of my chart, lower than all others). As soon as Libra dasa started, I began the strongest relationship in more than a decade, and within 15 months we married.
These are but a few of the complexities, conundrums and paradoxes in our field. Which brings us to the most critical and controversial astrological issue of all, the all-important Ayanāmśa. The Ayanāmśa, described fully in Chapter 1 – and in more detail than I have ever seen – is the calculation that allows astrologers to determine when the coincidence of the two zodiacs, the tropical (based on the spring equinox) and the sidereal (based on fixed stars), last occurred. It is generally accepted that this event happened somewhere between 200 and 550 AD. This 350-year discrepancy, unfortunately, can cause a horoscope error of up to approximately 5º. Aside from causing ascendants of many horoscopes to change signs, the dasas and bhukti dates become radically altered.
Disagreements about which date and calculation to use have been so prevalent over the centuries that in 1952 the Government of India commissioned seven academics, one of whom (N.C. Lahiri) also had some prior knowledge of astrology, to come up with a decisive figure that the government would sanction. The result, after three years of research, became what is called the Lahiri Ayanāmśa. And it is now the most popular, widely accepted calculation by astrologers.
Andrew reports that researching the Ayanāmśa issue is akin to opening a Pandora’s box of epic proportions. The deeper he delved, the more technical and historical problems he found – from all the proposed Ayanāmśa figures. To mention a few issues: al-Bīrūnī (the 10th-century AD Islamic scholar), travelling in India, noted that astrologers’ and astronomers’ identification of certain key stars (used to plot zodiacal increments) varied from region to region. Next, what appear to be singular points of light are sometimes two stars which, when viewed at great distance, appear as one. Then, while some ancient texts appear to be aware of the precession of equinoxes, others do not. Further, many of the centuries-old texts we use today appear to have been periodically rewritten over the centuries, with some authors adding their own thoughts and views without acknowledgement. As if all this is not enough, it seems that the rate of precession is not constant, and by all accounts has sped up in the last 2000 years. This little-known phenomena, according to Andrew, is not well understood. If so, delineating an accurate Ayanāmśa is, for all practical purposes, impossible. Pandora’s box indeed.
Andrew suggests that perhaps the clearest remaining textbook description of Ayanāmśa may be given in Sûrya Siddhânta (written sometime within the 4th century AD) and confirmed by Varāhamihira in his Pañca Siddhântika (5th century AD). This figure, properly referred to as Revatipakṣa, was also followed by the respected astrologer Shil Ponde. In Chapter 1 of his book Hindu Astrology (1939), he suggests an Ayanāmśa based on Revatipakṣa, this appearing to be the most historically relevant in his era.
Andrew makes a strong astronomical case for Ponde’s calculation, and it is easy to accept that Indian astrologers may have used this Ayanāmśa because it was promoted in Sûrya Siddhânta, one of the most respected and trustworthy ancient texts. This I do not doubt.
The problem, however, is that, as a practising astrologer for over 30 years, the only Ayanāmśas that have worked for me have been Lahiri’s and (occasionally) Krishnamurthi’s. These two Ayanāmśas are extremely close to each other (within 5 or 6 seconds) and therefore produce horoscopes with near-exact ascendant degrees. The dasa bhukti periods and sub-periods starting points using Krishnamurthi, however, start approximately 20–45 days earlier (depending on whether one is born in a short dasa or a long one) than when employing Lahiri’s figure. These three to six weeks are of course quite significant when predicting the dates of events that appear in one’s horoscope. And this is the main reason that many astrologers spend time and effort testing whether the Lahiri Ayanāmśa works better than Krishnamurthi’s.
The calculation of Ayanāmśa favoured by Shil Ponde, on the other hand, produces horoscopes that vary from Lahiri by more than 3º. This is a relatively huge horoscope discrepancy that causes many Lahiri-based ascendants and planets to change signs. Also, when using Shil Ponde’s calculation, the dasa bhukti starting dates occur between two and five years earlier than Lahiri’s. A person born in a short period, such as Mars, Sun, Ketu or Moon, begins his or her dasas approximately two years earlier when using Shil Ponde versus Lahiri, while a person born in a long dasa, such as Rāhu, Jupiter, Venus, Mercury or Saturn, begins his or her dasas about four or five years earlier with Shil Ponde.
Astrologers who use a Revatipakṣa Ayanāmśa (per Shil Ponde) argue, of course, that they use it not just for historical reasons, but because it produces the greatest horoscope accuracy – both with ascendants and dasa bhuktis. Those who use Lahiri, of course, give the same reason. They say it works best! To quote Andrew, ‘Let the games begin.’
My advice to astrologers using a different Ayanāmśa than what is advocated in this book is to remain open-minded and avoid passing judgement. Hard as it is to admit, what matters most are the results each astrologer produces for his or her clients, not which techniques and calculations are most perfect. In the same way that people rarely change their political or religious beliefs, it is doubtful that astrologers using an Ayanāmśa that has worked well for them will change. Disconcerting as all this may seem, it is quite possible – dare I say probable – that two astrologers using different Ayanāmśa could both produce largely accurate results, or at least provide great help to their clients.
Most seasoned astrologers I have met consider Jyotish to be an art/science; a field that is part empirical and scientific, and part intuitive or psychic. Indeed, when studying with my Indian mentors decades ago, I distinctly remember times when they made very accurate statements about my friends and family (whose horoscopes we analysed nightly) that made no astrological sense. Several times, I saw my mentors make accurate statements they seemed to pull from the ethers! When I asked for their reasoning in these cases I remained decidedly unconvinced by their answers.
Also, consider some age-old divination systems such as the I-Ching and Tarot cards, both of which have been uncannily accurate many times throughout my life (not always, but quite often I have found no predictive technique or system to be perfect). It has never made one whit of sense to me how throwing three coins in the air six times and then reading their textbook meanings could produce anything worthwhile. And how could ascribing meanings to 78 playing cards and then shuffling them and placing them in a certain order possibly predict the future? Well…in my experience, they have. They do.
Interestingly, while all Tarot decks give the same meanings to all cards, there is one odd variation. In many decks, the #8 card represents justice and the #11 card indicates strength, while in other decks the meanings are reversed. Does this mean that one reader gets accurate results and the other fails? No. For the reader using the #8 card as justice, his or her clients will draw the #8 when justice energy is arising. The clients of Tarot readers who consider the #11 card to represent justice will draw the #11 card when the same energy arises. This, like it or not, is simply the nature of oracles and predictive arts. To anyone who believes that astrology is strictly empirical and scientific, the Ayanāmśa dilemma will be profoundly disturbing.
I am, and have always been, an experience-based astrologer, who cares little for authoritative teachings and scriptural texts and so on, unless they produce predictive accuracy. Those who have read my second Jyotish book (Art and Practice of Ancient Hindu Astrology, written in 2001) know how adamant I am about any traditional techniques I have found lacking. I have never, for example, found Vargottama planets to produce anything special, as they are supposed to. Neechabhanga Rajayoga, in my practice, works in about 10 to 20 per cent of cases, enough to be essentially worthless, because even the best astrologers only produce about 70 to 80 per cent accuracy. As for Western astrology solar return charts (known as Varshaphal in Jyotish), I found them to be completely ineffective even before learning Jyotish. One of the earliest questions I
