Modern Hindu astrology

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I do not believe in Astology. I am enamored with Astronomy.
Astronomy is Science, Astrology is faith or superstition.

Astrology remains an important facet of folk belief in the contemporary lives of many Hindus. In Hindu culture, newborns are given a jyotiṣa chart (Kundali), and astrological concepts are pervasive in the organization of the calendar and holidays, and in making major decisions such as those about marriage, opening a new business, or moving into a new home. Many Hindus believe that heavenly bodies, including the planets, have an influence throughout the life of a human being, and these planetary influences are the "fruit of karma". The Navagraha, planetary deities, are considered subordinate to Ishvara (the Hindu concept of a supreme being) in the administration of justice. Thus, it is believed that these planets can influence earthly life.

But there is disparity among various sects in Hinduism.
Vaishnavas Do not believe in the Navagrahas as deities, and you would find it in many temples.

Indian Astrologers have consistently made claims that have been thoroughly debunked by skeptics. For example, although the planet Saturn is in constellation Aries roughly every 30 years (e.g. 1909, 1939, 1968), the astrologer Bangalore Venkata Raman claimed that "when Saturn was in Aries in 1939 England had to declare war against Germany", ignoring all the other dates.] Astrologers regularly fail in attempts to predict election results in India, and fail to predict major events such as the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Predictions by the head of the Indian Astrologers Federation about war between India and Pakistan in 1982 also failed.

In 2000, when several planets happened to be close to one another, astrologers predicted that there would be catastrophes, volcanic eruptions and tidal waves. This caused an entire sea-side village in the Indian state of Gujarat to panic and abandon their houses. The predicted events did not occur and the vacant houses were burgled.

The ancient extant text on Jyotisha is the Vedanga-Jyotisha, which exists in two editions, one linked to Rigveda and other to Yajurveda. The Rigveda version consists of 36 verses, while the Yajurveda recension has 43 verses of which 29 verses are borrowed from the Rigveda. The Rigveda version is variously attributed to sage Lagadha, and sometimes to sage Shuci. The Yajurveda version credits no particular sage, has survived into the modern era with a commentary of Somakara, and is the more studied version.

The Jyotisha text Brahma-siddhanta, probably composed in the 5th century CE, discusses how to use the movement of planets, sun and moon to keep time and calendar. This text also lists trigonometry and mathematical formulae to support its theory of orbits, predict planetary positions and calculate relative mean positions of celestial nodes and apsides. The text is notable for presenting very large integers, such as 4.32 billion years as the lifetime of the current universe.

The ancient Hindu texts on Jyotisha only discuss time keeping, and never mention astrology or prophecy.[48] These ancient texts predominantly cover astronomy, but at a rudimentary level. Technical horoscopes and astrology ideas in India came from Greece and developed in the early centuries of the 1st millennium CE. Later medieval era texts such as the Yavana-jataka and the Siddhanta texts are more astrology-related.

Hindu astrology - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[prasad1]

Vedic Astrology or Jyotirvigyan: Neither Vedic nor Vigyan​

Jayant V. Narlikar
Economic and Political Weekly
Vol. 36, No. 24 (Jun. 16-22, 2001), pp. 2113-2115 (3 pages)
Published By: Economic and Political Weekly

Vedic Astrology or Jyotirvigyan: Neither Vedic nor Vigyan on JSTOR

Jayant V. Narlikar, Vedic Astrology or Jyotirvigyan: Neither Vedic nor Vigyan, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 24 (Jun. 16-22, 2001), pp. 2113-2115

www.jstor.org

 

[prasad1]

“Vedic” Astrology and the Vedas​

The Indians themselves traditionally do not call their astrology “Vedic”, or have not done so until recently. The traditional expression is simply jyotiṣam, i.e. the “(science) of the lights”. The term “Vedic astrology” appeared only in recent decades, with the aforementioned boom of Hindu astrology in the West.[4] Evil tongues say that the term was invented only because “Vedic” – i.e. spiritual – astrology sells better.[5] In the West, it was made very popular by well-known American astrologers, e.g. David Frawley. It enjoys increasing popularity even among Indian astrologers.

The term “Vedic” is often used to express the idea that this astrology is a sacred science, which was revealed by the Rishis, the founders of Vedic wisdom, more than 5000 years ago and was handed down from generation to generation without any changes until the present day. For example, when the astrological textbook Bṛhat-parāśara-horā-śāstra claims to be a revelation by the Vedic seer Parāśara, it is taken at face value.[6] In reality, however, the oldest part of this work was written only about 1400 years ago. And contrary to what one would expect considering its current popularity, it was widely unknown amongst Indian astrologers before the 1980s. The supposedly great antiquity of this work is challenged by the fact that ancient authors did not write commentaries on it and apparently did not even know of it; moreover by the fact that the Vedic scriptures themselves tell us of quite a different kind of “astrology”. While Indian astrology may be “Vedic” in that it is part of today's Vedic tradition, it is in fact a lot younger than the Vedas and has many elements which were not developed in India but in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece.

The Vedas themselves, the core corpus of sacred writings of Hinduism (śrutiḥ), are mainly interested in the position of the moon in the 27 or 28 lunar mansions, as well as in the lunar phases, eclipses, the solstices, and the equinoxes. Planets play practically no role in the Vedas, zodiac signs are completely unknown. Observations of the sky were important only for the Vedic sacrificial cult, as is expressly stated in the Vedāṅgajyotiṣa, the oldest textbook on astronomy and calendar calculation. It is only interested in the cycles of the Sun and Moon, whereas planets and zodiac signs play no role in it. There is no evidence for a natal horoscopy as we know it today in the Vedas.

Vedic Astrology - critically examined

Since the mid-1990s, the so-called Vedic astrology has experienced a remarkable boom in America and, with some delay, also in Europe. Indian Gurus and their western followers not only imported the Hindu sidereal Zodiac to the west, but also other techniques of Hindu astrology and even spiritual...

www.astro.com