretained the name. So those who contin-ued to study the celestial bodies and dis-cover new ones had no alternative but tocoin a new title for their pursuit: astron-omy (in India also it had to differentiate it-self from jyotish shastra as jyotirvidya orjyotirvigyan). It is an irony of history thattoday the jyotish-lobby, behind the facadeof the UGC and under the umbrella of theBJP Government, has to try to capture thisnew name too and label their course on as-trology as ‘jyotirvigyan’! Probably, at theinmost recess of their heart they are alsoaware of the real ‘worth’ of their astrology.

From this brief historiography it is nowclear how astrology degenerated into a formof “rejected knowledge”. It has remainedstatic where it stood at the time of its di-vorce with astronomy, like the stagnantsegment of a river cut off from the mainstream when it had changed its course.Over the centuries man’s knowledge aboutthe objects of the sky continued to increase

and expand, gradually passed astrology by,in the process retained whatever valuabledata it had till then collected, rejected itswrong perceptions one by one and wenton absorbing all the new information thatcame in the way. The advancing frontiersof the sciences have long back left astrologyfar behind and shelved it in the museum ofancient history.

PART — III:APPLIED ASTROLOGY

Astrological Metallurgy

Now let us look at the other aspects of as-trology. The astrologers do not stop at prog-nosticating the future life events of theircustomers. They also suggest remediesto improve the future. Usually nobody —even though a believer — goes to an as-trologer when he or she is passing throughgood times. It is the unhappy people, job-less youths, parents with unmarried agingdaughters at home, persons afflicted withchronic and incurable health problems, orinvolved in a complex tangle of lengthy lit-igation, etc. who go to consult the as-trologers.

But, they are hardly ever aware that bygoing to the astrologer they contradict theirown belief, namely that, every thing in theirlife is already predetermined by the starsand planets in their birth charts.

The astrologers also never tell a clientthat the position he/she is bogged in hasbeen created by the special arrangement ofthe planets and stars at the time of his/herbirth, and it can’t be helped. Right orwrong, it would sound logical enough. Theconclusion would be consistent with theproposed theory.

They, on the contrary, suggest that thesituation can be improved by neutraliz-ing the actions of the kupita grahas (an-gry planets) with the help of some tabeez



(amulets) etc. made of astadhatus (eightmetals), or wearing rings with special gem-stones meant for the purpose. Before argu-ing the case against the efficacies of suchpractices, we would like to point out a seri-ous problem.

Let us for the time being agree with as-trology that the metals or gemstones canward off the evil influences of the bad plan-ets. But then, what does that mean inour objectively existing physical world — asstudied by the sciences?

According to the astrologers, the entirecourse of events in the life of a man underquestion had been predetermined by thespecial positions of the planets and starsobtaining at the time of his/her birth. Thehoroscope of the man, if prepared by a well-informed astrologer, could accordingly pre-dict all the afflictions he/she is now con-fronted with. Nothing could alter this div-ination of fate.

But if the astrologer now claims, he canchange the eventuality by applying a suit-able metal and/or stone, that implies hecan change things created at the time ofthe man’s birth. That further means thathe can change what has already happened.He can change and influence the past by hisaction at present (see Fig.2) What an absur-dity is this! To be able to extend his handin the opposite direction of time!!

But we cannot help. Applied Astrology —or to be more precise — Commercial Astrol-ogy is bound to lead to such an absurd po-sition.

There are some other vital questions too.In nature there are 92 elements in all, of

which 64 elements are metals and the re-maining 28 are non-metals. The first seriesof questions is as follows:

� Why does astrology refer to only 8 met-als?

� Why does it refer to only metals?� Why does it not refer to any non-metal?

Astrologers or their ‘scientific’ apologistsfurther claim that since there are manymetals in the physical constitution of hu-man body, like iron, use of metals in what-ever form is bound to act on the body byvirtue of the properties of matter. Manypeople are found to be convinced by this ar-gument.

All right. Then we can put forward oursecond series of questions:

� Which metal is present in our body inthe largest quantity?

� Which element — metal, or, non-metal— is present in our body with thelargest quantity?

� Why does not astrology suggest theseelements as the contents of theamulets?

These questions cannot be answeredwithin the purview of astrology. Its apolo-gists can only bypass the issues and digressto other issues with the shunting tactic, asDr. Joshi did at the IIT, Kharagpur. But wecan find out the answers to all these ques-tions if we delve into the socio-historicalperspective of the origin of astrology.

Let us elaborate.Astrology had extricated itself from the

process of man’s active and continuouscognition at a time when man’s knowledgeabout the natural elements did not go be-yond the 8 metals of antiquity, namely,gold, silver, copper, lead, tin, iron, zinc andmercury. This is true in the history of bothEurope as well as India. Man acquired theknowledge about the identity and processof extraction of the other metals much later,most of them only after renaissance, whenmodern chemistry was born. Astrology, be-ing stuck at the old level of human knowl-edge and divorced from the process of as-similating new information, could not nat-urally learn about any new metal.

The same is true of non-metals. Alchemy,the precursor of modern chemistry, had no



***

**

Time

0Birth Adulthood

t

Figure 2: Action in time backwards. Jewels taken in adulthood acting on the planetarydetermination of fate at birth, per se astrology.

idea about the distinction between elementsand compounds, and therefore, also no ideaabout the nature of the non-metals. Theonly non-metal it had been able to lay itshands on was sulphur. Besides, most of thenon-metals are gases. It was not possiblefor alchemy to handle them. Again, it wasonly after the birth of modern chemistry fol-lowing Lavoisier that non-metals were dis-covered, separated, and studied. Astrology,as we already know it, is quite securely in-sulated from the impact of knowledge. Thisis the reason that it does not refer to any ofthe non-metals.

After the development of chemistry,man’s knowledge about human anatomyalso expanded in all directions. Today it iswell-known that — contrary to popular be-lief — it is not iron but calcium which ispresent in the largest quantity in the hu-man body. Since it had been unknownin the past and since astrology stoppedlearning after that, it cannot prescribe anybody to wear a ring made of 9 metals in-cluding calcium, or an amulet containingcalcium. Similarly, although human bodycontains many other elements like magne-sium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, io-dine, hydrogen, oxygen, sulphur, etc., in-

cluding some others as trace elements, as-trology could not incorporate any of thesein its application.

Here special mention should be made ofoxygen. How many people are aware thatmore than half of their body weight is con-tributed by oxygen?

Let us explain. More than two-thirds ofhuman body mass is actually composed ofwater. And water (H � O) contains hydrogenand oxygen in the 1:8 ratio, that is to say,8/9 parts of the mass of water is due tooxygen. This implies that at least 16/27parts of the body mass (59.26%) of a man iscontributed by oxygen. Will any astrologertherefore ask any of his customer to take atabeez full of oxygen?

All these points go to show that the ‘sci-entific’ data base of astrology did not go be-yond the level of knowledge rejected by manlong ago.

Astrology and Gemstones

The same historical approach may helpus to understand the social psychologicalbackground of astrology behind the pre-scriptions of different gems and stones.Since long past man had attributed var-ious symbolic significances to the differ-



Table 5: Semiology of Colours

colour symbolic significance

red death / danger / stop / prohibition / fertility / war / bloodshedgreen life / creativity / safety / good news / approvalwhite peace / compromise / gladness / sacredness / cleanlinessblue expanse / vastness / aristocracy / venomblack grief / mourning / sadness / bad omen / evil / darknessyellow stale / dry / barrengray infertility / sadness / worn out / dead / dyingorange living / sacrifice / asceticity etc.

ent colours. This is a universal feature ofmankind. Let us have a glimpse of that inbrief in Table-5.

Many of the symbols of the ancient peo-ple were based on these conventions. Yes,these were no more than just conventions,accepted by the members of the socialgroups concerned. These are still in useeven in modern society as conventions, forexample, in the railway and roadway trafficsignals, celebration of peace, expression ofgrief at the death of some respected person,religious and cultural symbolism, etc.

But while modern people are in generalaware of the mere semiological significanceof these colours, the ancient people werenot. They often mistook the symbolic rep-resentation as real message — as omens.That is how the reddish colour of the Marswas looked upon as a signal for warfare andbloodshed, the blue colour of the Saturn asold and vicious, so on and so forth.

Astrology had taken things at the ancientlevel of perception including this coloursymbolism. So it built up its theory of reme-dies against the evil influence of the plan-ets on the basis of matching colours of theplanets with some of the stones (see Table-

6).Now one might be interested to know

what are the colour producing factors inthese gem stones. During the last threehundred years chemistry has identified thechemical composition of these compoundsand exhaustively studied their physicalchemical properties. On chemical analy-sis it has been found that these are noth-ing but some mineral compounds of alu-minium, silicon, calcium, sodium, potas-sium, etc. in the form of oxides as well assome organic products. (see the 5th col-umn). Most of these compounds are colour-less in their pure state. The peculiarity oftheir colours are actually due to the pres-ence of some impurities (usually oxides ofiron, copper, chromium, etc.) in certain lat-tices of the molecules of these compounds.In their pure state these would be totallyirrelevant for astrology. Long live the impu-rities!

Be that as it may, we have to once againdelve into the sociological history behindthis practice. The use of the gemstones re-flects the stage of ancient man’s psychologi-cal development when they associated simi-lar objects or phenomena together as cause



Table 6: Gem Stones and Their Identities versus Astrological Significance

target popular name scientific name chemical colourplanet Indian International composition

sun chuni ruby corundum Al � O � + Cr � O � redsurya- sunstone quartz SiO � whitekantamani

moon vaidurya cat’s eye chrysoberyl BeAl � O � ,(SiO " ) � red, orangechandra- moonstone feldspar K � O,AL � O3,6SiO � whitishkantamani or

Na � O,AL � O � ,6SiO �Mars prabal coral skeletal remains CaCO � red

of an organism

Mercury pokhraj sapphire topaz Al � SiO " ,(FOH) � yellow

Jupiter mukta pearl secretion by CaCO � whitemolluscs

Venus heera diamond a crystalline C brightcarbon colours

Saturn neela blue sapphire corundum Al � O � blue

Rahu gomedh Indian garnet garnet Ca,Mg,Fe,Al Si � O � � red

Ketu panna emerald beryl Be � (Al � SiO � ) � greenopala opal amorphous silica SiO � , nH � 0 translucentgomedh Srilankan garnet zircon ZrSiO "

and effect. They thought, dangers posed byan object from above could be thwarted bybrandishing a similar object from below. Souse red against red. If Mars holds out abad omen, show it something red. If Sat-urn is sending evil influences ward it offwith something blue. Since the moon isa benevolent entity, entice it further withwhite stones. And so on.

This kind of practice, quite prevalent inthe pre-class society, is termed as sympa-thetic magic in anthropology. Although inthese efforts the causes and effects wereall misplaced and wrongly associated, onething is surely appreciable. For the peopleof few thousands of years back it was a re-markable achievement to try to explain nat-ural phenomena in terms of material fac-



tors and to work upon the external realityto extract services from it.

However, appreciation of ancient wis-dom in its own historical background isone thing, but idolizing it as the epitomeof knowledge and confining oneself withinit when man’s knowledge base has out-stripped it far behind is a completely dif-ferent thing. What astrology is doing todayis adhering to those antiquated ideas aboutassociation of colours with functions. It is,thereby, again showing its position in his-tory — a system of rejected knowledge.

Successful Prediction or Manipulation?

Some times believing people ask: If astrol-ogy is wrong, how does it correctly retrodictpast events of a man’s life? Why do its pre-dictions about future often prove true?

Valid questions no doubt. Mr. X went toan astrologer to consult for the prospectsof marriage of his daughter. The astrologer,just looking at the girl’s horoscope for once,said, “Your daughter has some slight phys-ical deformity.” Mr. X is astonished. Hestarts propaganda about this pundit allaround. Another Mr. Y had it stated in hishoroscope that at the age of 40 he wouldsuffer from a serious disease. Now he issuffering from acute acidity and insomnia.He is also telling every body how the effectsof the planets are correctly studied by theastrologers.

Stories like these are galore. The problemwith the believing people is that they keepin mind only those cases where the predic-tion or retrodiction tallied. They forget howmany cases of forecast or extrapolation ofthe astrologers go wrong for one success-ful case. Whenever something happens thathas a semblance of similarity with the eventtold, the belief of the credulous people is re-inforced.

