16
The founders of the American Council of Vedic Astrology can be said to be among the most influential persons responsible for modern "Vedic astrology" in the west. I have copied the offiicers from Dennis Flaherty's PDF on the founding and purpose of the American Council:

The American Council of Vedic Astrology?s Steering Committee
Honorary Chairman, U.S.A.: Chakrapani Ullal
Honorary Chairman, India: B.V. Raman
Honorary Dean of Instruction: K.N. Rao, Delhi, India

President: Dr. David Frawley
Executive Vice President: Dr. Dennis Harness
Secretary: Christina Collins
Treasurer: Dennis Flaherty

Frawley's The Astrology of Seers (Salt Lake City: Passage Press, 1990, prior to the Council) was in part a departure from classical Indian astrology. Many pages are filled with sign descriptions taken from Western astrology. Since time is short (for Martin), I won't go into elaborating on concepts in Frawley's book. This text has been extremely influential for western students. Personally I'm not happy with the approach taken by Frawley.

Bepin Behari, Fundamentals of Vedic Astrology (published by the U.S. Passage Press in 1992) introduced Theosophic principles into India's astrology. Behari has also been influential in the west, but was not part of the American Council. Personally I'm not a fan of Behari. He has written a number of other books.

Dennis Harness, though active on the lecture circuit and in organizing astrological events, has to my knowledge published only one book in 1999: The Nakshatras (basically a handbook)

Dennis Flaherty is active in modern astrological circles as can be noted on the CVA website.

Christina Collins edits an on-line newsletter with articles and interviews with current astrologers active in the "Vedic" astrology scene.

James Braha is an astrologer who wrote one of the first books on India's astrology: Ancient Hindu Astrology for the Modern Western Astrologer (1986). This book helped greatly to introduce India's astrology to the west. Braha stays close to India's classical astrology. He was not a "mover and shaker" involved in the American Council, but I'm sure is certified by the Council. He has a number of later books published after his first book. Braha has recently shifted his emphasis to the practice of Non-Duality, and astrology seems to be in the background in his life.

There are a number of newly published books by astrologers approved and certified by American and/or Indian Vedic astrology organizations. All of these books introduce western principles mixed with classical Indian precepts. Elements and gender polarity meanings have been associated with four sign trigons, and western sign interpretations are rampant. Since there is no time to elaborate on additional western corruptions (as I see them), here is a list of authors and published books I'm familiar with:

Ronnie Gale Dreyer, Indian Astrology (1990); Later revised under a new title. Ronnie is very active in the astrological community and has written a number of other books on both eastern and western astrology. She edits the NCGR Memberletter which publishes both eastern and western astrological articles.

Edith Hathaway: Her latest book, In Search of Destiny was published in 2012. Edith is very active in the astrological community. Flipping through the book sidereal Scorpio is referred to as a "mystical" sign.

William R. Levacy: Beneath a Vedic Sky was published in 1999. Levacy has books published after that time and a beautifully illustrated handbook meant to introduce India's astrology to the general astrological public: Vedic Astrology Simply Put (2006).

There are a few other published books by authors that are not in my library. James Kelleher is one author I'm familiar with. He was active in the formation of the American Vedic Council in 1992.

I tend to see these contemporary western astrologers (and others not listed here) as a group which more or less conforms to the standards and precepts of CVA (Council of Vedic Astrology). In my opinion all of these very active astrologers are now spokesmen for a hybrid eastern-western astrology termed "Vedic." In practice many (perhaps all?) combine the zodiacs in personal practice with clients.
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

17
Raman's daughter, Gayatri Devi Vasudev, wrote the forward to William R. Levacy's Beneath a Vedic Sky, a basic textbook of India's astrology (1999). Her comments describe very well the dilemma in transporting ancient Jyotisha to the west. She has diplomatically refrained from criticism of an Indian astrology in the process of developing a shifting persona in the West.

