| Specifications |
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Publisher: Vani Publications |
| Author K. Narayan Rao | |
| Language: English | |
| Pages: 352 | |
| Cover: PAPERBACK | |
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9.5x7 inch |
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Weight 600 gm |
| Edition: 2022 | |
| ISBN: 8189221388 | |
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HBW471 |
| Delivery and Return Policies |
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Usually ships in 3 days |
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Returns and Exchanges accepted within 7 days |
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Free Delivery |
Human quest for knowledge and the twofold Upanishadic classification of vidya or knowledge into para (Brahman) and apara (loukika or worldly) is not even referred to much these days, except when a reference is to be made to classical Indian tradition. The approach to understanding the cosmos, of which man is a part, has to be both transcendental and physical. But the para-approach has now receded into the background in the days of science and technology. Astrology is the only famous vidya now left, in which the para and the apara gets fused into systematised knowledge. But it is attacked because the extra-terrestrial phenomena it takes into account to predict about man and events in this world, individually or collectively, is beyond the laboratory test approach of physical scientists.
Astrology, always under attack in our days of 'scientism', is not a commitment to irrationalism but an espousal of rationalism born of a super science. To understand and appreciate it one should study the subject as any modern subject is studied in a university and not in the traditional way jyotisha or Hindu astrology has been taught all through the centuries. These are not the days of learning by rote, which was the traditional Sanskrit style, but of critical assimilation, with some questions always in the mind. After the basics have been learnt, one should see how the astrological interpretation born of a synthesis, not an isolated application of a randomly picked predictive principle, is revealing something of a discovery, bordering on the marvellous and the miraculous. What is being said here is about Hindu astrology (a very elaborate, complex, scientific and logical knowledge) and this does not apply to western astrology.
No scientific attack
Till date, there has been no scientific attack on Hindu astrology by anyone who has studied the subject, understood its methodology and seen how in some areas there are replications and statistical proofs. What have been mistaken for attacks on astrology, are actually feverish ramblings of half-mad intellectuals and scientists, who have presumed that the supernatural or extra-terrestrial cannot affect man, his destiny and the world he lives in. But the critics of astrology have always included, whether in the West or now in India, mental anarchists, who dash off columns in newspapers or scribble letters to the editors, scientism-drunks or leftists, who during the days their 'fatherland' (USSR) was alive, cultivated the habit of abusing anything, which fell outside their imported ideology.
A man, who writes a column, begins to fancy, after sometime, that he has become an Intellectual and can write on any subject and dashes off his prejudices in the belief that they will be acceptable to the reader. The scientist, whose claim to belong to the elitist groups in some work he has done in some field, feels entitled to lay down his rules of what he thinks is true scientific temper', taste and right thinking. He projects his illogicality into any subject, which he has not studied and which he detests.
The traditional astrologer, the shloka-reciting pandit is not a modern intellectual and cannot be accommodated in the elitist clubs of anglicised and denationalised motley crowds, who think that they have become intellectuals because they write and speak in English and can go on tours to the West, stay in five-star hotels and spend nights in drinking orgies. They may not even be aware of the fact that they are the stinking products of modern multicultural chaos, which produces loud mouthed mental dwarfs (which they are). What they write when they attack astrology, is a farce with weird illogicality but it gets discussed and satisfies their ego.
Many of these Indian critics are not even aware that they are colonial slaves even after fifty years of Indian independence. They are copycats, who accept, blindly and unscientifically. the prejudices of western scientists against western astrology. They do not know that there is an oceanic difference between Hindu astrology, which is a vast and well-developed system of predictive method while western astrology, which is psychological, has hardly any impressive body of predictive success to show. Indian astrologers predict for individuals and for collectivises. These are available in compiled evidences, some of which has been shown in this book.
Astrology encourages both optimism and Inevitably pessimism because it predicts. Many of the achievers of India have benefitted from excellent and timely predictions. There are also unfortunate cases of fatalism and passivity resulting from gloomy predictions. But it is what can be said about a doctor also, who more often than not can make a patient and his family members very pessimistic after he pronounces his diagnosis. It also cannot be denied that there are unscrupulous astrologers, who give pessimistic predictions deliberately to persuade their clients to resort of remedial measures or graha shanti to earn money. In this respect, sometimes astrology seems to deviate from the path of optimism and becomes a frightening subject. This cannot be controlled unless at some stage, this is made a licensed profession after giving a sound professional training to astrologers in various centres of learning like universities and then introduce licensing of the profession of astrology. Then astrologers will have to be encouraged to specialise in some branches like doctors. Then it will be possible to proceed against unscrupulous astrologers and punish them legally for unethical practices and even for causing mental torture.
Critics of astrology are not aware that jyotisha is a high culture of Hindus with no conundrum but a captivation, which is grounded in actual experience with remarkable predictions, some very dazzling. To understand it it should be seen in stages by that jyotisha is an integral composite culture of India.
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