Actually, to ensure proper logical attitudeto the question of prediction one should re-

member that there are two kinds of fore-casting, namely, arbitrary speculation andsystematic prediction. The first kind con-sists of those cases where the backgroundand the result are not causally connectedbut sometimes happen in succession fortu-itously. In the second case, the backgroundof prediction and the result predicted areknown to be causally connected and theymost often (if not always) happen in succes-sion necessarily. One should check whichis the case with astrological prediction.

For example, suppose there is a mangotree in my garden. In the summer when thefruits are ripe, suppose one day a crow flewover the tree and a mango fruit fell downbelow. Can any body conclude from thisthat there is a connection between the twoevents? Can any body predict that when-ever a crow will fly over the tree a fruit willfall down? The fortuity involved in suchcases of accidental connection can be eas-ily theoretically understood and/or statisti-cally tested by taking large number of ob-servations and comparing the data.

On the other hand, if we say that in themonth of July gathering of dark clouds inthe sky will indicate forthcoming shower, itis a necessary connection and can be eas-ily theoretically explained as well as verifiedwith respect to any number of observations.

In scientific procedures there is a definiterule for checking the fortuity. If a connec-tion between two phenomena is not sup-ported by at least, say, 95 per cent of thedata (at 5% level of confidence), it is takenas spurious, accidental or fortuitous. In ourexample, the first case will not be supportedby 95% of the data of crow and mangofruits. The second case will necessarily befound to be true in at least 95% of the ob-servations.

The case of astrological prediction is ofthe first type. You can find it to hold in afew cases no doubt. You cannot see it to



hold even in more than, say, 30 per centof cases. It fails in its predictions in over-whelming number of cases. But credulouspeople forget those contrary case histories.They remember only the fortuitous tallies.It was noted by Bacon, the great empiricistthinker, in a quite succinct way: “Such isthe way of all superstitions, whether in as-trology, dreams, omens, divine judgments,or the like; wherein men, having a delight insuch vanities, mark the events where theyare fulfilled, but where they fail, though thishappens much oftener, neglect and passthem by.”[14]

In addition, there are some tools of thegame which ensure successes in predictionor retrodiction:1) The intelligent astrologers, like an ex-pert detective, can extract relevant infor-mation from their customers — bit by bit,disconnected, scattered — through suit-able manouevres and talks, leading ques-tions and suggestions. They are adept atreading the psychology of the customers.They pursue or change the line of conver-sation depending on the degree of progressof the talk or the type of reaction of thelatter. The majority of people visiting as-trologers are usually of weaker personal-ity and feeble mind. They, moreover, cometo an astrologer usually when they are insome trouble or distress, and, when theythemselves do not find any way out or havelost all hopes of any other earthly solu-tions. They come to the astrologer with thehope to get some miraculous remedy. Sowhen they start talking and reporting theirproblems, in most cases they remain virtu-ally unaware that they themselves supplymost of the information with which the as-trologers surprise them in retrodiction. Thefunction of the latter is to keep a good mem-ory of the separate bits of information andgradually reconstruct a complete picture ofsome of the past events of the visitors.

It would be worth recalling here some ob-servations of Swami Vivekananda who wasvery unequivocal in this matter: “I haveseen some astrologers who predicted won-derful things; but I have no reason to be-lieve they predicted them only from thestars, or anything of the sort. In manycases it is simply mind-reading. Some-times wonderful predictions are made, butin many cases it is arrant trash.” [15]2) According to the law of probability in anysystem of events a particular event has acertain probability of occurrence, that is, ifthe system is run for sufficiently long time,that event will come about at least once atsome instant whatsoever. It is on the basisof this law that man can play ludo, cards,chess, dice, etc. So is the case with even-tualities of real life. If the astrologers fore-cast some moderate phenomena which mayoccur with an appreciable frequency, thereis every likelihood that the speculationwill come true sooner. Speculations like”You may earn/lose money”, “Your healthwill show improvement/deterioration”, “Youhave a predisposition for an accident”,”Those you trust most will betray you”, etc.etc. are fairly possible eventualities. In allsuch cases of prediction the chance of suc-cess is very high.3) The speculation of astrology is alwaysvery hazy. The influences of the planetsare not stated in simple and straightforwardterms. It is described in terms of very manycomplicated relations of the planets withone another (most of them simply mean-ingless) which only the astrologers can de-cipher from the birth hour of the personconcerned. So almost all the speculationsof the astrologers are of the non-exclusivetype. Whatever happens go to prove one oranother of the results predicted by the as-trologer. One cannot apply the falsifiabilitytest criterion (as suggested by Popper) to as-trology.



Let us explain.Suppose, a student goes to an astrologer

and wants to know whether he/she willpass the M.A. examination which is ahead.The astrologer looks into the star-signs ofthe student and tells him/her: “Your daysin near future are going through a goodtime. Jupiter is the ruling planet for thetime being. Naturally there is nothing toworry. Of course Mercury is not friendlywith Jupiter. So it will try to pull you out ofJupiter’s influence. Better you take a sap-phire in your ring to ward off Mercury. Itmight strengthen Jupiter’s power.”

There may arise any one of the followingfour situations:

sapphire sapphiretaken not taken

the student passed failedfailed passed

In each of these cases, the prediction ofthe astrologer will appear to be true. If thestudent passes after taking the sapphire, orfails without taking it, the result is obvi-ously in conformity with the prescription ofastrology. On the other hand, if the studentfails in spite of taking the sapphire thenMercury is still holding power over Jupiter;or, if he/she passes without sapphire thatshows Jupiter’s strength. There is hardlyany possibility of such type of predictionsto fail. Hence it is also meaningless to saythat astrologers’ predictions come true.

However, some scientists and enquirersmade some objective and empirical stud-ies on the results of astrological forecast-ing. For example, Michel Gauquelin andhis associates conducted a large scale sta-tistical experiment in 1978 testing the pos-sible connection of the star-signs on the jobsuccesses of 15,560 persons from 10 differ-ent fields of profession. ”Results were en-tirely negative”, implying thereby that there

is no relation — positive or negative, what-soever — between job success of a manand his/her birth signs. The same groupundertook another, still larger study — acomparison of the biographical descriptionsof 2,000 eminent personalities with 52,188character traits and their horoscopic pre-dictions. The huge volume of data werecomputed and analyzed with the help ofa sophisticated computer program “to testa possible correlation between zodiac andpersonality”. The scientist concluded: “Theresults of our study are clear-cut and needfew comments. There is no correlation be-tween character traits of the subjects andthe signs under which they were born....All this presents a large body of evidenceagainst the alleged influences of the twelvesigns.”[16]

Similar tests have been carried out byothers too. John Mcgervey, a physicist ofthe Case Western Reserve University, USA,collected the birth-dates of 16,634 scien-tists and 6,475 politicians from standardbiographical sources and checked their cor-responding star-signs. They found that“the distribution of these signs were as ran-dom as for the public at large.” Profes-sor Silverman, a psychologist of Michigan,USA, explored the relation between suc-cesses and failures of marriages and thematching of star-signs of the married cou-ples, by comparing the relevant data of2,978 couples who had married and 478couples who had divorced in 1967-68 inthe state. He found no correlation of thesedata with astrologers’ predictions. “Thoseborn under ‘compatible’ signs married anddivorced just as often as those born un-der ‘incompatible’ signs.” James Barth andJames Bennett of the George WashingtonUniversity studied the frequencies of theMars (sign of war and courage) and theVenus (sign of love and beauty) in the birthcharts of those who had re-enlisted them-



selves in the Marine Corps during 1962-70.They found nothing special about the plan-ets and the profession.[17]

Many people in the western countries be-lieve that the lunar cycle has a direct bear-ing on the number of childbirth, that thenumbers of live births during full-moonsare much greater than at other times. Twoscientists undertook an extensive study ofthe matter. They collected the details of thedata about 11,691 live births at a hospi-tal for a period of 51 synodic months (in-volving lunar phases) from 17 March 1974to 30 April 1978, and prepared a day-by-day chart of the number of births. Theyfound no special rise or fall in the numberof births on any full-moon or any other day.These authors referred to some other statis-tical studies on the distribution of suicides,homicides and admissions to mental hos-pital, ”none of which shows any correlationwith the phases of the moon”. [18]

Let us finish this excursion into the va-lidity of astrological speculation with someinteresting episodes. When the astrologershave to predict something very discrete andspecific, their entire profession is put to aserious test. Let us take three such cases:1. Elderly people may remember that in1977 Indira Gandhi miserably lost the elec-tion and the Janata Party came to power.But In 1979 there were internal squabblesin the Janata Party and a mid-term pollloomed large. Mr. B.V. Raman, the sup-posedly greatest astrologer of India and theeditor of the Astrological Magazine, pub-lished in his magazine the following pre-dictions: a) “There is no indication of theGovernment of the Janata Party collaps-ing. Jupiter in the ascendant saves thesituation.” (July 1979) b) “For the JanataParty, the planetary movements during1980 Dasha Bhukti period are favourable.As such the Janata Party will emerge as theruling party and will form Government at

the centre.” (November 1979) c) ”Therefore,we conclude that Mrs. Gandhi can at besthelp her party in improving its position. Im-provement in her present status is practi-cally ruled out.” (ibid)

What happened to the Jupiter etc. of theJanata Party’s fate is now too well-known toneed any comment.[19]2. Mrs. Gayathridevi Vasudev, the daugh-ter and illustrious successor of Raman’s,had predicted the following about IndiraGandhi and her son, Rajiv, in their maga-zine (February 1984):a) “While these indicate her strong desireto see her progeny in her own place aftershe quits the scene, the astrological factorswould thwart her designs at the last mo-ment or just when she is beginning to gloatover her anticipated success in her plans.”b) “Since [according to the horoscope of Ra-jiv Gandhi] the Rajayogas are relegated tothe 12th house, power in this case may onlyimply ‘near power’ and alliance with it butnever ‘power proper’ ..... The Prime Minis-ter’s wish of her progeny occupying the gadimay be the proverbial case of a slip betweenthe cup and the lip.”[20]3. A renowned astrologer, Shukracharya,the President of the Calcutta AstrologicalSociety, had predicted the immediate futureof Mrs. Indira Gandhi on the basis of herbirth chart in September 1984. The fore-cast was published in a well-known jour-nal of astrology. It ran thus: “The Saturnand the moon have exchanged places, sothe Saturn will not be ominous. It is a ma-hayoga (great coincidence). Since the Sat-urn is the ruling planet of Srimati IndiraGandhi, there is no chance of Srimati Indiralosing power or falling from the present seatof leadership within this great period (up toNovember 1989).” [21]

But alas! Indira Gandhi was murderedat her official residence within a month ofthe forecast. And Rajiv Gandhi became the



Prime Minister thereafter. One may onlyask, what happened to the stars and plan-ets, the mahayoga of Mrs. Gandhi’s horo-scope? And also of the Rajayogas in the12th house of Rajiv’s horoscope?

There can be only one explanation ofthese facts. All these astrologers - all theirplanets, stars and horoscopes notwith-standing — pinned their forecasts on theirown readings of the prevailing political sit-uation of the country. When Janata Party’srule had appeared stable, they predicted ac-cordingly. In the early 80’s it was againquite natural to expect a longer and saferpolitical career of Mrs. Gandhi. So theyforecast the same and saw no chance forRajiv Gandhi’s coming to power. There aremany such concrete and glaring instanceswhere the predictions of the reputed as-trologers failed in the face of the subse-quent hard facts. This clearly shows thatthe entire foundation of astrology is basedon subjective readings and crumbles downat any such serious test.

Computer and Astrology

Nowadays, many astrologers are usingcomputers to attract their clients. Thecommon people have a common psychologyto idolize machines like computers as allknowing all solving kits. If such an equip-ment supports astrology then why shouldwe doubt its validity as well as efficacy?

Actually however computers help us toshow the real place of astrology in the his-tory of human knowledge in two ways:a) No text of astrology had ever predictedthe coming of computers in the aid of man;andb) Computer can add nothing to the exper-tise of astrology.

