Review of “Vedic Origins of the Zodiac: The Hymns of Dirghatamas in the Rig Veda” By David Frawley

English: Vishnu sahasranama manuscript, ca 1690. Vishnu being worshipped in his five forms, including Rama and Lakshmana. Opaque watercolour on paper, Mewar, India. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In continuing response to my new video I’ve been asked to comment on  an article written by David Frawley entitled, Vedic Origins of the Zodiac: The Hymns of Dirghatamas in the Rig Veda.

I’ll quote relevant sections and then comment.

[In] the Rig Veda, the oldest Vedic text, there are clear references to a chakra or wheel of 360 spokes placed in the sky.

Mr. Frawley points out that the Rg Veda mentions a wheel in the sky with 360 spokes. The exact reference is Rg 1.164.11 and also 1.164.48. These state, “The wheel of time moves through the heavens with six spokes and 720 pegs grouped in pairs“

The immediately surrounding verses make it clear that this wheel belongs to the Sun, and that it’s circle through heavens is a year, which is also divided in other ways, including six seasons.

This clearly shows that ancient Indians divided the year into 12 months, 360 days, 720 days and nights, etc. Since the same lunisolar motion that creates 12 months of the year creates a zodiac of 12 equal signs it is not too far fetched to infer that the ancient Indian’s divided the Sun’s path over the course of the year (the ecliptic)  into 12 divisions.

This shows that the 12 Rg Vedic divisions of the ecliptic are sun-based, based on the movement of the Sun during the year – which is to say, they are tropical.

This doesn’t show

• that they used these 12 divisions for astrological prognostication
• that they symbolized them as we do, ram, bull, twins, etc.

The hymns of Dirghatamas speak clearly of a zodiac of 360 degrees, divided in various ways, including by three, six and twelve, as well as related numbers of five and seven. We must remember that the zodiac is first of all a mathematical division of the heavens such as this hymn outlines. This is defined mainly according to the elements, qualities and planetary rulerships of the twelve signs. The symbols we ascribe to these twelve divisions is a different factor that can vary to some degree.

Here, Mr. Frawley is admitting the points I made above. The 12 divisions of space/time in the Vedas…

• Are mathematical, not stellar
• Can not truly be called a “zodiac” because it is not invested with the mostly animal symbols that we ascribe to the 12 astrological divisions.

The actual stars making up the constellation that goes along with the sign is yet a third factor. For example, some constellations are less or more than thirty degrees, but the mathematical or harmonic division of each sign will only be thirty degrees. What is important about the hymns of Dirghatamas is that he shows the mathematical basis of such harmonic divisions of a zodiac of 360 degrees.

Thus, these references show that the twelve Vedic divisions of space/time are not  divisions of stars into constellations. In other words, the hymns show that they are not sidereal.

According to Dirghatamas Rig Veda I.155.6, “With four times ninety names (caturbhih sakam navatim ca namabhih), he (Vishnu) sets in motion moving forces like a turning wheel (cakra).” This suggests that even in Vedic times Vishnu had 360 names or forms, one for each degree of the zodiac. A fourfold division may correspond to the solstices and equinoxes.

This is brilliant. Vishnu causes time to turn on a wheel with 360 days/degrees, divided into four groups of ninty – and these four divisions are the solstices and equinoxes – further evidence that the Vedic 12-fold wheel is tropical.

The Surya Siddhanta gives a similar view of the zodiac originally divided in four parts.  My video explains this.

Elsewhere Dirghatamas states, I.164.36, “Seven half embryos form the seed of the world. They stand in the dharma by the direction of Vishnu.” This probably refers to the seven planets.

Very interesting, as is much of the article that immediately follows. Coming to…

Yet another verse (43) of this same hymn of Dirghatamas refers to the Vishuvat, the solstice or equinox, showing that such astronomical meanings are clearly possible.

Dr. Frawley, in my opinion, has made a brilliant presentation giving the most plausible demonstration I have ever heard that the ancient Vedic people of India conceived of the year (and thus the ecliptic) in 12 divisions, connected with seven planets. Perhaps unintentionally he has also brought to light that these divisions are relative to tropical anchors: solstices and equinoxes.

The zodiac in Vedic thought is the wheel of the Sun. It is the circle created by the Sun’s rays.

