01-22-2009, 07:47 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-Pandyan+Jan 21 2009, 06:15 PM-->QUOTE(Pandyan @ Jan 21 2009, 06:15 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Yes, you can PM and request HH to share his opinion. As for Elst, I read his views on it in a yahoo group, which I'm unable to find. His reply to my email was very short, without going into too much detail. I'd rather trust his word on a subject I don't know anything about, except that it has screwed Hindus over and needs to be abandoned.
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I am not afraid to state that I do hold the view "Vedic astrology" as practiced today is heavily influenced and inspired in large part by the Greek astrological tradition. For debating/trashing a counter-point made in this regard I however place some pre-condition. The person should be able to read and cite in original saMskR^ita a wide range of early Hindu texts. These include: 1) aushanasa adbhutAni 2) gR^ihya sUtra-s of different vedic traditions 3) atharva veda parishiShTa-s 4) yavana jAtaka of sphujidhvaja 5) bR^ihat saMhitA. I would also place a pre-condition that the person should actually be able to perform *vedic* rites of the nakShtra and graha variety by himself or at least know *all* operational details of these rites. And the person should know some basic Indo-European linguistics.
Anyone who has spent some time studying the saMskR^ita texts in the original will note that in the vedic period there was a major stellar rite known as the nakShatreShTi. There is no sign of predictive astrology in that text. The adbhuta texts of the AV parishiShTa and the one attributed to ushanA kAvya have a primitive astrology in the form of portents and omens but not of the predictive type seen in modern Indian astrology. If we look at the astrology in the itihAsa-s it is more consistent with the system of portents and omens of the adbhuta texts. In the gR^ihya sUtra-s and late shrauta traditions we find rites known as graheShTi-s and graha-homa-s. These rites are also related in their context to acquisition of various desires and freedom from the ill-effects of omens rather than their function in modern predictive astrology. An early Tamil text of the heroic Tamil age has an astrological reference, puranAnuru 229: Here the poet mentions that due a certain astrological omen in the form of a meteor the chera king kOchEramAn died.
From all this we can state that the early home grown astrology of the Hindus was mainly of an portentitious variety. The predictive version based on rAshI and hora is of Greek origin. It is this latter aspect that is marketed today as nADI jyotiSha and "vedic astrology". What the Indians/ Indo-Greeks did do is to merge their ancestral nakShatra system with a rashi based astrology coming in from the Greeks thus Indianizing it.
Some Greek words in India astrology:
hora
drekkANa
I would like to see if any "vedic astrologer" denies these.
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I am not afraid to state that I do hold the view "Vedic astrology" as practiced today is heavily influenced and inspired in large part by the Greek astrological tradition. For debating/trashing a counter-point made in this regard I however place some pre-condition. The person should be able to read and cite in original saMskR^ita a wide range of early Hindu texts. These include: 1) aushanasa adbhutAni 2) gR^ihya sUtra-s of different vedic traditions 3) atharva veda parishiShTa-s 4) yavana jAtaka of sphujidhvaja 5) bR^ihat saMhitA. I would also place a pre-condition that the person should actually be able to perform *vedic* rites of the nakShtra and graha variety by himself or at least know *all* operational details of these rites. And the person should know some basic Indo-European linguistics.
Anyone who has spent some time studying the saMskR^ita texts in the original will note that in the vedic period there was a major stellar rite known as the nakShatreShTi. There is no sign of predictive astrology in that text. The adbhuta texts of the AV parishiShTa and the one attributed to ushanA kAvya have a primitive astrology in the form of portents and omens but not of the predictive type seen in modern Indian astrology. If we look at the astrology in the itihAsa-s it is more consistent with the system of portents and omens of the adbhuta texts. In the gR^ihya sUtra-s and late shrauta traditions we find rites known as graheShTi-s and graha-homa-s. These rites are also related in their context to acquisition of various desires and freedom from the ill-effects of omens rather than their function in modern predictive astrology. An early Tamil text of the heroic Tamil age has an astrological reference, puranAnuru 229: Here the poet mentions that due a certain astrological omen in the form of a meteor the chera king kOchEramAn died.
From all this we can state that the early home grown astrology of the Hindus was mainly of an portentitious variety. The predictive version based on rAshI and hora is of Greek origin. It is this latter aspect that is marketed today as nADI jyotiSha and "vedic astrology". What the Indians/ Indo-Greeks did do is to merge their ancestral nakShatra system with a rashi based astrology coming in from the Greeks thus Indianizing it.
Some Greek words in India astrology:
hora
drekkANa
I would like to see if any "vedic astrologer" denies these.