THE ANTIQUITY OF ASTROLOGY *** Jai Maharaj posts
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
". . . Long before Rome or Greece or Israel was even heard of, the
monuments of India point back to an age of learning beyond, and still
beyond. From the astronomical calculations that the figures in their
temples represent, it has been estimated that the Hindus understood
the precession of the equinoxes centuries before the Christian era.
In some of the ancient cave temples, the mystic figures of the sphinx
silently tell that such knowledge had been possessed and used in
advance of all those nations afterward so celebrated for their
learning. . . ." [1]
o o o
". . . -5500: Date of astrological observations associated with
ancient events later mentioned in the Puranas (Alain Danielou). . .
" [2]
o o o
"In 1853, the savant known as Erard-Mollien read before the Institute
of France a paper proving the antiquity of the Indian Zodiac, in the
signs of which were found the root and philosophy of all the most
important religious festivals of that country; the scholar
demonstrated that the origin of these religious ceremonies goes back
into the night of time to at least 3,000 BCE. The Zodiac of the
Hindus, he demonstrated, was long anterior to the Zodiac of the
Greeks, and differed from it much in some particulars. In it one
sees the Dragon on a tree, at the foot of which the Virgin, KANYA-
DURGA, one of the most ancient Goddesses, is placed on a Lion
dragging after it the solar vehicle, the RATH. He said:
"'This is the reason why this Virgin Durga is not the simple momento
of an astronomical fact, but verily the most ancient divinity of the
Indian Olympus. She is evidently the same whose return was announced
in all the Sibylline books --the source of the inspiration of Virgil
-- an epoch of universal renovation. . . . And why, since the months
are still named after this Indian Zodiac, by the Sanskrit-speaking
people of India, should that people have abandoned it to take that of
the Greeks? Everything proves, on the contrary, that these zodiacal
figures were transmitted to the Greeks by the Chaldeans who got them
from the Brahmins of India.'" [3]
o o o
"The earliest known Indian astrological textbook was probably written
in about 3,000 BC, when an advanced civilization flourished in the
Indus Valley. The sub-continent remains today the only major area of
the world where astrology still has a strong, pervasive influence on
everyday life. . . ." [4]
Footnotes:
[1] CHEIRO'S LANGUAGE OF THE HAND by Cheiro (Count Louis) Hamon),
Herbert Jenkins Limited, 1949; Prentice-Hall, 1987.
[2] published in HINDUISM TODAY, 1993. HT's Web site:
[3] THE SECRET DOCTRINE by H. P. Blavatsky. See Recueil de l'
Acade'mie des Inscriptions, 1853, quoted in Des Esprits, Tome iv,
page 62. See also: Histoire l'Astronomie Anciene by J.B.J.
Delambre, 1817 Historical View of Hindu Astronomy by John Bentley,
1825.
[4] THE NEW COMPLEAT ASTROLOGER by Derek and Julia Parker, Harmony
Books, Mitchell Beazley Publishers, New York, 1982.
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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Since newsgroup posts are being removed
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this post may be reposted several times.
hari....@indero.com
In any case this article is comical in its strawman arguments, no one
says the greeks or any such of that age were the first.
But in the end irrelevant because astrology can not support its primary
truth claim. It can not show that sky patterns have anything to do with
events on the face of the earth. Except in such hthings as the moon and
tides.
So in the end the process no matter how complex provides false
information. In computer science there is a saying, "garbage in;
garbage out". This fits astrology perfectly.