YOGAS and ARISHTAS in Jyotish: Often sooner
rather than later, the student jyotishi runs into these.
Practically any old or new text on jyotish lists hundreds and
hundreds of combinations between planets, planets and houses and
sometimes in nakshatras which typically describe the astrological
factors, combinations and conditions and their results. A very
good compendium on many of these is Late Dr. B.V. Raman's
"300 Important Combinations", a handy little pocketbook
(it originally came out in a larger hardcover format) that is
highly recommended. In addition to his scholarly and experienced
commentary on these combinations, we get glimpses of Dr. Raman's
simple humility as he gently reminds often that readers must
experiment and make up their own mind about the usefulness of
this or that yoga and many hints dropped here and there that
could trigger some more thoughts and useful advice applicable in
other areas of jyotish, as well.
There is a tendency one often risks falling into for looking at a
yoga (or arishtas, which are the negative yogas that are
associated with confinement, ill-health, penuary and so on) in
isolation. The often cryptic and terse statements of combinations
and their effects, in classical texts, if applied verbatim lead
nowhere. Practically for each combination one must judge at least
the following:
The strength and beneficience or maleficience of the planets concerned.
The participation or association of other planets with the yoga-forming planets
particularly the moon, the lagnesha and the lords and karakas of relevant houses.
The simultaneous operation of dashas and transits conducive to the fruition of the yoga.
More than one combination corroborating a certain effect (additive weight of indicators).
Presence of opposite combinations that would reduce or nullify the effect.
Many intellectuals often get *shocked* by the rather terse labels that jyotishis seem to utilize when calling a planet or a combination as malefic or benefic. Sometimes these sound ominous and give a sense of finality, inflexibility of roles and even strike fear in some hearts. This is completely uncalled for. These 'terms' are used in the sense of not only good/bad, but also positive/negative, propelling/retarding, and any of the many similar connotations that one might choose. Any given jyotish reading or combination in a chart is an interplay of cosmic energies, some of which symbolically oppose the others; the relative strengths and quality of the influences indicating whether one would fare a smooth-sailing or obstacles, and whether one would benefit or learn from either of these situations. Moreover, there is nothing ominous or 'cast in stone' about most of these readings based on the indications and rules given in jyotish books, old or new. Unless we choose to be fatalistic or choose to focus on the wrong way of dealing with these.
It is very rare that a yoga operates in vacuum or that the planets/houses concerned do not interact with other factors in the chart. The current simplistic feature present in commercial software of identifying a yoga in isolation and churning out canned phrases from a 'look-up table' with absolutely no provision for other considerations (weighting, judging the quality of the planets etc. involved) makes the feature practically useless for readings. The feature is good for students to help them identify the yogas, etc and this certainly needs a lot of work further. Computers are great at rapidly identifying combinations and patterns, but people are faster and better at taking that information and looking at it all in a multi-factorial blended manner.
If you follow the general course of astrology (hailing from N-E-W-S or of any other kind!) over the last several hundred (more!) years and are objective, rational and honest in your assessment of the same, you will soon realize that despite some very illustrious teachers that have been placed before us, and what sounded at first like dazzlingly reproducible techniques, when applied consistently by different people, these have simply failed, or varied in their performance in different hands! There is perhaps something very karmic about it all, as has been hinted in ancient texts and by contemporary pundits and gurus. Ayanamshas have come and gone and have worked in some hands but failed in others, while other factors have behaved similarly, as well! Those of us who have braved (some would say, "strayed into ...") to experiment with different ayanamshas, seriously and sincerely, have experienced that different ayanamshas indeed do work! This is mysterious, perhaps even mystical and intrigues those who are bent upon squeezing the body of astrology (as we know it today!) in a box called Science, for whatever reason, or conviction. An open mind when studying and practicing astrology is a major asset and the best yardstick to go by. Truth be told, not a single astrologer basing his or her predictions purely and entirely on a rational basis has been even close to 100% correct! It is hard to separate all of the rational and irrational (suprarational, intuitive, etc.) processes when doing a reading properly in a fully engrossed manner (as opposed to situations where one is either showing off or being challenged in a testing situation, though the individual responsivities may vary). All kinds of subtle cues, inner and external play a part, consciously and some subconsciously and it is difficult to always be able to analyze the process accurately. Astrology and astrologers must do a lot more homework before they should even focus on starting yet another "Ivy League College of ..."? We are at a very preliminary stage of probing, proving and demonstrating the facts about (rational) astrology and need not feel any urgency, unless we feel in our bones that we are the chosen Messiahs of Astrology and have a mission or something. We need to actively ignore slanders and quips against astrology and simply work at what is in our hands, charts of people seeking help, and while helping them, let us continue to document the facts and rationale, our successes and failures so that later on we or someone else can figure it all out in due course. Cakes are sweet and so satisfying, but only after they are fully baked!
