New-Age-Center

Traditional Hindu astrology is based on the sidereal or visible zodiac, accounting for the shift of the equinoxes by a correction called ayanamsa. The difference between the Vedic and the Western zodiacs is currently around 24 degrees. This corresponds to a separation of c. 1700 years, when the vernal equinox was approximately at the center of the constellation Pisces and the tropical zodiac coincided with the sidereal one (around 290 AD, or at 23.86° as of 2000 according to N. C. Lahiri). The separation is believed to have taken place in the centuries following Ptolemy (2nd century AD), apparently going back to Indo-Greek transmission of the system. But earlier Greek astronomers like Eudoxus spoke of vernal equinox at 15° in Aries, while later Greeks spoke of vernal equinox at 8° and then 0° in Aries (cf. p.& 16, S. Jim Tester in ref.), which suggests use of sidereal zodiac in Greece before Ptolemy and Hipparchus.

While the practitioners of Hindu astrology claim to be practicing astrology according to the true constellational placements of the planets, Sun, Moon, etc., this is not strictly true. The zodiacal constellations are not organized into neat packets of stars that cover exactly 30 degrees of the ecliptic. The zodiacal constellations are irregular. Thus, when Linda Johnsen, a respected American Vedic astrologer, says, in her book ''A Thousand Suns'', in essence that what you see is what you get, this is not really true. The ayanamsa does take the heavenly bodies back to a much closer place in the actual constellations, but it is not the whole story. Diana K. Rosenberg has done considerable work and writing on this.


Adapted from the Wikipedia article Sidereal astrology, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki