Astrological Days,Signs, Planets and Horoscopes

Days, Signs, Planets This book is being written without dealing with the mathematical part. If you read it step by step and then see your own and others horoscope, you will be able to understand, technically, the astrological discussion. You will also get familiar with the terminology of Hindu astrology. Days of the Week 1. To do that remember the first lesson in three parts: start counting the weekdays Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. These seven days represent seven planets Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn. 2. In Hindu astrology we make use of two other planets, called the shadowy planets, called Rahu and Ketu. This gives you a total of nine planets. It is why we have the famous navagraha stotra or worship of nine planets.

Note : In Hindu astrology we do not use, Uranus (Herschel), Pluto and Neptune. In the scheme of stotra
these planets have no place, though an American has given mantras for these three planets also in his book which is not given in any book of Hindu astrology we have or know of.

Note : Now, also remember the sacred number 108 which are the number of beads we have in the garland,
of tulasi or rudraksha with which we do our japam. 3. The part of the first lesson is: there are 27 Nakshatras or Asterisms or Lunar mansions that we make use of in Hindu astrology. It is a very remarkable, brilliant and subtle division which is being explained later. Each nakshatra has four equal parts. Again you will see that twenty-seven multiplied by four gives you one hundred and eight number (108) which are the number of beads we have in the garland, of tulasi or rudraksha with which we do our japam. Now see all this in the table given here:

Name of Day 1. Ravivar or Sunday 2. Somavar or Monday 3. Mangalvar orTuesday 4. Budhavar or Wednesday 5. Brihaspativar or Thursday 6. Shukravar or Friday 7. Shanivar or Saturday

Ruler of the Day 1. Ravi, Surya, Bhanu or Sun 2. Chandra, Indu or Moon or Luna 3. Mangal, Kuja or Mars 4. Budha or Mercury 5. Guru, Brihaspati or Jupiter 6. Shukra, Bhargava or Venus 7. Saturn, Shani, or Manda

Note : No days are allotted for Rahu or Ketu. South Indian astrologers allot a specified time on each of
the days for Rahu and call it Rahukalam during which time they avoid all auspicious work.

Note : Rahu and Ketu cannot be seen through any telescope like other planets. Yet, how effective and
accurate is their use in Hindu astrology clearly proves that the ancient rishis combined their knowledge of physical sciences with metapysical knowledge which we call Yogic.

In Astrology Lesson 2 we will learn about Nakshatras and do some astrological exercises to deepen our understanding of the concepts we have learnt.
Nakshatras
Now you must know something about the twenty-seven nakshatras. Each nakshatra takes 13 degrees and 20 minutes uniformly. If 13'20 is multiplied by 27 it gives you 360 which is the total equal to the twelve houses referred to earlier. There are two methods of tabulating these Nakshatras. One method shows the degrees of Nakshatras from 0 to360 and the other shows the degrees occupied by each Nakshatra in each sign.