Foreword
Planetary Influences on Human Affairs, one of the earliest books to espouse the cause of Jyotisha and present it as an academic discipline as any other, makes out a stunning case for astrology for the first time. While books on predictive astrology are many, there are practically no books on the philosophy and theory behind the subject which my revered late father Dr. B.V. Raman brings to the reader. He succeeds to a large extent in showing the link between the traditional philosophy of Karma and modern scientific thought.
I am grateful to Mr.J.P.Jain and Mr.Abhishek Jain of Motilal Banarasidaas International for bringing out a new reprint of the book which should not be lost to posterity for the case it makes out for astrology.
Preface
In this book I have tried to present a case for astrology, Ianthi Land to refute the charge that a belief in astrology implies a belief in fatalism which in its turn paralyses human endeavor and retards human progress. Fate and Freewill are relative terms. Science cannot leave things in nature to blind chance and so-called necessity.
There is a good deal of misunderstanding and wrong notions about astrology, Karma etc., due partly to ignorance, partly to indifference and mainly to preconceived opinions.
The philosophy of astrology has as its strongest weap-on relativity, and is based on the truth that ethereal vibrations extend from the Sun to the great planets and from planet to planet. All space is a network of interacting forces.
Introductory
It has been customary to assert that until the coming of In modern science, man was loaded down with superstition. It is far too easy for some of the so-called educated persons to dismiss certain fields of knowledge as astrology as unscientific because of ignorance. Astrology has been revealing, and this is amply borne out by researches of scientists in the West, a set of rational hypothesis challenging some of the orthodox scientific beliefs with their materialistic and deterministic tenets.