This portal is dedicated to Vedic Astrology - Vedanga Jyotish, a science that is deep-rooted in Indian culture, tradition, and philosophy of life.

Thoughts


The Verdict

By Kshitij Sharma, October 1, 2010

The day came and went and India remained calm. We all got home early from work and were glued to the television screen to hear the verdict. I heard it on the television and then rushed to the computer to download the PDF file of the verdict from the Allahabad High Court website. Read it, made some sense and then sat thinking – have I really moved on or have I stopped caring.

I distinctly remember the day of 6th December 1992. Continue reading


Difficult Times

By Kshitij Sharma, November 29, 2008

It was not an ordinary day at work and colleagues pointed out to each other that Bangalore Oberoi and the Taj West End are directly visible from our office. I looked out of the window and shuddered. Even when I was aware that I am a thousand odd kilometers removed from Bombay, I felt scared.

There was a feeling of disgust when Bangalore was bombed. However, it is a different feeling now. It is a feeling of Continue reading


The Bangalore Blasts

By Kshitij Sharma, July 26, 2008

I was very sorry to hear about the blasts in Bangalore in the afternoon of 25/07. Sitting around the television in the company cafeteria, a bunch of colleagues continuously changed channels to get more information on the location and effect of these blasts. It initially started with news about two blasts and gradually the tally increased to seven. The sense in among colleagues at work was not necessarily that of fear, but that of Continue reading


How to Judge a Horoscope

By Kshitij Sharma, August 8, 2007

I am not being pretentious by keeping the title of my post same as the name of books by Dr. B.V. Raman on subject of astrology. I think it was necessary given the reaction to some of the posts on the yoga category. Anand observed in one of the comments to the post – Good Results by Rahu and Ketu that

… what Kshitij has done is to merely state combinations Continue reading


Our fascination with future

By Kshitij Sharma, July 22, 2007

It is said that those who do not remember the history are bound to repeat it. Still, most of us rather look forward to the future than look back and reflect. It is quite natural given our fascination with the future and the desire to know more and more about it.

There are various reasons why we do it. One of them is shortage of patience in our fast paced lives and the anxiety to find solutions to problems without really working hard for them. Another is the state of confusion we get into, where there is an expectation of guidance from that disaffected someone, who can look at the issues without really Continue reading


Palmistry and Biology

By Kshitij Sharma, July 5, 2007

I happened to catch a programme on National Geographic yesterday, July 04, 2007, called “Twins, Triplets and Quads” where it was mentioned that in case there is a shortage of blood in the body of fetus, miracle of biology siphons the blood away from dermis to more important organs of body – e.g. brain. The body keeps a record of this miracle and the index finger of left arm can be used to determine how healthy the heart would be in later stages of life.

I did a bit of search on Google and found out that a research paper was presented by some Indian doctors, titled Utility Of Finger Prints in Myocardial Infarction Patients. This work is not new, this paper appeared in a journal in 2000 and refers to another paper which was written in 1975. I guess I was the one not looking.

Quoting from the abstract –

Dermatoglyphics has been well established as a diagnostic aid in a number of diseases having hereditary basis … It is deducted that patients of myocardial infarction have higher incidence of whorls & lower incidence of loops in all the digits.

Unless I am being completely unreasonable, does it not qualify as palmistry?


How is a Janma Kundali, horoscope cast?

By Kshitij Sharma, March 27, 2007

To cast a birth chart, i.e. the horoscope, the software application takes the four inputs – date of birth, time of birth, time zone and coordinates of the place of birth. Based on that, the application converts all the parameters to the local time of the place by first converting time based on time zone to UTC and then to the local time based on the longitude of the place. Once this is done, the calculations done to compute the position of planets, Continue reading


Divisional Astrology Charts – Studied along with Rashi Chart

By Kshitij Sharma, March 27, 2007

Divisional Charts, also known as Vargas, are harmonics of the main Rashi kundali. The divisional charts are consulted along with the Rashi kundli for examining specific details, e.g. Navamsha, which is the most important of divisional chart, is consulted to find out more about the spouse and general well being. A planet’s Continue reading


Contributions of Readers to this Astrology Blog

By Kshitij Sharma, February 4, 2007

Over the weekend, I was looking at some of the comments that are posted on various astrology articles on this blog. I would like to take this opportunity to thank some of the readers for their comments and suggestions … I hope they can keep coming back and making more and more contributions to this blog.

