I would like to bring to the readers’ attention this paper on Indus Valley Civilization and a blog in New York Times. It talks about the collapse of the Harappan civilization and how it was affected by the changes in climactic conditions thousands of years back. The article talks about how the changes in monsoon pretty much destroyed the agriculture as the agricultural process were based not on irrigation channels like canals/dams, but on monsoon and monsoon only. Over a period of time,

Hydroclimatic stress increased the vulnerability of agricultural production supporting Harappan urbanism, leading to settlement downsizing, diversification of crops, and a drastic increase in settlements in the moister monsoon regions of the upper Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.

As time passed, the monsoons continued to weaken until the rivers no longer flooded, and the crops failed. People began abandoning the cities and moved eastward toward the Ganges basin, where rains were more dependable (though not dependable enough to sustain urban metropolises). The civilization dispersed, fracturing into small villages and towns.

This demonstrates two very important points. First, that there is a continuity of civilizations and Aryan invasion theory is bogus. The same people who lived in Indus valley were the ones who moved to the plains of Ganga and other rivers. Secondly, we are still living the same nightmare where we are depending on periodic monsoons. We had a prime minister who talked about linking rivers and so called intellectuals laughed at him.

It was brought to my notice that the HTML format horoscope is not working on this site. It seems that the server where this application was hosted has deleted my account. The astrology chart was made using a perl script and I seem to have lost the source code for it I am still trying to search.

This script has some sentimental value for me. This site has been up for 11 long years now and this is the first script that I wrote that would essentially print the astrology chart given right input. I wanted to host this on a friend’s university account that did not allow running CGI. As a result, this perl script was converted to a java applet that still appears on the site. I absolutely must find the code and put it back on… rewriting is not an option.

Over the years, a lot of people have asked me how this software was written. Let me share the story behind it.

This knowledge comes from astronomy text books. The one I referred to is “Practical Astronomy with your calculator”. It deals with the problem of calculating the position of planets in the sky for a given date, time and place. The author wrote the book for budding and amateur astronomers who were interested in finding out position of planets in the sky and asked themselves this question – “I wonder where I can see Mercury this month?” Back in 1980s and 1990s, an app like Google Skymaps wasn’t available to just enable someone with an iPhone or Android phone to point to the sky and look for planets. Astronomers had to use old fashioned way of using a calculator or a computer. I purchased this book back in 1999 and used to write the 1st version of the software.

Anyway, lets move forward…

A date in such calculations is always converted to “Julian day”. It is denoted by number of days after Jan 1st, 4713 BC. I do not know why this particular date was chosen, but it seems to be a norm for all date/time calculations. This Julian day number is one of the inputs for the planetary position equations. One of the very first chapters dwells on the importance of Julian day.

All the planets revolve around the Sun in an orbit whose parameters are well known. Earth too revolves around the Sun in one such orbit. To understand how these planets will appear from Earth, we need to transform the coordinates from Sun (heliocentric) to Earth at the centre (geocentric). This is explained very well in the book mathematically.

Other mathematical concepts like precession (ayanamsha), aberration (motion of Earth causing apparent direction of a planet to shift slightly from its true direction), refraction (Earth’s atmosphere bending the light coming from a planet) and parallax (the observer is on surface of Earth and not at the centre) are also explained. The formulae are tweaked to give a precise calculation of orbit of planets around the Sun. In the end, these formulae can be put in an equation that takes the Julian day as a parameter to calculate latitude and longitude of a planets – this is what is required and used in computing a horoscope.

There were couple of posts asking for how to start learning Astrology. Please refer to the list below. I have tried to review each of these books in the reference book section and you can look up the publisher information.

Beginner: For beginners, I would suggest to go through the books in the order given below. Once you have gone through the list, you could move to the reference book section and then so on.

1. Astronomy and Mathematical Astrology
2. The Astrology of the Seers
3. Uttara Kalamrita
4. Art of Prediction
5. Important Planetary Combinations (चुने हुए ज्योतिष योग)
6. Astro Sutras
7. How to Judge a Horoscope (Volume I and II)
8. Esoteric Principles of Vedic Astrology

Reference Books – Used frequently

• Jataka Parijata
• Brihat Jatakam
• Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra

Advanced

• Chamatkar Chintamani
• Dashaphal Darpan
• Notable Horoscopes
• Three Hundred Important Combinations

Special Topics

• Gems and Astrology
• Graha and Bhava Balas
• Ashtakavarga System of Prediction
• Medical Astrology, a Rational Approach
• Muhurta (Electional Astrology)
• The Nakshatras, The Lunar Mansions of Vedic Astrology
• The Stars and Your Profession
• Determining Profession and ups and downs in career
• Analyzing Horoscope through Modern Techniques
• Mahadeva’s Jataka Tatva
• The Art of Matching Charts
• Marriage Matching Astrologically
• Varshaphal – Hindu Progressed Horoscope

Profession and Downfalls Part III

Author – Bijesh Menon

Part III of a 4 part article. Part I is published here – Profession and Downfalls – Part I (Rahu-Ketu Axis) and Part II is published here – Profession and Downfalls Part II – Sun’s effect in the horoscope. Part 4 will be published VERY SOON.

