Some Basics of Astrology Revisited - I

After I started learning Astrology, I came across many assumptions like twelve signs and what they represent in our lives and their classification, nine planets, their properties and how they affect our lives etc. But, there was no real reference to explain why 12 houses represent what they represent and why these planets affect us the way they affect us. The general belief is that this is the knowledge handed over to us by our sages and we follow them. And, this knowledge was handed over to our sages by none other than Brahma himself. All that is fine. But, my problem was that I could not find the basis for all these assumptions on the physical plane. As these planets affect us on the physical plane, there should be some way to explain their properties on the physical plane. Because, everything that exists in this universe – stars, planets, us, all objects… are all energy forms and energy forms constantly interact with each other in this universe through radiation. Each and every object in this universe emits radiation. There should be a logical method to explain the effect of planets on us. Only, we don’t know it very well today. It is a humungous task to find plausible explanation of each and every assumption that we make in Astrology. It could consume the time of many over many births to find all answers. Nevertheless, I wanted to make a start and see what is that I can discover during my lifetime.



In Astrology, we classify planets into various categories such as Satvik, Rajasik and Tamasik based on tri-gunas. We also classify them into natural benefics and natural malefics. In addition, we also have for any given planet some planets are considered friends and some other planets considered as enemies. We have many mythological stories from ancient times to help us remember their gunas, friendships etc. in an easy manner. I applaud our ancestors for developing such a wonderful system for helping everyone, especially astrologers to easily recall a story and then attribute certain properties to planets. These are juicy stories that stay in memory and hence easy to recall. But, what is the real basis behind such classification? This question always haunted me from the very beginning of my astrological journey. If you ask any astrologer why Jupiter is classified as satvik, he would easily quote references from mythology. He would say that Jupiter is none other than Brishaspathi, the Guru of Gods – a satvik person and hence Jupiter is considered a satvik planet. But, what I wanted to know was, why the planet Jupiter, a physical body, found in our Solar system is capable of inducing satvik thoughts in us?

As per Indian Astrology, Sun, Moon, and Jupiter are classified as Satvik planets, Mercury and Venus as Rajasik planets, Saturn, Mars and Rahu and Ketu are known as tamasik planets. In another classification Jupiter, Venus, Mercury and Moon are classified as natural benefics and Sun, Mars, Saturn, Rahu and Ketu are classified as natural malefics. I always wondered about the basis of this classification. As I believe that the planets affect us on the physical plane, there should be some physical properties of these planets based on which we could explain the classification as used in Astrology.

I looked at different properties of the planets like what they are made up of, how big they are and how far are they from earth to get a clue on their classification. But, none gave any clue. Finally, I found one correlation to build a bridge between what is assumed in astrology and what we could find on the physical plane. I didn’t know that what I learnt in my primary school would help me out here. It is VIBGYOR! Yes, it is the spectrum of light and the sequential arrangement of different colours in the spectrum that holds the key! First list these colours in the right order and mark the planets associated with these colours against respective colours, you will observe some pattern:

Violet ------------- Saturn
Indigo
Blue --------------- Venus
Green ------------- Mercury
Yellow ------------ Jupiter
Orange ------------ Sun
Red ---------------- Mars

I would give a pale yellow or off-white colour to Moon and hence place him between Jupiter and Mercury. To make the picture more complete, let us add the invisible radiation also to accommodate both Rahu and Ketu:

Ultraviolet ------- Rahu
Violet/Indigo ---- Saturn
Blue --------------- Venus
Green ------------- Mercury
Off-white --------- Moon
Yellow ------------ Jupiter
Orange ------------ Sun
Red ---------------- Mars
Infra-Red --------- Ketu

Have you started seeing a pattern now? If not, look at the following groups that make it easier:


Ultraviolet ------- Rahu
Violet/Indigo ---- Saturn
Blue --------------- Venus
Green ------------- Mercury

Off-White -------- Moon
Yellow ------------ Jupiter
Orange ------------ Sun
Red ---------------- Mars
Infra-Red --------- Ketu

Notice that the planets in the top group are friends to each other and the planets in the bottom group are friends to each other as assumed in Astrology! Not only this, we can also see another set of classification, keeping the planets in the same VIBGYOR sequence:


Ultraviolet ------- Rahu
Violet/Indigo ---- Saturn

Blue --------------- Venus
Green ------------- Mercury
Off-White -------- Moon
Yellow ------------ Jupiter

Orange ------------ Sun
Red ---------------- Mars
Infra-Red --------- Ketu

The top and bottom group consists of natural malefics and the middle group consists of natural benefics!

That is not all, there appears to be another set of classification even while keeping the same VIBGYOR sequence:

Ultraviolet ------- Rahu
Violet/Indigo ---- Saturn

Blue --------------- Venus
Green ------------- Mercury

Off-White -------- Moon
Yellow ------------ Jupiter
Orange ------------ Sun

Red ---------------- Mars
Infra-Red --------- Ketu


We have four groups of planets here, the top and bottom being Tamasik, second being Rajasik and the third being Satvik.

It is clear that such a planet classification has some meaning on the physical plane also. Let us see more closely what the arrangement of VIBGYOR represent. It would not be wrong to assume that the radiation of each of the planet is very similar in wavelengths of the colours they represent in Astrolgy. Look at the following picture [1]:

We can draw the following conclusions based the spectrum diagram and the colour that each planet represents:

1. The electromagnetic radiation of all physical planets in the solar system is mostly in the visible spectrum range (between 400 to 700 nanometers - nm)

2. Rahu (ultraviolet, 10 to 400 nm) and Ketu (infrared, between 700 nm to 1mm) radiations are beyond the visible range.

3. Within the range between Rahu and Ketu, planets emitting in higher wavelengths (above 540 nm) seem to be friendly to each other and planets emitting in lower wavelengths (below 540 nm) seem to be friendly to each other.

4. Planets emitting radiation in higher wavelengths and lower wavelengths seem to be not in harmony with each other.

5. The radiation that is considered as benefic to us is small range of wavelengths between 440 to 580 nm.

6. In general, the radiation wavelengths of Tamasik planets will be either lower than 440 nm or higher than 620 nm.

7. In general, the radiation wavelengths of Rajasik planets would be in the range of 440 to 540 nm.

8. In general, the radiation wavelengths of Satvik planets would be between 540 to 620 nm.

It is now evident that the wavelength of the radiation of a planet determines its basic characteristic and the nature of influence on us. Probably, we could generalize saying that any radition from any object in the specified range (as discussed above) would have similar effect on us.

References:

[1] http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/Wavelengths_for_Colors.html

© Krishnamurthy Seetharama