Having born into an orthodox brahminic family, an abiding fascination for the subject of astrology, is inevitable. The fact that it is a part of the sacred vedas, gives it a poignancy. Both Sekhar and Naresh have been giving broad hints that this subject can be a major label in our blog, and though the idea that we can comfortably deal with a subject as vast and esoteric is a bit far fetched, the fact that there is enough masala with us connected with the subject, and that it is our own platform for sharing "good interesting thoughts", prompted me to start this label with a kind of preamble, and leave things to follow their natural flow. Here I am folks!!
Astrology, is termed "jyotish shastra" in samskrit. The word means "the light that spreads" or "that which illuminates items in the dark". It has essentially 3 parts; (a) Siddhanta dealing mainly with Astronomy (b) Samhita dealing with shakunam and muhurtham and (c) Phalitha dealing with fruits /effects of planetary positions. The main thrust of this subject is the premise that our present life is a result of our "past karma" and studying the stars gives one a clue to understand (a) what is in store for us (destiny) in the current and (b) whether there are possible remedies to mitigate current troubles arising from past omissions.
Let me dwell a bit on the second part namely the muhurtha . Muhurtha is a time chosen for any activity both down to earth temporal - joining duty, taking a trip, wearing new clothes, to most spiritual - for doing any of our samskaras to doing propiatory ritual for welfare of self / entire mankind (yogakshemam). It can be argued though that if one's destiny is already decided by his birth time (jadhakam) whether the course of events can be modified by choosing a muhurtha for a propiatory ritual. The answer? It's like say repayment of a debt; the birth chart is indicative of a certain amount of debt, if that has to be partly or fully repaid, choosing a right time appears to be a logical thing to do. This is "muhurtha". In other words choosing of a muhurtha for doing any karma, is an attempt to create a short term destiny within the overall long term one decided by the birth chart.
The first part "astronomy" is pure science I reckon. Where this ends, the faith begins and you have the "samhita" namely choosing appropriate times for doing things in order to derive the best possible results partly overriding one's already determined destiny, and then the final part namely the study of likely fruits/effects based on planetary positions. It's a common failing of many of us, to just dwell on the final part, without either the humility or the wherewithal to understand the divine nature of the first two parts, and to draw quick conclusions with rudimentary knowledge, and either start rejoicing over trivially correct predictions, or similarly condemn the subject itself for any interpretation going awry.
The subject of determining the most appropriate muhurtha is a very vast and a difficult subject. I will not attempt here to dwell on this in deatil, since my knowledge is less than rudimentary. I however would share some aspects that come to mind from time to time. In this context an anecdote concerning India's independance is worth narrating.
When the British offered it, the pundits were very concerned about this being a very bad date. So after consultations they arrived at a compromise viz choosing the muhurtha of midnight which was the least harmful. In "muhurtha" fixing norms, there is this "abhijit muhurtha", abhijit means one which cannot be beaten. When nothing else is available, this time is chosen.The calculation goes like this; the exact mid point of either a day or a night - determined by finding time between sunrise-sunset or sunset-sunrise the next day. This is divided by two and added to either the sun rise time or sun set tme. From 20 minutes before this to 20 mnutes after this time (40 mts in all) is called the Abhijit muhurtha. For insatnce say 6 is the sun set time today, and 6 is the sunrise time next morning. There is exactly 12 hrs in between. Half of this is 6 hrs. Added to sunset time of 6pm, we get midnught. 11:40 PM to 12:20 Am will be abhijit muhurtha. Midnight was therefore in abhijt, and the star Pushya , and a Fixed lagna of Taurus was also more appropriate. A British authour has, I believe, in a book, referred to this. The book on Astrology in general talks about President Reagans fascination for the subject, and mentions about India having chosen a better time is far better placed than Pakistan which is still struggling to find its feet.
I hope you folks remember my earlier piece about the latin word "disaster" which means trouble one invites on oneself without referring to "stars". Muhurtha for you and me!!!! And it takes a western authour to write about this, and if one of our own talks about this, our intelligensia, the media, and the so called secular brigade, will make fun of this and rubbish it thoroughly as another example of archaic hindutva mindset. Long live India and Jai Ho.
Love to all, I do hope you all like this piece. Pl try and acknowledge; I have not though chosen a proper muhurtha for writing this piece!!!
Vichu
No comments:
Post a Comment