In a Vedic horoscope, Saturn is feared and has a bad reputation of a planet showering adversities in life. The duties assigned to Saturn are all bad if seen from the materialistic life point of view, but what should we note here is the way Saturn acts in a horoscope.

Every astrologer or jyotishi will tell you that Saturn causes delay not a denial. Being the slowest planet among navagraha, Saturn imposes this trait on whatever he influences. In Vedic Astrology, Saturn is the greatest teacher. Saturn has the responsibility to give troubles to one to make the native understand his/her faults and fall back to the right path. Hence, whenever Saturn is causing a difficulty in one’s life, there is a deeper meaning behind it. There will be a positive outcome in the future, if one can learn from one’s mistakes. Only when Saturn acts with the combined influence of other malefic planets, things take an ugly turn. Otherwise when Saturn alone imposes a struggle on somebody, the situation will lead to successful and fruitful situation in future.

In a horoscope, if Saturn is influencing the 10th house, no matter how much benefic he is in the horoscope, Saturn will give struggles to the native to come up in life. Saturn causes trouble to one’s career when he is either posited in the 10th itself or in the 4th house in the horoscope. For such natives to have an initial breakthrough in career they will have to cross many hurdles. But they will slowly get into the rhythm and will rise to a very strong position in professional life. They will have to put extra efforts  to achieve success. But as stated above the trouble is only in initial stage and that experiences will help the native stand hard as a rock against any odd situations in career in the future. If Saturn is posited in the lagna then his aspect over the 10th also will create problems in the same passion as stated above but such persons will be slightly lucky with lesser amount of struggles.

However, Saturn’s position in the 8th house in a Vedic horsocope and the 3rd aspect/drishti over the 10th house is a bad yoga. In such cases the person will have to go through all adversities in life to get settled in career. Instability in career will be the most worrying factor for the native irrespective of the line of profession. Such natives may be having great abilities in their profession but will have to face frustrations in life because of the lack fortune they may have. Likewise, when Saturn’s dasha is on even though he has no role to do with the 10th house one may face many hardships regarding profession. But if he is a benefic for that horoscope then there will good rewards for the native for his hard work towards the end of the dasha especially in the sub period of Jupiter.

The combined influence of Sun-Saturn in the 10th house is bad for career. Special reference has to be made about the influence of Saturn over Sun who is in the lagna or the 10th house in a horoscope by the means of aspect or yoga. If Saturn is influencing Sun as above, one will have a downfall in career at least once in life adversely affecting the name and respect of the native in the society. Interestingly, such natives will face this downfall most likely when transit Saturn affects the natal Sun. Sun’s or Saturn dasha or sub period is immaterial and just the transit is enough. Other planetary combinations have to strong enough in horoscope, especially the position of the Lagna and 10th lords and this combination will help the native to sustain in the situation and have a recovery from the pitfall.

While considering the transit of Saturn, special reference has to be given about Saturn’s transit over the 10th, 4th and 8th houses in a horoscope. While transiting through 10th and 4th house, Saturn brings in change for the native. Many will have a transfer or change in place at this time. For some, there could an opening to go abroad. The entire period of this transit will cause uneasiness and struggle in profession. Pressures from the superiors, inability to perform well and lack of recognition are the results of these transits. Many will face difficulties to get the deserved promotions and elevations at this time. The transit of Saturn through the 8th house will be causing all the above said problems but with much more intensity and obstacles causing insurmountable situations for the native. If such a transit of Saturn influencing the 10th house is conjoined with transit Rahu or Ketu then the situation will be worse and only the transit Jupiter’s strong influence over this conjunction could help the native to have some reprieve.

Some time back, I activated Feedburner feeds on this Astrology website. It allows for two services – (1) a RSS reader that RSS savvy readers can read on the web and (2) mailing list and twitter delivery for new Vedic Astrology articles that appear on this page.

The website is reaching couple of milestones – there are close to 200 followers on Twitter and there are close to 1000 Astrology enthusiasts that are subscribed to email delivery of articles.

Thanks to one and all for helping reach these milestone… I know that we are a still a minuscule setup compared to other Astrology sites, but we do feel good about it.