What is so SPECIAL about those two...?

[Rohiniranjan]

Particularly in western tropical astrology, the sun and moon are separated from the rest of the planetary herd and the invisible row of invisible *planets*. They are called Lights and indeed they are unique in one special manner!

I am not thinking of the obvious and visible thing about them, that they are the brightest visible entities, although one wonders if the amavasya moon should not be called LIGHT during that "period", every month?

Regardless, even when close to amavasya (new moon) the sliver of moon visible very close to sunrise and sunset, is way brighter and lit than the brightest planet and that would be venus, any day or rather evening!

We jyotishis (Vedic astrologers as some call us...!) also give importance to sun and moon in our ponderings and pronouncements.

Sun and moon have been called the King and Queen, but Royalty is kind of simply ceremonial these days and a fond or not-so-fond reminiscence of the past eras, depending on who you speak to!

Change is REAL and change is always GOOD!

Back to Jyotish-101, what is the big deal in practical terms about sun and moon and why must we make such a big deal or hold these in special esteem? (I am being the devil's advocate! Please don't aim your cyber-bazookas at me, folks (those who are still awake and/or alive...! <LOL>)

Indicator of SELF, some say? So what does sunsign really tell us? We have lagna, lagnesh, dispositors thereof, we have chara atmakaraka, we have lagna nakshatra, nakshatresh, and a few others. How many more do we greedy astrologers really need?

No moon, no nakshatra dasa, but the Wise Sages gave us the rashi dasas, which like a motorcycle left unused for a few decades, does cause problems to start at first, but soon with a little servicing, runs smooth as a hot spoon entering a cup full of frozen ice cream or a hot knife through frozen butter, if you hate sugar and sugary desserts?

Okay I am not trying to be funny and entertaining here! WHAT IS THE HUGE DEAL ABOUT THOSE TWO?

What is unique about sun and moon and what essentially do they represent without which the chain of shops (using that marketing analogy) would simply close down and die!

Read between the lines but strictly in the jyotish framework of mind! Don't drift into non-astrological POP-CORN!!

Regards,

Rohiniranjan

[Rohiniranjan]

Tomorrow is June the 6th, the day when D-Day is celebrated each year (The anniversary of the Battle of Normandy, 11 months after which Germany (Hitler's) surrendered and WWII whittled down to a murmer and then stopped and a New Era began of which most later-day Baby Boomers like me were beneficiaries of!) (No connection with the quiz but just a historical correlate!! And remember what CRS ji stated in his sub-sermon! Correlation and causation must not be confused to be one!

I am thankful to all experienced folks who might be twitching in their seats to answer but held back at my request! Tomorrow I shall answer the riddle posed in the first message of this thread as to why Sun should be designated as Father and Moon as Mother (or King and Queen, if you are into the Royalty Framework!) and associated matters raised therein. &nbsp;I did not receive any responses from the less experienced either due to their apathy, or they figured out the answer but refrained from responding due to hesitancy or shyness. Only one beginner has heard the answer from me but probably is not a member here. If a member, the individual is requested to not respond since that would be cheating and might cost like 20 samosas at the very least

Love and Light,

Rohiniranjan

[Rohiniranjan]

Let us see, now:


The 19th shloK of BPHS of chapter III of BPHS tells us about the gender of planets, "O Brahmin, Mercury and Saturn, these two are neuters, the moon and venus are females and the remaining three, Sun, mars and jupiter are males", thus translated by G.C. Sharma.


But then we know that there are males who are more like females and females that are more like males. I am not talking about trans-genders who have a dreadful life, in general, but the functional gender. Now this itself can lead to heated debates as to what is male and what is female. Modern society has tried unisex, then genderless/gender-free society and all those experiments but probably led to more grief and gender confusion than relief! What I mean is just look at parents. There are fathers who are gentler than mothers, more caring and nurturing, attributes typically seen in females, whereas there are mothers who are more masculine, less emotional, hard hearted and so on. In less extreme examples we find a healthy mix of both gender attributes. Astrology can and does give some hints towards that, but now I am drifting a bit!


The primary function of planets is that they rule signs. The signs have genders too, simply stated the odd (1,3,5,7 etc) signs are males, the even are females. Now there are differences of opinions (Welcome to Jyotish! HAHA!!) and between the different astrological traditions insofar as attribution of gender is concerned, but here let us stick with our magnum opus.


