Hindu astrology

Jyotisha or Jyotishya (from Sanskrit jyotiṣa, from jyót “light, heavenly body" and ish - from Isvara or God) is the traditional Hindu system of astrology, also known as Hindu astrology, Indian astrology and more recently Vedic astrology. It is one of the six auxiliary disciplines in Hinduism, that is connected with the study of the Vedas. The term Hindu astrology has been in use as the English equivalent of Jyotiṣa since the early 19th century, whereas Vedic astrology is a relatively recent term, entering common usage in the 1970s with self-help publications on Āyurveda or yoga.

Quotes

• There was no horoscopy yet in the Vedic age. There did exist a certain astrology, not based on the 12 Zodiac signs (rāśi) but on the 27 or 28 moon houses (nakṣatra), with beneficial and harmful configurations determining auspicious and inauspicious times for conducting a ritual or starting an enterprise. It would nowadays be called mundane and electional astrology; an important relic still observed today are the auspicious times for weddings. But that is something else than the individual birth horoscopes with which Hindu astrologers make a living.
• It is clear as day that horoscopy was imported, yet traditionalists graft it onto the Vedic stem.
  • Divinizing the Veda : the Problem of Traditionalism . Dr. Koenraad ELST in Prof. Bhaskarnath Bhattacharya, ed.: Vedavidyāśrīḥ / Gems of Vedic Wisdom. Prof. Shashi Tiwari Felicitation Volume (Pratibha Prakashan, Delhi 2021), p.170-186: