The Brihat Jataka of Varaha Mihira

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About the Book "This Brihat Jataka of Varaha Mihira is generally considered all over India as one of the best and most authoritative treatises on the science of Hindu Horoscopy. In fact, Varaha Mihira is recognized as the greatest to the Indian astrologers. There are four commentaries on this work. The well-known is that of Bhatta Utpala; another is known as Subodhini; the third is Mudraksari and the fourth is known as Sripatiyam. The commentary of Bhatta Utpala is followed in this work. The author has written a smaller work on Astrology known as Laghu Jataka."

Foreword The Jyotisa Sastra is counted as one of the six amgas of the Vedas. All the religious rites and sacrifices of the Hindus are guided by Astronomy and Astrology, both of which are included in the Jyotisa Sastra. Indeed, Astrology is considered as the eye of the Vedas.

Astrology is the oldest of all sciences. Its history is traced back to the Vedas whose wise Risis, by the expansion of their consciousness, could reach the Shining Ones. From India the belief in Astrology spread to China, Babylonia and Chaldea; whence it spread to Egypt, Greece, Rome, and throughout the whole world. Once it taught the people to lift their aspirations by faith, hope, and reverence, through the stars and the plane tary spirits to the One and Universal Self.

The hoary saints of the ancient ages, fraught with wisdom, held that "an affinity existed between the stars and the souls of men; that the ethereal essence is Divine; that the souls of men are taken from this reservoir and return to it at death; and that the souls of the more eminent of mankind are converted into stars."

When we come to consider that Astrology was the beginning of nearly all that we hold valuable in art, literature, religion and science; that the asterisms and the constellations were our first pictures; and that Astronomy and Astrology sprang from India, we may judge of its value to humanity: nor shall we wonder at its survival amidst the fall of nations and the decline of mighty races. There are two broad and rational principles on which Astrology is based.

The first principle upon which the science of Astrology rests is that of Vedanta, that the whole Universe is actually what the term implies-a unity; and that a law which is found in manifestation in one portion of the Universe must also be equally operative throughout the whole. While the Heavens form the macrocosm, man. is the microcosm. Each man is a little world exactly representing the Universe. While all seem quict without, there is an active world within. Such a world is visible to the inner sight of a Yogi. Those laws which are operative among the planetary bodies are also in force amongst ourselves.

The second principle is that, by a study of the motions and relative positions of the planets, the operations of these laws may be observed, measured and determined.

**Contents and Sample Pages**