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Astrology – Hype, hope and future

The academia is divided into two groups, for and against introduction of Vedic

astrology in Indian universities. For the common man, any subject that is taught

in universities should be job-oriented, the inherent principle of Human Resource

Development. Here we would like to place some points for consideration. Almost

60% (roughly) of the Indian population prefer to go to an astrologer for many

events, right from birth of a child to the death of an individual. Astrology has

been a guiding principle for most of them in distressed and confused

moments. In spite of the efforts by reformists, revolutionaries, atheists and

antisuperstition campaigners, our people are still behind the local jyothir

vigyaniks. This shows the belief people have in the subject, irrespective of

cast, creed, race and region in India. Nowadays most of the dailies and

magazines, irrespective of geographical area, publish astrology columns. Almost

all the ISPs in the net offer astrology, tarot cards, numerology, etc.

Most of the successful industrialists and politicians believe in astrology.

Some may argue that astrology ignores

planets like Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. Astrology would not have warranted the

necessity to include them in its predictions. Our epics tell us that most of the

wars were won as a result of astrological calculations and most of the temples

are built according to vaasthu and astrological principles. One may brush them

aside as obsolete and useless in the present context and point to their

recalcitrant nature to absorb the new inventions, as perceived

by some scientists. It is our responsibility to praise the science of

astrology for surviving over the years.

The Panchangams, the astrological almanacs, could predict the day, date and

time of eclipse traditionally, without the advanced gadgets available now. The

Western scientific influence and advancements are only 300 to 400 years old. But

the science of astrology has survived for centuries without the aid of any

advancements and criticism. There has been loss of information and techniques

because the practitioners did not divulge the information to strangers and also

because there were no schools, colleges or institutions to sustain the subject

through documentation. Presently, there is a hype among most of the Indian

population hailing the practice

of traditional and ethnomedicine. Of CORRESPONDENCE CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 81,

NO. 1, 10 JULY 2001 9 late, whether useful to the community or not, the ethno

and traditional medicinal data-mining and compilation have been given top

priority. They are seen preaching in the fora to cash in on the traditional/

ethno value in the name of Intellectual Property Rights. If so, why cannot

there be some consideration for astrology, as our traditional way of belief.

With such an argument we are not blindly supporting the subject, but would like

to point out that even with most of our advanced scientific efforts, we fail to

predict correctly natural disasters like the cyclones, earthquakes, etc.

Accepting astrology as an Indian art/ science of predicting nature, would result

in development of quality astrologers, at least to satisfy the mass and to get

rid of spurious practitioners and quacks from the arena. This would also pave

the way for advancements in this discipline. If not

successful, this would also die in due course. S. SESHADRI K. KATHIRAVAN

Entomology Research Institute,

Loyola College, Chennai 600 034, India e-mail: tsvisesh

 

 

 

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