Indeed, the Vedic 12-fold division of space is tied to the Sun (tropical), not to stars (sidereal).

…in Astronomy Before the Telescope, C. Walker (ed.), St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1996, pps. 123-124, Pingree suggests that Mul. Apin, Babylonian tablets that date from 687 to 500 BC has “’an ideal calendar’ in which one year contains 12 months, each of which has 30 days, and consequently exactly 360 days; a late hymn of the Rgveda refers to the same ‘ideal calendar’. And Mul.Apin describes the oscillation of the rising-point of the sun along the eastern horizon between its extremities when it is at the solstices; the same oscillation is described in the Aitareya Brahmana.’” This ideal calendar is the basis for the zodiac and its twelve signs at a mathematical level. Clearly Pingree is referring to Rig Veda I.164 as his ‘late’ hymn of the Rig Veda.

This is exactly what I was saying about Mul.Apin in my video.

…a zodiac of 360 degrees and its twelvefold division are much older in India than any Greek or even Babylonian references…

This seems to be the main point of Mr. Frawley’s article, which is not really a debate that significantly thrills me. In my opinion the beautiful fundamental principles of astrology have a superhuman source and were comprehended by humans in the krta and treta yugas, well before any Greek, Babylonian or Rg Vedic culture existed.

Clearly the Vedas show the mathematics for an early date for the zodiac as well as the precessional points of these eras long before the Babylonians or the Greeks supposedly gave them the zodiac.

Mr. Frawley makes a significant point for the antiquity and indigenous status of 12 divisions of the ecliptic in Indian. He did not demonstrated that the 12-fold zodiac was used for prognostication (“foreknowledge”) prior to Babylonian and Greek influence. Nor is it really explicitly clear anywhere in the Veda, to my knowledge, that any form of astrology was used from prognostication. The records, so far as I have seen, only demonstrate calendrical usage. I would like to hear Mr. Frawley give evidence for the use of astrology as a means of prognostication in ancient India.

Please note that I am not embracing any side of the argument, merely asking for a discussion on the topic.

The Rig Veda has another cryptic verse that suggests its cosmic numerology. According to it the Cosmic Bull has four horns, three feet, two heads and seven hands (Rig Veda IV.58.3). This sounds like a symbolic way of presenting the great kalpa number of 4,320,000,000 years.

This is a very interesting note to end on, and raises a significant contention regarding the calculations of Swami Sri Yukteshwar.

- Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

Questions Relating to God, Fate, and Reincarnation

does lord krishna have control over the planets in astrology?

The us Government makes laws. In that sense they have control over US law. The police and courts enforce the laws, invested with the power of the US Government. Still it is the citizens who either break or obey the laws. The Government or police does not (ldeally, at least) bend the laws to make an innocent person guilty or a guilty person innocent.

Similarly Krsna has made the Purusha. the Purusha makes the universe with all it’s laws. The planets and other devas enforce the laws being invested with the power of the Purusha, who is the conduit for the power of Krishna. So in this sense Krishna has control of all the planets.

But the planets, Purusha and Krishna do not exercise favoritism. They use their control over fate only to ensure that it is enforced impariatially. Just as it is the citizens who control their punishment or reward by deciding if they will contradict or cooperate with the laws – similarly it is only you and I who truly controls our own fates.

who should we worship to ease the negatives of our planets?

Merely the concept of wishing to worship will itself ease the negativities, because most of the negativity arises from refusal to cooperate with higher authorities and powers. Worship ameliorates this rebelliousness, and therefore in and of itself is very efficacious for easing karmic negativity.

Those who still desire to enjoy power and prestige in the temporary world should worship various temporary deities to get their petty desires fulfilled. Those who are lucky and smart will want a permanent solution to suffering and negativity – and they will therefore seek emancipation. Such persons can only worship Vishnu’s category of divinity – for Vishnu is the god of pure clarity (sattva-guna), and therefore he alone can grant emancipation to pure clarity. I discuss this in more detail in my reading of the Bhagavata, here: On God and Gods

also when we die do we go straight to our next life?

No. Time is extremely complex and difficult to grasp. It is not as iron clad as the human mind in this era of human history perceives it to be. Aeons and milliseconds can be equalized by the powers of the universe. So time is a bit irrelevant what considering some questions, such as this one.