Male, female or neuter, the planets rule one male and one female signs. The moolatrikonas have gender specificity (which sign they fall in) but it is not consistent. Venus a female planet has its mool-trikona in a male sign, for instance.


The lights, sun and moon are very different from the other 5, the tara-grahas as they were called probably because visibly, they appear like the taras or stars, with one slight difference. On a clear night, the planets of concern to jyotishis do not twinkle, whereas all stars do. This is something we were told and remember from Grade V if not earlier! The lights are disks and visible, Even the moments before amavasya, say the trayodashi (13th tithi) or ekadashi, the moon is more visible than planets around sunrise/sunset when sun is not visible.


The lights have another peculiarity. Despite their obvious importance in jyotish and being labelled as King and Queen, they have been assigned only one sign each, to rule! Sun rules the male sign leo with its Head office (mooltrikona) and exaltation sign in the masculine aries. Moon the Queen and Mother, rules the feminine cancer sign and finds its head office and exaltation in the feminine taurus.


Father is the male role model a child has generally, unless posthumous and Mother is the female role model in nearly all cases.


Astrology is firstly about beginnings and next only about how those beginnings then evolve, change and the life-plans of the nativities get executed.


There may be other views, genuine or voiced just for the sake of *whatever*, but then that is the pattern everywhere in life, isn't there?


Love and LIGHTs,


Rohiniranjan

[Astroenthusiast]

Only one beginner has heard the answer from me but probably is not a member here. If a member, the individual is requested to not respond since that would be cheating and might cost like 20 samosas at the very least

If my Mars had been more aggressive, I would have called you out. &nbsp;But since my mercury is more green than blue, I can see the futility in challenging you to a duel.

[Rohiniranjan]

Only one beginner has heard the answer from me but probably is not a member here. If a member, the individual is requested to not respond since that would be cheating and might cost like 20 samosas at the very least

If my Mars had been more aggressive, I would have called you out.  But since my mercury is more green than blue, I can see the futility in challenging you to a duel.

Martians only fight when absolutely necessary! The complementary colour for Red is Green, and the latter has been attributed to mercury for a reason, a GOOD reason! Because it is right in the middle of vibGyor, the colour spectrum of the planetary spectrum! Welcome aboard!!

[Astroenthusiast]

Martians only fight when absolutely necessary! The complementary colour for Red is Green, and the latter has been attributed to mercury for a reason, a GOOD reason! Because it is right in the middle of vibGyor, the colour spectrum of the planetary spectrum! Welcome aboard!!

Thank you, Sir, for a very, very, very quizzical greeting!

[Rohiniranjan]

Martians only fight when absolutely necessary! The complementary colour for Red is Green, and the latter has been attributed to mercury for a reason, a GOOD reason! Because it is right in the middle of vibGyor, the colour spectrum of the planetary spectrum! Welcome aboard!!

Thank you, Sir, for a very, very, very quizzical greeting!

Why quizzical? It is simple really! We tend to think of the 7 colours as a spectrum or a rainbow, but isn't that an optical illusion? The rainbow is really a circle created by refraction of sun's light, but only upper half visible above the horizon, although the remaining half of the circle remains intact below the horizon, kind of like the zodiac of which we only see the right half (in the horoscope, above horizon, with the 10th house representing the noon house! The extrovert half, the active half, etc etc).

Mercury is neutral (neuter according to astrology) and so too is Saturn in the scale or spectrum of gender-assignments followed in jyotish. However, bringing Saturn to the middle of the spectrum (there are many ways to examine the 7 visibles (sa-pindas)) has some problems, chromatically-speaking...

[Astroenthusiast]

When you say green being the colour of Mercury is in centre of VIBGYOR because Mercury is a neuter, I am moved to form an impression that rest of the 6 colours represent other planets. While Saturn's blue, Sun's orange, Mars's Red, Jupiter's yellow and by stretching my imagination too much, I can say that Moon and venus represent the white colour from which these seven colour are dispersed (Why and how can only Moon and Venus be given a colour from which all others emanate?)  . I can't place the  Violet and Indigo (can still go to Saturn, but I don't see the point in giving Saturn three colours if we includeblack too) in planetary cabinet.

[Rohiniranjan]

When you say green being the colour of Mercury is in centre of VIBGYOR because Mercury is a neuter, I am moved to form an impression that rest of the 6 colours represent other planets. While Saturn's blue, Sun's orange, Mars's Red, Jupiter's yellow and by stretching my imagination too much, I can say that Moon and venus represent the white colour from which these seven colour are dispersed (Why and how can only Moon and Venus be given a colour from which all others emanate?)  . I can't place the  Violet and Indigo (can still go to Saturn, but I don't see the point in giving Saturn three colours if we includeblack too) in planetary cabinet.

I am a conservative old guy, and us folks generally tend to be devoid of imagination (dying neurons and so on so forth!) &nbsp;:smt010

R for mars, O for sun, Y for Jupiter, G for mercury, B for venus, I for Moon, V for Saturn!

This is not necessarily a jyotish colour-scheme, although some of these do come close to what was recommended in J scriptures. Why Indigo for moon? A seeming to be departure, but perhaps not really.

In color-symbolism, Indigo color represents the third eye: Indigo is believed to be a cooling color that develops psychic perception and intuition. It is applied in health treatments for eyes, ears, nose, and mental problems. It is also used in attempts to treat addiction. Indigo is also ascribed to have sedative and calming effects. &nbsp;

Sounds pretty acceptable to be in resonance with moon in astrology!

However, your system works too. When using any symbolism, logic sometimes gets in the way of the modern minds and then our faculty of reasoning (left brain attribute) plays havoc and confusion etc. Since astrology is a language, after all, rife with symbolism, there remains a certain flexibility and in concrete terms the flexibility is seen even daily when we look at the troubling (to many) *qualifiers*. Everything (pretty much!) in astrology has a tag attached to it (xyz, when considering the other factors and in a qualified manner!).

Hence we see seeming paradoxes such as:

Malefic and avaricious insecure Jupiter
Saturn blessings
Cold (emotionally) moon
Compassionate and peaceful and stolid mars
Poisonous venus
Irresponsible sun
Dumb (both connotations of the term) mercury

There are very few truly pure colours in the Human Experience (the greys depicted on the bitonal black and white scale and its colorized versions of the palette), and so what else can astrology, the faithful depicter of LIFE be like?

Love and Light and Reality,

Rohiniranjan

[Votive]

When you say green being the colour of Mercury is in centre of VIBGYOR because Mercury is a neuter, I am moved to form an impression that rest of the 6 colours represent other planets. While Saturn's blue, Sun's orange, Mars's Red, Jupiter's yellow and by stretching my imagination too much, I can say that Moon and venus represent the white colour from which these seven colour are dispersed (Why and how can only Moon and Venus be given a colour from which all others emanate?)  . I can't place the  Violet and Indigo (can still go to Saturn, but I don't see the point in giving Saturn three colours if we includeblack too) in planetary cabinet.

I am a conservative old guy, and us folks generally tend to be devoid of imagination (dying neurons and so on so forth!)  :smt010

R for mars, O for sun, Y for Jupiter, G for mercury, B for venus, I for Moon, V for Saturn!

This is not necessarily a jyotish colour-scheme, although some of these do come close to what was recommended in J scriptures. Why Indigo for moon? A seeming to be departure, but perhaps not really.

In color-symbolism, Indigo color represents the third eye: Indigo is believed to be a cooling color that develops psychic perception and intuition. It is applied in health treatments for eyes, ears, nose, and mental problems. It is also used in attempts to treat addiction. Indigo is also ascribed to have sedative and calming effects.  

Sounds pretty acceptable to be in resonance with moon in astrology!

However, your system works too. When using any symbolism, logic sometimes gets in the way of the modern minds and then our faculty of reasoning (left brain attribute) plays havoc and confusion etc. Since astrology is a language, after all, rife with symbolism, there remains a certain flexibility and in concrete terms the flexibility is seen even daily when we look at the troubling (to many) *qualifiers*. Everything (pretty much!) in astrology has a tag attached to it (xyz, when considering the other factors and in a qualified manner!).

Hence we see seeming paradoxes such as:

Malefic and avaricious insecure Jupiter
Saturn blessings
Cold (emotionally) moon
Compassionate and peaceful and stolid mars
Poisonous venus
Irresponsible sun
Dumb (both connotations of the term) mercury

There are very few truly pure colours in the Human Experience (the greys depicted on the bitonal black and white scale and its colorized versions of the palette), and so what else can astrology, the faithful depicter of LIFE be like?