There are several differences in 'scholarly' opinions that students of Jyotish are likely to encounter, sooner or later. There are differences of opinions even in classic texts regarding the derivation of units of strength, ways of dealing with ashtakavargas, annual horoscopes, on the treatment of planets as benefics or malefics for certain lagnas. And, of course, there is the little matter about whether to take a year for vimshottari dasha determination as the solar 365 day one or the civil (savanamana) 360 day year. Adopting either creates an incremental discrepancy between the dasha periods used by proponents of either, this can amount to more than six months by the time one is 40 years old, this being typically the period when many individuals begin to face climacterics of all kind and often seek astrological help. One would think that such a glaring difference should be one that can be easily figured out with a set of charts viewed side by side and seeing if the events match up with the dashas etc. or not. However, there are multiple dashas and multiple ayanamshas in vogue and these tend to make the situation somewhat murky.
Usha-Shashi in their "Hindu Astrological Calculations" indicate that the astrological year that is to be used for yearlord and dasha determinations is one that has 12 months of 30 days each. They quote this as Surya Siddhanta's recommendation, however, there are some who hold the view that the 360 refers to the degrees of motion of the sun through the zodiac and not the number of days, sun moves 360 degrees in 365.25 days.
The vimshottari dasha cycle is of 120 years duration. In terms of solar years this would amount to 43830 days, whereas, using the 360 days years, this amounts to 43200 days. This number has resemblance to the smallest of the four yugas, kaliyuga that lasts for 432000 years, the next three, dwapar, treta and krita being twice, thrice and four times as long as kali. The total of these four yugas comes to be 4320000 years, whereas, one kalpa is 4320000000 years. It is interesting to see the recurrence of the exponents of 432. Though, I may add that this numeric 'coincidence' is hardly proof of the 360 day year being the correct one for vimshottari dasha!
There is a popular ready-reckoner which is used in calculating bhuktis in a dasha. Multiply the number of dasha years assigned to the dasha lord with the dasha years assigned to the bhukti lord. Take the right most digit of the product and multiply it by 3, call that the number of days in the bhukti, take the remaining digits to the left (the more significant digits in computer parlance!) and treat them as months. This system works only if you consider the months as being 30 days long, each. If not, one must convert the months into days and add to the calculated days to get the solar year equivalent from there.
By way of an example, if we wish to calculate the bhukti of mars in the dasha of sun, then we would multiply the dasha years of sun (6) by dasha years of mars (7), and we would get
6 x 7 = 42
We multiply the right most digit (2) by 3 and get 6 days We treat the remaining left digit (4) as months (of 30 days each) and get 4 months. The bhukti of mars in the dasha of sun, therefore, is 4 months and 6 days long, or of 126 days in duration. If one looks up most published vimshottari dasha tables in epehemeris and texts, the authors of which have been brave enough to place these tables, would readily see that implicitly, the 360 day year has been favored by most.
This is not proof, per se, of vimshottari dasha working best with the 360 day year, certainly! Nor is the rather 'bold' statement in Usha-Shashi's Hindu Astrological Calculations, 1978, page 174, "A [dasha] year consists of 12 months of 30 days each", and refers to art.111 in the same book where Surya Siddhanta is quoted, either! That, this gives the days in a vimshottari cycle as 120 x 12 x 30 = 43200 days (which is 1/3600th of 432000 years, the total duration of kaliyuga). A coincidence, perhaps! There are very good jyotishis, who use different kinds of ayanamshas and dasha years and come up with very good analyses and predictions. The controversy is not over (if there is one, that is!).
