Astrology or Jyotish is an integral part of the Vedas.
Though in the Vedas the emphasis is more on Astronomy,
there was hardly any distinction between Astrology
and Astronomy in the Vedic period. Both were studied
to determine the auspicious timings for making offerings
to propitiate the Gods. The Vedas, therefore, made
detailed studies of the stars and the movement of
planets across the sky. Eclipses had to be timed because
they signified evil portents. The obliteration of
the luminaries, however temporary, could not be good
for the mere mortals.
The stories regarding the birth of planets are found
in the Puranas, which are of a later vintage. There
are 18 Puranas. They deal with the story of creation,
the tussle between the Gods and demons, the various
forms and reincarnations of Lord Vishnu and sometimes
even the genealogy of kings on earth. The same story
appears in several Puarnas and predictably, the versions
differ from one another.
In the early stages, Puranas were also an oral tradition.
While elaborate care was taken to preserve the integrity
of the Vedas so that distortions might not creep into
them through repeated retelling, no such precaution
was thought necessary for the Puranas. The Vedas were
sacrosanct. The Puranas were not quite as sacred.
Methods of memorizing the Vedas were very interesting.
Let us assume that we have a sentence in the Vedas
- "God is good". (Actually, Vedas do not dish out
such simple sentences. We have cooked up an example
to illustrate a point). One student would memorize
it as "God is good". That is normal. We all go through
a similar exercise the night before our exams.
But a second one would do it in a strange form:
"Doog si dog" - memorizing it backwards. There
would be a third who would do something even more
strange:
"Go od di is sg go oo od".
This gobbledygook can be easily unscrambled to find
the original message. There were many more ways; all
were simultaneously practiced to ensure that if corruption
took place in one it would be rectified by comparing
it with the others.
In one method two sentences would be mixed up in a
manner not entirely unlike sending scrambled digital
packets across the broad bandwidth.
But enough of that! Let us go back to the story of
the planets as given in some of the Puranas. These
were subsequently changed, modified, expanded until
they became part of a rich folklore of India with
all its sectarian bias and regional garnish.
So the stores we bring to you here originated in the
Puranas but got extensively revised through successive
retelling!
