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

Thoughts


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.


The story of your life

By Kshitij Sharma, August 31, 2005

Your birth chart is the story of your life. Each house in this birth chart describes a portion of this story. It tells about your own self, family, spouse, work/vocation, children and most importantly – artha, dharma, kama, and moksha.Houses in a horoscopes are areas of influence. To take examples from a typical Indian movie – these are like plot and sub-plots with planets acting like good guys and planets acting like bad guys. Good guys make thing happen, bad guys bring despair.
Though very very easily said than done, the entire trick in astrology is:
  1. Understanding the plot well,
  2. Finding out which planets play a part in this plot,
  3. Deciding who is a good guy and who is a bad guy,
  4. Finding out how strongly these planets influence the plot and
  5. Most importantly, when each of the characters would come into play – i.e. exert their influence. This is nothing but predicting the future.
Benefic planets (e.g. Venus, Jupiter) are good guys by default. Similarly planets like Saturn, Rahu are always inclined to do bad. Some planets like Moon, Mercury are gullible. Mars and Sun make for heros with an angry young man attitude. The lord of a house is the hero of the plot. It would always do good, even if it is a bad guy for the rest of the story. Somewhat like a villain who does good comedy, but is evil nonetheless. Planets which are friendly to the lord are naturally on its side. Planets which are lord of 6th, 8th or 12th house from the house in question are no good.
The strength of these characters matters. Our hero, who we expect to do good, may be in distress. It may be surrounded by, overpowered by evil. It may not deliver when its chance comes. In other situation, a bad guy reformed by angels like Jupiter may do much less harm than if it were acting alone.
Sometimes, these planets team up and create yogas. Their combined energy is at times so powerful that it pretty much takes the plot away from the rest of the players. The individual, with such combination, is said to be under influence of such a yoga. Good planets give power – raj yoga, wealth – dhana yoga, name/fame – mahapurusha yoga. Bad guys can also gang up and hijack the plot causing daridra yoga, daruna yoga (combinations for poverty) etc.
Where is differs from a movie is that we, as individuals, are not captive audiences. We can take part in this play and influence it. That we are masters of our own destiny is not empty talk. If we feel that there is a problem, we can act to rectify it, or control it. We may not be able to change the plot altogether, but we can definitely give a direction to it.
I could have gone on and on and on, but I have run out of smilies and metaphors 🙂 I will leave you at this point with your thoughts and hope you will get back to me if you can think of something else to add here. Till then, take very good care of yourself.