Indian Astrology and its advent to a computer age.

Indian Astrology, called the Jyotish, is universal and timeless. Jyotisha is one of the most time-tested and oldest systems of astrology in the world. In Western countries, it is called Vedic astrology, which refers to Indian or Hindu astrology.
Indian Astrology originated from Vedic Scriptures, dating back at least ten to twenty thousand years. The Vedas the oldest books of the world library. They are the world’s most ancient scriptures and the most vast, complete system of knowledge known to man. Thus, Indian Astrology is the science of understanding the subtle influences that come to us from the greater universe.
The most popularly followed astrological classics today are the ones written by Rishis like Parashara, Varahamihira, Garga, Jaimini and their followers. People in those days had no satellites or telescopes and yet the planetary positions and their motions recorded by them are as accurate as the planetary positions and degrees recorded today using the space satellites. Our ancient astrologers used their divine intuition to record these planetary movements and their effects on us.

Astrology has undergone several changes with the time. Earlier everything was calculated through hands and even calculators were not there. It was very difficult to calculate. This however created problems with precion as well. For example panchangas were published by several publications and even today each panchanga has different calculation for different planets. This also lead to severeal controveries including the famous controvery related to Ayamansha.

Further there were problems with calulations as well. For instance one needs to have atleast six to seven hours to calculate Shadbala. This requires a lot of skill and only the finest few could be able to calculate the same in that length of time. For an ordinary astrologer it make take days to complete the same.

And this is not all, Indian astrology is full of all such calulations which required high skills and extreme length of time.

With modern times, time became more precious and time for some became equivalent to money. Today people who consult astrologers need everything within minutes.  They do not have time for such lenghty calculations. This thing gave impetus to the world of astrology softwares. Today astrology softwares occupy a big chunck of the market with many western and Indian companies in the race. It has also given sway to the financial astrology softwares which analyze market from several angels. Researches are going on in the field of medical astrology software, financial astrology software and facial metrics analysis through Shareer Lakshan Siddhant.

If you are an astrologer you will already be aware that you require a good length of time to calculate these things. And if you are holding a faulty panchanga you may very well lend up into big troubles of faulty calculations.

This softwares is based on highly precise Swiss panchanga and their calculations are detailed and extensive. You can calculate planetary positions even in milliseconds.

Some of these calculations are literally impossible if they are calculated by hand. For instance following charts depict a complex matrix of aspects in percentage.

This may take day of calculated through hands. While on your laptop or computer it may just be a matter of clicks.

While one can easily make out the benefits of these astrology softwares, there are areas where softwares will fail miserably. This area is the area of predictions. Being a software engineer and astrologer I am very well aware of the limits of astrology softwares.

Despite of hiring the best teams in the world one cannot device a software that will predict future. A human mind is more complex and more affirmative then a super computer. While it may not calculate as fast as a computer it may very well do things which a computer cannot do. For example only an human eye can watch and calculate gender, age and economical and social background of a person. The amount of data required to calculate these areas is three times then the population of the whole world. This limits the predictive analysis of computers. A wise astrologer should never depend on computer for his predictions. One has to learn it and it can only be achieved through experience.

People who approach astrologers for predictions should know that astrologer should use computers only for technical calculations of the horoscope. It should never be employed for predictive analysis.

But this does not undermine the impact of technology in this sacred field of astrology. Today you do not need those heavy panchangas and booklets to calculate a horoscope. You can keep a palm pocket pc or Palm phone in your pocket and can easily calculate horoscope anywhere.

Technology has made these calculations so easy that even a child could do this with a simple click of mouse button or with the help of a touch pad.

With the coming times technology will be so advance that a simple webcam will read your face and detect it and will provide you all calculations without even lifting your fingers. You will just enter a astrologer’s office and you will get a completed horoscope within seconds. Or who knows there will be astrology cafeterias in public places. While you will be sipping you favorite flavors of coffee a behind the scene computer will be printing you horoscopes with max speed.

Alok Jagawat