ASTROLOGY

Girish Mishra

(Excerpts from 'Atheist' dated April, 2002)

All kinds of people have been going to astrologers, tantriks, babas, and devis and ammas for guidance and help in order to promote their careers and tide over existing or impending difficulties, calamities and misfortunes. And on the basis of their mentors' advice, they have been spending money and time on performing varieties of sacrfices and yagnas with all seriousness and full devotion. Most of them are fairly rich and educated. (The other day The Hindu carried a colour picture of the Minister for Informatifon and Broadcasting offering sugar equal to her weight to some deity, obviously to advance herself on the ladder of power.)

Why have they been doing so? There are a variety of reasons. One of them is ignorance and incapability of understanding certain natural phenomena. This has been a major factor, prompting the belief in certain supernatural entities and fashioning out explanations accordingly. Take, for example, the outbreak of bubonic plague in the fourteenth century in France. When the monarch Philip VI asked his chief physician to look into the causes of its outbreak, he came out very promptly with his explanation: the conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars at 1 p.m. on March 20, 1345 had sent the epidemic to devastate France and the neighbouring countries! One does not know much about the steps taken by the mighty king to prevent such a conjunction happening in the future.

The Atharva Veda is replete with various charms to cure diseases and possession by demons, imprecations against demons, sorcerers, and enemies, and charms to secure prosperity with house, field, cattle, business, gambling, and kindred matters.

According to this fourth Veda, one can resort to charm for finding his lost property, for keeping evil dreams away, for endowing a horse with swiftness, for diverting the main course of a river to escape flood devastation, for success in gambling, for propitiating the weather god, for confusing the enemy, for restoration of an exiled king to his throne and so on.

. . . ignorance of real causes of diseases and other phenomena led the primitive man to invent some explanation or the other of his own and fashion the remedies . . .

More importantly, elaborate mantras are given to secure a husband of one's desire, to get a suitable wife, to ensure conception so that only a son could be born, to prevent miscarriage, to remove evil characteristics from a woman's body and so on.

Occult science could be practised against enemies. For example, an incantation was prescribed to make any woman sterile or to destroy a rival. All kinds of worms, poisons and even unwanted growth of hair could be got rid of by chanting mantras prescribed by the Atharva Veda. One wonders as to why the Sangh Parivar should go in for the atom bomb when other economical ways to destroy the enemies are available!

Anyway, the point which needs to be stressed is that ignorance of real causes of diseases and other phenomena led the primitive man to invent some explanation or the other of his own and fashion the remedies or the ways of escape accordingly.

Yet politicians, who are unsure of their prospects at coming elections or the reshuffle of the Ministry have to get the gods to take care of their interests. The intermediaries from astrologers and tantriks to Vaishno Devi and Bajrangbali Hanumanji are sought to be appeased to intercede on their behalf!

Corrupt politicians, bribe-taking bureaucrats, dishonest shopkeepers, unscrupulous industrialists and traders, tax evaders, thieves, pickpockets, robbers and professional murderers are great devotees of the babas and mahatmas. And these are the people who are in a great need of the services of astrologers. One seldom finds a landless agricultural worker or an urban hawker queuing up for their services nor do the self-appointed hi-fi intermediaries of gods care for poor clients.

These days students have been turning in large numbers to them not only at the time of examinations and the publication of results, but also to enhance their chances of getting jobs in view of the declining vacancies in both the public and private organised sectors owing to economic reforms.

Most people are unable to understand why corrupt persons prosper while many honest ones suffer and even starve. It baffles one's understanding why racketeers and the less qualified and less competent people supersede more brainy ones. This may be observed in almost every walk of life, be it the academic world, business sector, journalism, scientific activities or politics. Since they cannot find any rational explanation, they assume the role of fate or some supernatural factor to be crucial. They themselves begin seeking the advice of tantriks and astrologers Consequently, they lose self-confidence and get dehumanised.

It is a matter of common knowledge that astrologers and the babas and the mahatmas operate generally near hospitals and law courts where they can easily find their prey. It is the claim to bring about miracles that sustains the faith of the gullible in the practitioners of astrology and the activities allied with it. On close examination, this claim turns out to be utterly bogus. A miracle means reversing or violating the laws of nature.