Whether it is ayanamsha, or the 360/365 day controversy, or the rashi-vs-bhava issue, common sense would dictate that these should not be so difficult to resolve! Take a dozen of charts with clearly defined events, such as marriage date, child-birth, a significant promotion or acquisition of a job, etc., and see which set of parameters fits! So, despite many attempts, why has this not been done over the decades that this controversy has existed? The difficulty arises from the fact that there is not a set way of determining the 'readings'! Often, tremendous amounts of interpretational overlaps are observed when viewing these charts! The fewer rules or indicators one takes into account, the simpler and more clear-cut the decision appears! The situation is somewhat like scanning a photograph using an 8-bit depth vs a 30 bit depth! The former is more cut and dry with sharp areas of demarcation, but is it more realistic than the 30-bit scan?
KAL-PURUSH'S CHART AND BEGINNINGS: In jyotish, one often comes across references to the kal-purush's or time-incarnate or Universal horoscope. In this, aries or mesha is considered as the first house, taurus as the second and so on. Whole signs are used for each house. It has implications in medical astrology, such as a malefic in aries pointing towards a problem in the head or its contents, one in pisces leading to trouble in the feet, and so on. Many other applications, particularly in conjunction with significators or karakas exist for this scheme. I wonder why the zodiac is believed to begin from Aries? To some extent it might be one of the many axiomatic truths used in astrology or perhaps there could be some room for thinking. Some tropicalists have wondered if it has to do with Spring and the beginning of life, theme, but that is only true for the Northern hemisphere. If we are talking of something as global (if not universal) as the kal-purush's horoscope, it must at least accommodate the two hemispheres of our spaceship, I think. If the source of life is to be used as our orientation/beginning point, then the signs ruled by the lights would probably qualify better, particularly Leo - being the sign ruled by the sun. One may say that the arrangement of signs represents the order of planets in the solar system, hence the solar/lunar signs have to remain in the centre. If that is the case then symmetrical distribution of signs around the lunisolar center would mean that the zodiac should begin and end with the signs of saturn (aquarius, pisces, aries ... leo ... scorpio, sagittarius, capricorn) to capture the order of orbits in the solar system. If equinoctial point or ayanamsha (first point of tropical aries and seasons) is to be the driving factor, then pisces would be the starting sign because that is where the current point is (I am not comfortable with this concept of shifting beginning-points, but that could be a personal bias). If going by Frawley's scheme of sign representations of the vital centers (chakras) based on orbital distribution of planets, with moon and sun governing the region of eyes and the time-sensitive pituitary pineal axis, again, the most primordial and basic (beginning) first chakra would be ruled/represented by saturn signs. I am not certain if Dr. Frawley's classification is based on scriptural evidence, deductive, inductive or experiential. Or is aries chosen as the initial point (Can a circle have a beginning?) in the circle of zodiac because it is the sign of exaltation for the giver of life (symbolically and literally), Sun, at the same time also being the debilitation point for the 'taker' of life, Saturn? The optimum point or setting to represent the beginning of life. In the current system with kanya and tula forming the center, one gets a sense of refinement and balance being the key driving factor. With reason developed to near perfection (virgo) and emotions refined to their highest (libra) so that a fine-balance is created between reason and affect, humans can view things with a calmed mind that is neither furiously looking for one or the other way of defining the basis of creation and all the 'reality' that surrounds. From such a refined and calm mind only products of the finest quality can ensue. In the current system, both aries and pisces represent the extremes of imbalance or polarity. Aries represent the need for the physical/tangible and the need to force action, to project, to show presence and leadership and pisces the converse of many of these, through passivity, to receive, through an exclusive leaning towards being able to comfortably exist in the (mental) realm of symbolism and much that is ethereal, not tangible and in the worst case illusory. (Caveat: Please do not interpret the above to mean that we see such polarized extremeness of traits in all those who have a strong presence of arian or piscean influences in their charts. In a horoscope, there are many factors that shape and modify each other).
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