S. Anand – Asks some very pointed and pertinent observations- here. Make me realize why I am still a humble student of astrology.

Krishna Desai- His comments on the articles Pancha Mahapurusha Yoga, Gaja Kesari Yoga, Faith and Dogma, Kalsarpa Yoga are worth a read. They contribute to the overall quality of these posts and make the comment feature of wordpress worthwhile. 

Do take a look at the valuable comments of Basab Roy on Sadhe Sati, Saturn’s transit. The notable are here, and here.

There was a mistake in calculating the nakshatra pada of the ascendant in the astrology chart generator. Few months back, the problem was reported by Sumit SD, who observed this behaviour while generating a birth chart of his son. Thanks Sumit.

A few professional astrologers have expressed interest in using this medium to help others. Since they had added their contact information in my guestbook, I am taking this as their permission to publish their contact information. They are Nitin Kashyap (kashyap_nitin at rediffmail dot com) from Dwarka and Dinesh Sharma (astrodinesh at hotmail dot com) from New Delhi.


Faith and Dogma

By Kshitij Sharma, September 27, 2005

Over the last week, two conflicting points of view made me think and made me think really hard. First, there was a comment in my site’s guest book by GK (hi_gk@yahoo.com) which said how can I believe in Astrology being an engineer myself. And the other was an article in New York Times about how some people in USA think that schools should not just be teaching evolution in its classical sense, the way Darwin explained it, but also in the way it is described in Bible.Many of you would have already guessed where I am going with this. We all know that life started on this Earth in the form of a single celled organism called Amoeba. We all know that human beings descended from apes. We all somehow know. No doubt, there is reason behind it. The arguments presented by the paleontologists do look convincing. They may not be able to prove everything, but they do present their theories in a logical manner, in a manner in which things make sense. After we have bought these arguments, it is impossible to believe that evolution did not happen and the world was created just about 4000 years back.

On the other hand, I am a believer in Astrology, but I am hard pressed to call it a science. I cannot, for the love of God, explain how Astrology works. I do not know and cannot explain how planets influence our life. Do they do it through gravity, electricity, magnetism or what? I do not know. I have no idea why Earth is not one of the planets in our horoscope, even after being the most important planet that really influences us in all the ways.

Yet, I am amazed every time I meet a good astrologer and how she/he can read about my life just by looking at my horoscope. Astrologers do make good predictions. Sorry, I would like to correct that – Good astrologers make good predictions. Mr. Rangarao, the astrologers my parents talk to, is a very learned jyotishi. When my parents showed him my horoscope for the first time, he immediately commented that I was about to travel abroad and indeed I was in Chennai then, getting my H1-B stamped. He did tell my parents that I was going to come back to India and settle here. Instances like these make a believer out of each one of us even though we cannot explain them rationally.

Then who is right? No one ! The two sides – so called rationalists who abhor Astrology and leave no chance of maligning it and the self proclaimed religious leaders who think that myths and scriptures have answers to all the questions in the universe are being equally dogmatic. They do not want to even listen to what the other side has to say, let alone have a discussion. This is not good for knowledge.

There is a third category. These people keep an open mind and try to scrutinize religious scriptures as though they are real historical documents. They are the one trying to ascertain how Jesus really looked like, where exactly was Krishna’s Dwarka, when did Rama rule over India etc. How are we ever going to find out whether Vedas were really written during Sarasvati Valley Civilization if we do not keen an open mind?

What is the solution to this problem? The solution, ironically, lies only in faith. It lies in giving the people on the other side a chance to speak and believing that they could possibly be right.