Every individual is slightly different. The general process, as far as I understand it, is that some time is spend in disconnecting ones emotions and attachments to the body and identity and life which has just expired. Thereafter, Yamaraja – the ultimate judge of karma – takes sometime to review things. Thereafter one is sent to the next destination. But the next destination is not always a birth in a conventional sense. Sometimes it is a manifestation on higher or lower planes of existence (heavens and hells). So there is a flexible amount of time, could be short or long, between one tangible birth and the next. Also the next tangible birth is (quite often nowadays) in subhuman wombs. Depending on how low down the evolutionary chain the birth is, it can take quite some time before the soul ascends the evolutionary ladder again to have the Human opportunity. Therefore there is absolutely no set time between one human birth and the next.

and why are there so many lower life forms than humans,

The universe was created for souls who dreamed of enjoying Gods varieties. Most of that is done very nicely through the minds and senses of various creatures.

The human form of life is quite sophisticated. The special feature of being a human is having intellect, and therefore the ability to communicate and thus read knowledge that humanity has accumulated. So the true purpose of human life is to elevate oneself and improve one’s fundamental nature, not just to enjoy the varieties of manifestation in Gods creation – but to come into better harmony with that creation, not as an enjoyer of it but as a lover, a giver of love to God through it. So interest in this facility is comparatively quite scarce among all the souls here in this world. Even among those who take human birth, explicit interest in such topics is relatively scarce. Therefore there is little need for zillions of human beings to exist at a time, or for there to be zillions of humanlike species. That said, however, I have heard that the Veda specifies 400,000 subspecies of humanity. Though I have no idea how fine the differentiation has to be to get that many, nor do I think that all 400,000 of them co-exist at the same points in history.

is the human life something that is very hard to get back after this life is over?

Not if you have not wasted your human life. If you have made use of your human facilities, nature will quite happily supply you with another one immediately or quite soon – probably even an improved one. But yes, after wasting a human life by not utilizing its intellect to come into better harmony with creation and God… then it usually takes quite a while, but it depends on how severely one has no interest in the human faculties.

Eclipse Mythology of India

Image via Wikipedia

At the time of the Ksirodaka-lila (churning the cosmic “ocean of milk”) there was not yet any being named Rahu or Ketu. There was however an asura (“demon”) named Svarbhanu. When the amrita (“nectar of immortality”) was finally produced from the ocean, the devas (“gods”) managed to get it from the asuras by trickery via Mohini Avatar (an incarnation of the Supreme Godhead). Svarbhanu, however, was the most intelligent among the asuras, and was not convinced that things would be fair. Therefore he assumed the appearance of a deva and sat accross from Surya and Candra (gods of the Sun and Moon) as Mohini was distributing the amrta. Svarbhanu thought that if all the demigods drank they would overpower him, even if he too drank, so he wanted to drink first and kill everyone or steal all their nectar. But Surya and Candra saw his body language in moving to lift the cup of amrita in time that they could call out to Mohini and she could decapitate Svarbhanu with her discus before he could swallow the nectar.

However two conditions arose: 1) the amrita of immortality touched the lips of Svarbhanu, 2) the purifying discus of Vishnu touched his body as well. Therefore neither the head of Svarbhanu nor the decapitated trunk was able or fit to be killed and done away with. Therefore Mohini had them cast to opposite ends of the sky – as far as possible apart from one another and never able to move closer. We came to call the head Rahu and the trunk Ketu. Both of them were entrusted with demigod-like positions by Mohini / Vishnu: invested with power to be among the planetary gods – who now with their addition came to number nine.

Svarbhanu, however, at least apparently seems to retain his hatred of Surya (the Sun) and Candra (the Moon), thus the two opposite locations in the sky that his head (Rahu) and body (Ketu) occupy affect our astronomical reality as the point in the ecliptic path where solar and lunar eclipses take place. It is as if Rahu and Ketu have their revenge during an eclipse.

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- Vic Dicara

http://www.vicdicara.com

The accounts are told in several very old Indian books called Puran, including the Bhagavata Purana

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Whats a “New Year” – And Why Do Some Hindus Say It’s Now?