Love and Light and Reality,

Rohiniranjan

A visualisation may go:

As the new day dawns, the first rays Goldish(yellowish, if you may call it) in hue is the desire; leading quickly up to the Orange of Passion and then the intensity of Lust in Red ( The High noon). Waning quickly, for what moves fast and intense has to slide quicker too, we reach the neutral green , sliding down to the affection ( Blue), the care (Indigo) and the deepest &nbsp;of the but the most enduring Violet of the Duty.

As One rises up again from Duty, Care, Affection to the new Gold of Patience, the Orange of perseverence and the Red of purity...

votive

[Rohiniranjan]

...

A visualisation may go:

As the new day dawns, the first rays Goldish(yellowish, if you may call it) in hue is the desire; leading quickly up to the Orange of Passion and then the intensity of Lust in Red ( The High noon). Waning quickly, for what moves fast and intense has to slide quicker too, we reach the neutral green , sliding down to the affection ( Blue), the care (Indigo) and the deepest  of the but the most enduring Violet of the Duty.

As One rises up again from Duty, Care, Affection to the new Gold of Patience, the Orange of perseverence and the Red of purity...

votive

Beautiful, isn't it? The khela of colours, disturbed NAY destroyed by the pollution and dust that has systematically eliminated the colours which in our (boomer) childhood were ours just for simply looking around and up; we did not even have to ask Her, She always had Bounty to bestow on her children, who gradually have replaced clarity with clouds of dust and colours got muted, only verbal symbolisms remain, in most places, and pretty much each and every city and industrial town. Some missed those and cried from the sincerest depth of their hearts, and MA blessed again and Her modern blessing today is known worldwide as ***PHOTOSHOP***!

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/141230138286512652/

A random colourful find on internet! Please note how difficult it is to capture indigo, the colour attributed to Moon the MA! MArvellous!!

and more and more and more...

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Nat ... &FORM=IGRE

[Astroenthusiast]

I am a conservative old guy, and us folks generally tend to be devoid of imagination (dying neurons and so on so forth!)

&nbsp;


You aging neurons are like wrinkled genius! I have been at the receiving end of your mental agility a few times now and I am cured of any misbelief that I may have harbored about the working state of your neurons!

R for mars, O for sun, Y for Jupiter, G for mercury, B for venus, I for Moon, V for Saturn!

This is not necessarily a jyotish colour-scheme, although some of these do come close to what was recommended in J scriptures. Why Indigo for moon? A seeming to be departure, but perhaps not really.

Thanks for telling. You are right, I was trying to co-relate spectrum with planets but was failing miserably!

In color-symbolism, Indigo color represents the third eye: Indigo is believed to be a cooling color that develops psychic perception and intuition. It is applied in health treatments for eyes, ears, nose, and mental problems. It is also used in attempts to treat addiction. Indigo is also ascribed to have sedative and calming effects. &nbsp;

Sounds pretty acceptable to be in resonance with moon in astrology!

Is there anything you do not know about?

However, your system works too. When using any symbolism, logic sometimes gets in the way of the modern minds and then our faculty of reasoning (left brain attribute) plays havoc and confusion etc. Since astrology is a language, after all, rife with symbolism, there remains a certain flexibility and in concrete terms the flexibility is seen even daily when we look at the troubling (to many) *qualifiers*. Everything (pretty much!) in astrology has a tag attached to it (xyz, when considering the other factors and in a qualified manner!).

Hence we see seeming paradoxes such as:

Malefic and avaricious insecure Jupiter
Saturn blessings
Cold (emotionally) moon
Compassionate and peaceful and stolid mars
Poisonous venus
Irresponsible sun
Dumb (both connotations of the term) mercury

There are very few truly pure colours in the Human Experience (the greys depicted on the bitonal black and white scale and its colorized versions of the palette), and so what else can astrology, the faithful depicter of LIFE be like?

Love and Light and Reality,

Rohiniranjan

&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;To say Astrology is confusing is an understatement. Its like a maze!

[Rohiniranjan]

More like a-MAZ-ing MAZE!
Thanks for kind words, but we ALL are essentially trying to empty the ocean with our cupped tiny human hands which are no better than a sieve!
Astrology can be an anti-neuronal aging pursuit, although chess and bridge are more fun according to some! As they say, "Whatever works!"