The first point needs no elaboration. Youhave only to recall the texts of the jyotishshastra in India to see the point. Moreover,one should ask oneself, why does astrol-

ogy which could not assimilate any of theknowledge gained by man from the time ofAryabhatt through Copernicus to this day,go to use computer? In fact, as long as com-puter had been at the stage of the ‘analog’system, when it was very difficult to han-dle even for the technical people and whenit could not give out well-printed sheets ofresult, no astrologer thought of using thecomputer. Today, with the invention ofthe digital type desktop PC and the laserprinter, it is now not only easy to handlethe data with a computer but also possibleto supply a nice-looking and precise printout.

As to the second point it has to be un-derstood that computers are only tools ofman’s practical works extending highly in-tricate services. It is primarily a new andhighly sophisticated system of informationstorage and retrieval. The content or qual-ity of knowledge is not changed or improvedwith any change in its storage system. Itworks on the basis of the information ithas been fed. It cannot go beyond what ithas been taught to do and how it has beendesigned. The rapidly growing differencesin the level of performance of the comput-ers from generation to generation within thelast few years amply testify to this fact. Youcannot make a 486-type computer do allthings that you can get from a pentium-IIItype one.

So also the computer of an astrologer isfed the primary data of astrology on the ba-sis of which it functions. It answers thequestions of the visitors on the basis ofthese data. Apart from its sophistication itis in no way different from the astrologer’sparrot often seen on the roadside to foretellman’s future. The parrot picks up a cardin response to a query of a customer. Theman is stunned by the superiority of knowl-edge of the parrot to his own. But an alertand intelligent man would easily discover



that the bird picks up the cards accordingto his master’s instructions tacitly conveyedin the form of conditioned signals.

Or one may think of the tickets obtainedfrom the weighing machine which, besidesgiving the figure of weight of a man whopays a one-rupee coin, also provides a com-ment on the man. Most of the commentsare so framed that they will fit or please anyperson of any description. And there areonly a few comments which are printed onall the tickets and are repeated from time totime. There is nothing specific about a par-ticular man. If a same man takes weightand collects many tickets one after another,he or she will get different comments on thesuccessive tickets.

Computer astrology is of the same type.Apart from the technical services no ad-vanced knowledge is involved in it. It isstill in the stage of ”rejected knowledge”.One might also feed data of demonologyor witchcraft in the computer. Would itthereby raise them to the level of modernknowledge?

PART - IV: SOCIOLOGY ANDSOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Why People Believe?

Thus ultimately we come to the moot ques-tion of the problem. We who are trying tobuild up a new science movement in ourcountry have to address this question in or-der to find the ways and means to dispel thedisparaging impacts of astrology and otherforms of antiquated superstitions. The so-cial psychology of the people who subscribeto these false systems of beliefs has to beunderstood. The sociology behind the con-tinued existence of these beliefs has to becarefully explained.

Astrology had originated at the point ofsocial development when the human soci-ety underwent for the first time a major rift

into two class formations — the exploitersand the exploited. The course of life, andhence, the ‘fate’ of man had become differ-ent for different individuals. Most of thepeople then — as they are still now — wereunaware of the real factors at work for thissharp division. So they sought explanationin fictitious things or they themselves imag-ined things as we have already seen.

In course of social development, man’sknowledge about the world has graduallyimproved. With the advent and onwardmarch of modern science man’s knowledge-base has increased manifold and is contin-uously growing every day. However, the rel-ative position of the different classes — theowners of the productive resources of thesociety on the one hand, and the actualproducers divorced from all the major re-sources and most of the products of theirown labour on the other — did not change,but is heading towards a complete polariza-tion. It is, therefore, a tragedy of historythat man’s knowledge about nature, thatis, natural science, has not led to a uni-form distribution of the fruits of science andtechnology among the people at large underthe class divided societies.

It is another tragedy of history that man’sknowledge about society and history hasnot been commensurate with his knowl-edge of nature. The reason is obvious. So-cial sciences, the sciences involving variousactivities of man in society, have a directbearing on the various interests of man.The laws and theories about social devel-opment, about interrelation and interactionamong different aspects of economy, poli-tics, etc., about structures and functionsof different human institutions, the role ofideology in human affairs, and so on, —all these involve concepts that either legit-imize or condemn an existing social system.Whereas, even the most reactionary regimecannot totally dispense with the cultivation



of natural science and its procedures, ev-ery existing ruling elite in every epoch ofhistory has an active interest in promot-ing only those ideas, concepts and analysiswhich justify their rule, their role and func-tion as the ruling body, and in suppressingthose that may prove to be indicting them.

It is for this reason that the social scien-tific knowledge of man, in general, is domi-nantly vitiated by this ruling class vision ofsociety. The same man who understandscausality in natural phenomena, if he/sheis guided by the ruling class philosophy,may not understand operation of causalityin social phenomena. This explains per-haps why even some renowned scientistsalso sometimes fail to follow and uphold thescientific principles in matters other thantheir specialized fields.

In this connection we must point out afact: It is not true that Professor Raman be-lieved in astrology or believed it to be a sci-ence — Dr. Gautam has created the episodefor his role. In his Bombay (now Mumbai)University Convocation Address in 1932,Professor Raman had openly called uponthe literate gathering to fight all variantsof superstitions: “Let the dogs of conser-vatism, ignorance and fanaticism bark, butthe glorious caravan of the Indian nationwill move on with irresistible force.”

But there are some others who may be-lieve in astrology and its cures, who mayeven hold that it has some scientific ba-sis. But because one is a good scientistthis opinion does not become true. In suchcases we must remember that truths of sci-ence and the statements of a scientist arenot always and necessarily the same thing.We must be able to see this point.

For the common millions the situation isstill more precarious. They take the exist-ing order of things for granted, as a per-manent establishment, in which they findhimself placed in an unalterable predica-

ment. A father is not sure whether his chil-dren will get education properly, an edu-cated youth is afflicted by unemployment,an employee is constantly under the threatof retrenchment (nowadays sublimated as“voluntary retirement”), an average citizenalways trembles under fear that he or shemay suffer from a disease that is incur-able and/or economically unmanageable.In a certain sense, the uncertainty in lifeof man has increased hundred fold in mod-ern society compared to the previous feu-dal epoch. War, share market crash, eco-nomic collapse, erosion of real income, etc.,have become the other major threats beforeman. But the average man does not un-derstand the causes behind all these regu-lar social hazards in life. He does not seethe spade, nor the spade holder. He at-tributes all these disorders to chance, tofate, to some inexorable destiny. He viewsall these malaise as his personal problemsand therefore seeks redressal to these at thepersonal level by somehow manipulatingthat fate or destiny on the basis of chancefactors. He does not understand that mancan create a social order completely differ-ent from what exists today where the lifeof every individual could be governed by acommon cause of social wellbeing. Educa-tion, employment, medicare, old-age secu-rity, would be ensured by the social mech-anism itself. He therefore cannot stand upand declare, “I will control my fate”.

This is where astrology comes in. Thisis where Jupiter and Saturn take the hold.This is where even a parrot appears wiserthan the believing man. This is where somepieces of metal, some impure chemical sub-stances, some fossil-crusts of lower animalorigin, seem to be able to command overthe distant planets and therefore attract hisunbound respect.

Vivekananda had quite candidly de-scribed this astrology-philia as a mental



weakness and mental sickness in his char-acteristic language: “Weak men, when theylose every thing and feel themselves weak,try all sorts of uncanny methods of mak-ing money, and comes to astrology and allthese things. “It is the coward and the foolwho says, ‘This is Fate’” — so says the San-skrit proverb. But it is the strong manwho stands up and says, “I will make myfate”......You will find that astrology and allthese mystical things are generally signsof a weak mind; therefore as soon as theyare becoming prominent in our minds, weshould see a physician, take good food andrest.” [22]

In point of fact, as regards astrology,magnificent results were obtained by a sec-tion of humanity in some parts of the worldfor quite a long time - where astrology wasrendered redundant for man as soon as hisproblems had been addressed to and re-dressed by the system. In the erstwhileUSSR from 1920 to 1970 and in the PeopleRepublic of China during 1950-75. Largenumber of people in these countries hadonce believed in and practised astrology —for reasons enumerated above. But fromthe moment the uncertainty had graduallybegun to vanish from life, the differences insharing the opportunities of life were gone,all resources whatsoever were equally avail-able to all irrespective of their stars andplanets, and all the hardships had to besimilarly shared equally by all no matterwho was born in which constellation, whenit had become a concern of the state to keepall the citizens healthy in body and mind —the profession of astrology, palmistry, nu-merology, etc. found little or no clientele inseeking forecast about health, job, educa-tion, marriage, etc., and therefore, little orno practitioner to advise the people in theseareas.

Even if there be a strong social movementin a country for a better society, if the con-

sciousness of a larger section of people beraised to a higher level, this fortune tellingprofession suffers a serious setback. Atleast among those who are participating inthese movements, those who have read thelessons of history, science and the historyof science on the one hand, and tasted thepower of people’s united struggles on theother, the idea will find a fertile soil thathuman destiny is made (in its both goodand bad aspects) by man himself. It is thestrong-willed man who makes it for himself,and he makes it for the feeble-minded too.

How They Enforce?

At the same time, we have to keep in mindthat there are social forces which requireto sustain astrology for their own interests.Otherwise we shall not be able to under-stand why the NDA government, the HRDMinistry and the UGC are so bent on intro-ducing these antiquated courses.

It is true that there is a pressure of theRSS lobby to carry out its hidden agendain the field of education. A deeply in-circleman and a long-trusted RSS veteran, suffi-ciently streamlined and orthodox, Dr. M.M.Joshi, as soon as he had taken the charge ofthe HRD ministry, went ahead with the Hin-dutva agenda and started taking one pro-gramme after another, for example:a) Introduction of Sarasvati vandana in allschools;b) expulsion of the qualified scholars likeSatish Chandra, Bipan Chandra, SumitSarkar, Ram Sharan Sharma, K. M.Panikkar, T. K. V. Subramanium, andmany others from the authoritative bodieslike ICHR, ICSSR, UGC, NCERT, and fromthe Indian Institute for Advanced Studies,Simla, etc., and, induction of RSS men orreliable yes-men like K. G. Rastogi, G. C.Pande, Kireet Joshi, Hari Gautam, J. S.Verma, J. S. Rajput, etc. in their places;c) withdrawal of authoritative history text-



books written by the afore-mentioned his-torians from circulation;d) recommendations via the channels ofthe NCERT for (i) introducing a compul-sory course of the so-called Vedic Mathe-matics at par with general mathematics inschools, (ii) making science and mathemat-ics optional in classes IX and X, (iii) teach-ing of the Sanskrit language and a religiouscourse compulsory in all classes of schools,(iv) replacing the different subjects like his-tory, geography, civics, economics, socialstudies, etc. by a single condensed courseprepared in line with the RSS imagery of In-dia;e) curtailment of fund for the researchprojects of the ICSSR, ICHR, etc. while lib-eral sanction of huge fund for the RSS-ledDeen Dayal Upadhyay Research Centre.f) Side by side, attempts are afoot to res-cue the so-called Rigvedic Sarasvati river bydrawing water from the existing channelsand filling up some of the dry channels westof Yamuna, to show some factual relevanceof the Vedic history and geography;g) There are concerted efforts through vari-ous statutory bodies (i) to revise and rewriteancient Indian history, (ii) to transfer thecredit of Harappan civilization (estimatedto exist in between 3500 to 1800 B.C.) onto Vedic culture (which started not earlierthan 1500 B.C.), (iii) to throw back the timeof onset of the Vedic culture to a preposter-ous period of 6000 B.C., (iv) to claim thatthe original home of the Indo-Europeanlanguage groups (who are wrongly calledAryans) was in India wherefrom they hadscattered northward and westward, (v) toeulogize the Gupta era as the golden epochof India and brand the entire Muslim periodas a consistently anti-Hindu tyrannical rule— in strict compliance with the colonialistBritish policy of using history as a tool topollute the mind of the people, etc.; so onand so forth.

Although many of these things have notyet been included in formal curriculum,Joshi wants to keep the initiative running.If these programmes are successful, verywell. And even if they fail, the Hindus asthe majority community can be given a sig-nal that they can do nothing for the Hin-dus, the ‘original Indians’, because of thecoalition politics and opposition of the ra-tionalists, secularists, Marxists and the mi-norities, etc. Unless the BJP is alone in thegovernment, it can do nothing further.

However, that is not the whole picture.Dr. Joshi was honest enough when he toldthe press: “My position is very clear. If the1986 NEP (National Education Policy) was amove towards saffronization, then my pol-icy too is so, for I have not moved an inchfrom the NEP.” [23] It is a fact that Mr. RajivGandhi, the late Congress Prime Ministerhad adopted this policy and offered a broadscope to introduce any ancient and anti-quated subject into the formal curriculumin the name of national heritage etc. TheNEP stated: “Efforts will be made to delveinto India’s ancient fund of knowledge andto relate it to contemporary reality.” [24] Itcontinued: ”The pre-occupation with mod-ern technologies cannot be allowed to severour new generations from the roots in In-dia’s history and culture. ... Education canand must bring about the fine synthesis be-tween change-oriented technologies and thecountry’s continuity of cultural tradition.”[25] It was not meant to promote a thor-ough study of the ancient history of India,but to underscore some relevance of an-cient wisdom even today, as was clarifiedby the expanded “Programme of Action” ofthe policy. It declared that the excavation ofthe ancient knowledge was taken up “witha view to establishing the validity and re-lationship of the knowledge and experienceembedded” in the classical languages of an-tiquity “to contemporary scientific thought



and technological development.” [26]Similarly, Mr. Gandhi could claim that he

had inherited the charge from his mother’sprogramme. Mrs. Indira Gandhi, whenshe was the head of the central govern-ment had also promoted a course in thename of “value orientation” which foreshad-owed many of these things. The WorkingGroup set up under the chairmanship ofKireet Joshi, then advisor to the of Min-istry of Education (the same Kireet Joshinow enrolled in the RSS panel of intellectu-als to replace the unwanted members of theacademics), on the future Teachers’ Train-ing Programme towards Value Orientation,recommended in its Report an elaboratecourse design about what to teach in thename of “values”, for example: “Aim of hu-man life — supra-cosmic, supra-terrestrial,cosmic-terrestrial, integral; Education ofthe in-most being and values of psychicand spiritual culture; Philosophy and theidea of the God, Proofs of the existence ofGod, Attributes of God; The Problem of evil,suffering and death; Psychology of worshipand prayer; Psychology of action withoutdesire; Psychology of concentration, medi-tation and contemplation; Central spiritualexperience, Liberation from the ego, Cosmicconsciousness, Transcendental conscious-ness; Yoga as practical psychology, Yoga asscience of spiritual experiences, Systems ofyoga, Integral yoga of Aurobindo, Synthesisof science and spirituality; Telepathy andClairvoyance;” etc. etc. [27]

It is very difficult to find out any trace ofvalues in these foamy areas! But it revealsthe long existing persistently obscurantisttendencies in the field of education in In-dia among a large cross-section of the pol-icy makers.

And Why.....?

In fact, it is a still older problem. Itstarted in the days of Indian renaissance

when some revivalist movements, launchedunder the guidance and inspiration ofBankim Chandra Chatterjee, Ramkrishna,Dayananda, Vivekananda, Aurobindo, andmany others, sought to reverse the efforts ofRam Mohan, Vidyasagar, Phule, and someother great personalities of the time to leadIndia towards modern education and cul-ture. Instead of fighting against the age-old ideas, values, superstitions, beliefs andcustoms prevailing among the people, theysought to justify them, glorify them andcalled upon the people to uphold them asthe national heritage of the country (al-though Vivekananda, as an Advaita Vedan-tist, was opposed to astrology, as we havealready seen).

During the freedom movement also therevivalist trend continued. Political lead-ers like Gandhi or scholars like Dr. Rad-hakrishnan took to the path of glorifyingthe ancient India and her religion, culture,customs, outlook and the way of life. Veryfew personalities like Sarat Chandra Chat-topadhyay, Premchand and Bhagat Singhmade serious efforts to convince the peo-ple about the futility of pursuing this longtrodden path of antiquated habits and cul-tural stagnancy. However, for many histor-ical reasons their attempts were not suc-cessful. Anything past became the symbolof India’s greatness, no matter how irrele-vant or even harmful that might be for theprogress of the country. This created a se-rious hurdle on the way to cultivating thelogical bent of mind, critical outlook, ratio-nal approach among the common people.

After independence those who rode on thesaddle of power and began to control thecountry’s economy and politics, found in allthese old things a good opportunity to keepthe teeming millions in darkness about thewhy behind the what of their life. Whateverthe ruling class does in its profiteering in-terests and however harmful that may be



for the common millions, the people, un-der the spell of astrology, will not be ableto see the root cause of their problems inthem. They will at best accuse their starsand their fate.

That is why all the successive govern-ments at the centre have encouraged inclu-sion of these things into education — nomatter who were in the office, what weretheir jargons or what colours of flags theybrandished. Today, however, the BJP gov-ernment has surpassed all previous exam-ples in renouncing even the last residualsof rationality. But note that the non-BJPsecular champions within or outside NDAhave not registered the faintest of objec-tion against these Hindutvavadi steps of theHRD ministry. Some Congress leaders, no-tably the chief ministers of MP and Ker-ala openly supported the astrology course.While the chief minister of West Bengal,Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, was protest-ing against the communalization of educa-tion, the Executive Council of the RabindraBharati University of his state (dominatedby his party lobby) applied for the astrologycourse.

In this respect, let us note in pass-ing, the Indian ruling class is not alone.The present capitalist economic system theworld over has for long been submergedin an insoluble all round crisis. The en-tire system is trembling in fear of popularoutbursts and insurgency against it at anytime anywhere in the world. Almost all thecapitalist states — big or small, developedor undeveloped — are therefore trying to en-gage the people’s attention and energy inthis or that conservative, reactionary andfundamentalist ideas and actions so as todivert their mind from the temporal suffer-ings as well as from the real course of liber-ation. They will then seek consolation inthe hope that they will be rewarded postmortem in the heaven (if Christian or Mus-

lim), or in the next birth (if Hindu or Bud-dhist), by the God himself. Other countriesare doing it by dubious means, throughvarious propaganda channels, programmesand publications. The present rulers of In-dia has taken a step ahead. Here the cen-tral government is going to introduce formaleducational courses for the purpose.