Lights of Dipavali - Part of the New Years Celebration

If there is anything I really want you to learn from this article knowing, it’s this: time is a circle, not a line.

Clocks are round. The Earth is round. It spins around to create days. Orbits are round, too. The Moon’s circular orbit creates Months, and the Sun’s (or Earth’s depending on your point of reference) creates years. The circular, cyclical movements of the Sun, Moon and Stars are the foundation of how human beings calculate time.

So, time is a circle.

Where does a circle “start” or “end”? It’s easy to say where a line starts and ends, but how do you do it for a circle? You can’t. Or you just pick a point you like and call it the start and end point of a circle.

So what’s a “new year”? For that matter when is a “new month”? Or a “new day”? Some say the day starts at midnight, others say it starts at sunrise, others say it starts whenever they wake up. A day is a circle, a cycle. Whatever point you want to pick on that circle to call the “start” – go for it. Of course some points are more reasonable than others.

A “new month” is also arbitrary. Some calendars say the month begins on a new moon – like in Southern India. Others say it begins on a full moon – like Northern India. Others – like the calendars you get in the book stores – just pick almost arbitrary dates. There is no absolute right answer because a month is a cycle, a circle – one complete circle of the Moon around the earth / zodiac. You can pick a point and call it the “start” but there is no real start to an eternal cycle. Some calendars are more reasonable than others, but none of them are intrinsically “right” or “wrong.”

Back to talking about a year. From an astronomer’s perspective it is one complete circle of the Earth around the Sun. From an astrologer’s perspective it is one complete circle of the Sun through the Zodiac. When does the circle of a year “begin”? Never, but for the sake of counting and orienting ourselves in the eternal flow of time, we pick a point and call it the “beginning of a new year.” You can pick any point you want. Some pick the point where the Sun stops moving southward and leaves winter solstice. Some pick convenient dates near that time. Others pick other dates. Again some are more reasonable than others, but none of them are really the beginning of an eternal cycle.

Many people in India – not all, but many – pick right now: when the New Moon in the middle of “Kartika” month (if you use a northern Indian calendar. It’s the beginning of Kartika if you go by the southern Indian calendar).

Mainly they pick this day to start the year because it is a very auspicious time. There are many auspicious holidays and events being commemorated on this day – so to make the new year auspicious they decided to start it under the good fortunate of these celebrations and commemorations.

Here are the key events celebrated and commemorated at this time of year – most from extremely ancient aeons:

• The demon Bali, who took control of the whole universe under the expert guidance of Venus, was gracefully and wondrously defeated on behalf of the gods by Vishnu who took the form of a cute little boy/dwarf but reclaimed the entire cosmos in three cosmic steps.
• Vishnu in the form of the great king Rama returned home to his kingdom after 14 years of exile.
• Vishnu as Krishna inaugurated a ceremony which provoked the wrath of Indra, the king of the gods. He then protected his village against the cataclysmic storms and floods sent by Indra – humbling the egotistical god.
• The Pandavas (important friends of Krishna) returned to their kingdom after 12 years of exile.
• Krishna and his wife Satyabhama killed the chaotic demon Naraka.
• Vishnu empowered King Prithu to milk the Earth in the form of a cow and thus restore the ecosystem.
• Vishnu in the form of Dhanvantari appeared and founded the science of medicine.

Hey, let’s get into the spirit of things! “Happy New Year!!!” Jai Sri Krishna!

Astrological Reasoning for this day as a “New Year Day”

A very reasonable date for the new year is around Christmas / Winter Solstice – because this is the day the Sun ceases it’s weakening and begins getting stronger – it is like rebirth. In the Indian system this is also a type of New Year – celebrated as “Makara Sankranti” the “Uttarayana” (Although it is erroneously calculated by the majority of current Indian astrologers without tropical reference, but that is another story).

Following a similar logic it is very reasonable to count todays new Moon, the New Moon which occurs in sidereal Libra, as the beginning of a new year. Libra is the Sun’s debilitation, and the opposite point, Aries is its exaltation. So after this New Moon, the Sun ceases moving further and further into debilitation and begins moving closer and closer to exaltation – a type of rebirth, a new year.

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Vic DiCara

www.vicdicara.com

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