Vedic Astrology

Jyotish is the astrology of India. The word means something close to the science of light. It has been taught and practised without a break for well over two thousand years, and it is still a living trade there today, read at births, at weddings and at the start of anything that matters. I have read it beside the Western chart for a long time now, and every full portrait I write carries both.

Two zodiacs, one sky

The first thing to know is that Jyotish measures the signs against the stars themselves, which astrologers call the sidereal zodiac, where Western astrology measures them from the point of the March equinox and so ties them to the seasons. The two zodiacs lined up about seventeen centuries ago and have been drifting apart ever since, and the gap is now about 24 degrees. That is why most people find their Vedic Sun sitting one sign back from the one they have always called their own.

Neither zodiac is wrong. They answer different questions, and the Sidereal and Tropical page explains how.

The Moon first

If Western astrology begins with the Sun, Jyotish begins with the Moon. The sign your Moon sat in at birth, measured against the stars, is called your rashi, and in India when someone asks what sign you are, that is the sign they mean.

Then it goes finer than the sign. The Moon's path through the sky is divided into twenty seven lunar mansions, the nakshatras, each a little over thirteen degrees wide, each with its own ruling planet, its own deity, its own symbol and its own temperament. The nakshatra your Moon was in when you were born is, in my experience, the single most telling detail the Vedic chart offers. When I sit down with a chart, that is where I look first.

What I take from it and what I leave

Jyotish is often sold as prediction, and a good deal of it was built for that purpose. I read it as character and as timing, the same way I read everything else: a description of the weather you were born into and the weather you are walking through now. It is never a sentence.

Jyotish also comes with a tradition of remedies, gemstones and mantras and offerings to soften a difficult planet. I respect that tradition and I do not prescribe from it. What you do with what you learn here is yours to decide.

How this section is laid out

The pages run in the order I would teach them.

Learning Vedic Astrology is the place to begin. It tells you where Jyotish comes from, what it shares with the Western chart and where the two part company. Sidereal and Tropical explains the two zodiacs and the one sign back rule in plain words.

The Grahas covers the nine planets of Jyotish, including Rahu and Ketu, the two shadow planets that a Western reader will not have met. The Bhavas covers the twelve houses and the Whole Sign system Jyotish builds them with. The Dashas explains the planetary periods, the Vedic way of reading the timing of a life.

Then the two sets. The Nakshatras gives each of the twenty seven lunar mansions its own page, from Ashwini to Revati, with its span, its ruler, its deity and symbol, and how it reads as your Moon. The Rashis gives each of the twelve signs its own page, from Aries to Pisces, read first as your sidereal Moon and then as your sidereal Sun. Every Rashi page points to its Western pair in The Signs, so you can hold the two readings side by side.

The daily posts

The Western Moon posts carry the live sky, the New Moons, the Full Moons and the eclipses, and the Monday Week Ahead reads all twelve signs each week. The pages in this section are the evergreen reference behind them. Where a nakshatra or a rashi page can add something to a post, the page links to it.

Where to start

Start with your sidereal Moon. You need the Moon's position measured against the stars, which my readings compute and which the Find Your Numbers and Signs page will soon add. Find the rashi it falls in and read that page. Then find the nakshatra within it and read that one, and notice how much closer to the bone it comes.

The Western Moon page and the Moon in the Signs page will give you the other half of the picture. Hold the two together. In my experience that is where the interesting conversation starts.

You will be your own teacher. All I will do is help you remember what you already know.

If you would like your own chart read, my readings are here.

In this section