That is the background of the astrologycourse. On the one hand, common peo-ple’s belief in astrology will be further re-inforced, it will earn a dignified status insociety. On the other hand, this will lendan additional force to their belief in blindfate and their abject surrender to fatalism.The educated youths who are unemployedwill blame their star signs. If crores of peo-ple starve while tonnes of food-grains rotin the FCI godowns, that is their predes-tined fate. Who can fight with the stars andplanets and avoid the pre-divined eventual-ity? You had better pray to the gods or theGod, consult the astrologers and the priestscertified by the universities accredited withUGC courses, and seek redressal throughpujas, homs, yagnas, offerings, amulets,rings, gemstones, and so on. Don’t be-lieve the scientists, social scientists and theMarxists, don’t find fault with the socialsystem, the economy, or the policies of thegovernments. Work, work and work hardwithout asking anything from anybody. Itis only then that the God and destiny will bepleased with you and fulfill all your needs.The ruling elite knows it for sure that sinceyou have no desire, and since there is nogod or fate, none of these indoctrinationshas any chance to be disproved in time.

Let The Clock Move Clockwise

This has, however, a serious implicationfor the cultural, intellectual and scientificachievements of the country. The neces-sary courses which create rational mindand prevent superstitions are being system-



atically undermined in divergent ways atthe school level and higher up. If astrologyand the other allied UGC courses enter thecampuses of the universities, the highestseats of learning, its ideological, philosoph-ical and epistemological levels will surelyleave a gravely negative impact — directlyor indirectly — on all subjects of study.

The impact would be of either of the twokinds: 1) If the courses are based on teach-ing true material content and level of thebasic original texts available on the sub-jects, which represent some specimens ofthe ancient man’s knowledge of the time, itwill, first, undermine the intelligence andsensibility of the people who will come toteach as well as to learn; and then, it willeffectually degrade the standard of learningin all subjects taught in the universities. 2)Otherwise the courses will be framed by in-corporating the large stocks of informationfrom many different subjects to make themappear uptodate, but be presented to thestudents as being recovered from the Vedicand other ancient Indian sources; whichwill be a sheer plagiarism and rank false-hood. And false courses can never rendertrue knowledge. It will only help to spreadfalsehood in other academic areas of theuniversities.

Whatever happens, it will put the clock ofprogress backward.

The message is clear to all who can readthe wall-writings of history. A formidableattack is going to be launched on educa-tion, science, culture, scientific outlook andmorality. Those who can understand mustrise up in defence of logic, science and civ-ilization! It is not enough to argue and de-liberate, we must act and fight. We mustoppose introduction of anti-sciences in theprecincts of education. We must not allowany group or lobby to vitiate the mind of thepeople with their sectarian and reactionaryideas from the seat of power. We must ad-

here to science and scientific truths. Wemust keep the clock moving clockwise!

�

REFERENCES

1. The Hindu — 13 April 20012. From an Interview published in ‘India

Today’ — 11-17 September 20013. Meghnad Saha — Samalochak Anil

Baran O Hindu Jyotish; in Shanti-moy Chattopadhyay (ed.) — MeghnadRachana Sankalan; Orient Longman,Calcutta, 1986; pp.141-153

4. Swami Vivekananda — Man the Makerof His Destiny; Collected Works (in En-glish), vol. 8; Advaita Ashram, Cal-cutta; 1974, p.183

5. Quoted by S. S. Apte — Preface to A.J. Karandikar — Vedic Astronomy andMythology; Gokul Masik Prakashan,Pune; 1978, p.vi

6. Ravi Shankar and Suchi Sinha — Sci-ence or Sham? India Today — 11-17September 2001

7. From an interview — India Today, 11-17 September, 2001

8. H. Narasimhaiah — Astrology — Senseor Nonsense? in Narasimhaiah (ed.) —Science, Nonscience and the Paranor-mal; Bangalore Science Forum, Banga-lore, 1987; p.191

9. R.S. Trivedi — Phalita Jyotisha; in Ji-gyasa (an anthology of popular sciencearticles in Bengali); A.C. Ghosh; Cal-cutta 1947, p.269

10. Hart Defouw and Robert Svoboda —Light on Life: An Introduction to Astrol-ogy of India; Penguin Books Ltd., Lon-don; 1996, pp.11-12; emphasis added

11. Rigveda — 1/69/8; 1/123/3;1/127/8; 2/11/21; 3/30/18; 3/45/4;5/42/5;6/66/1; 7/26/2; 7/56/21;etc.

12. Rigveda — 10/165/1-413. Vivekananda — op. cit.14. Francis Bacon — Novum Organum I;



cited in Narasimhaiah (Ed.) “Sci-ence, Non-science and the Paranor-mal”, Bangalore Science Forum, Ban-galore, 1987, p.193

15. Vivekananda — op. cit., p.183; (italicsours — K.S.)

16. Michel Gauquelin — Zodiac and Per-sonality; in Narasimhaiah — op.cit.

17. Paul Kurtz and Andrew Fraknoi — Sci-entific Tests of Astrology Do Not Sup-port Its Claims; in Narasimhaiah —op.cit., p.213

18. George O. Abell and BennettGreenspan — The Moon and theMaternity Ward; in Narasimhaiah —op.cit., pp.203-211

19. S. Balachandra Rao — Indian As-trologers’ Squibs Go Damp; inNarasimhaiah — op.cit., pp.315-16

20. Ibid. — p.31821. Shukracharya — Srimati Indira Gandhi

O Bharat Rastre Shanigraher Bhu-mika; Jyotish Siddhanta (the Ben-gali journal of the Astrological Re-search Project, Calcutta), special au-tumn number, 1984; (emphasis in theoriginal; translation ours — K.S.)

22. Vivekananda — op.cit. p18423. India Today — op.cit.24. National Policy on Education 1986;

GOI, New Delhi, 1986; Art. 5.3325. Ibid; Art. 8.1; (emphasis added) — K.S26. Programme of Action for the NPE’86;

GOI, New Delhi, 1986; Para 20.37; (em-phasis added — K.S.)

27. Report of the Working Group to ReviewTeachers’ Training Programme (In theLight of the Need for Value-Orientation),GOI, New Delhi,1983; pp.30 and 35-39.


some questions concerning the ugc course in astrology

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