"Each country has its own ethos, milieu, and culture; and transporting a subject such as Jyotisha to an environment vastly different from that where it has its roots can lead to a lot of confusion in understanding and assimilating its spirit. William Levacy's contribution to Vedic astrological literature in the West is at this level meant for the American mind and intellect. He brings his experience to bear on his presentation of the subject to the novice in a way that does not bewilder the reader..."
Gayatri Devi Vasudev
Bangalore, India, October 10, 1998
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

19
Martin,

I read one or two of Mohan Koparkar's books in a store and did not bother purchasing them because, and I forget the exact details, but I felt that he departed from what I would call Jyotisha, and it seemed like a mixture of contemporary and traditional Western and I think he even renamed the nakshatras and gave them a different basis. I felt the same way about that as Therese felt when she read Behari's interpretation of Swati. I think Therese should read the 3rd book of that trilogy and see if she still feels the same way about Behari. However, I do agree with the general sentiments Therese has expressed in this thread.

I have not been involved in the astrology community, and so I do not know who won what awards or who was considered the most influential, but I have read a number of texts by various Western Jyotishi's mentioned in this thread and for the most part the texts coming out of the Western Jyotish community are sort of like Linda Goodman (Western contemporary Jyotish authors) vs Ptolemy or Valens (classical Jyotisha texts). I regret to say this, but after being introduced to jyotish through Behari, I went to the classical texts and later on when I read the texts from Westerners it was like going back to kindergarten, over and over again, either that or they wrote stories about their spiritual journey in a book about astrology - but in both cases one would want to stick to the ancient and classical texts if one was interested in learning Jyotisha to an optimal level, and not that I have a problem with stories about spiritual paths. It seems like almost everyone writes a kindergarten astrology book or two, as an introduction to Jyotish, and that is as far as it goes. I do not know what their classes are like because I only studied through texts and on my own.

In my subjective opinion, if I were writing who were/are or should be the most influential people in the late-modern Western Jyotisha movement (regardless of who was more popular) other than a few people Mark mentioned, it would include:

Girish Chand Sharma: An Indian translator of traditional Jyotish texts and commentator with extensive knowledge of the subject matter.

Sanjay Rath: An Indian who stayed true to the traditional Jyotish schools and he translated or authored some texts.

P.V.R. Narasimha Rao: An Indian who created the Jagannatha Hora computer program and wrote at least some ebooks with various aspects of Jyotish in a Sanatana Dharma context.

I recall you wrote that Frawley is a "California Vedic" astrologer because he recommended sunbathing as a remedy for problems with the Sun in the astrology chart. The reason I was amused is because I suspect Frawley was thinking about certain ancient [deleted] techniques involving the Sun, but it was simplified down to sunbathing and it cannot be better summarized than "California Vedic" but I believe he actually had a legitimate basis for why he said or wrote that but then ended up diluting it so it became almost unrecognizable. I think Frawley has an extensive knowledge of Sanatana Dharma (although I do disagree with him on certain things), but his astrology books are introductory texts (although I did learn some important for me, astrology from him) and I believe astrology was not a primary focus for him based on what I have read from him and of him. I believe he, like many Westerners, was seeking for something in India, and astrology became a side path along that path.

If I have the liberty to make a social commentary on this matter to better explain the reasons I wrote the above information, and at the risk of censorship - which has happened to me on this forum already - I will tell you what I think happened and why I prefer the classical Jyotish texts to the contemporary introductory texts which are also oftentimes infused with stories about the Western Jyotishis and their path involving astrology peripherally, but primarily seeking the Truth (and likely subconsciously seeking their own roots).

The European peoples in the West found themselves in an age and a society in which the aristocracy and kshatriya caste had been utterly destroyed from people within those countries in order to replace them with vaishyas (corporations) and usurers (banks) and slogans of freedom and democracy, and this was sort of ongoing from the 18th century through 1848. Previously, the European peoples had experienced cultural genocide (which is worse than physical genocide) and the establishment of Judeo-Christianity to replace their true authentic roots to their Mother Earth and Sun and Moon, and the artificial surrogate replacement roots could never nourish them, nor were they intended to, since it was only about power-lust and control.

This resulted in the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Julius Evola and Ezra Pound and H.L. Mencken and various others, as well as the last heroic struggle for survival of the European peoples on continental Europe in the 1930s, but the Europeans received a death-blow and most of them did not even realize it, at least consciously.

The intellectual and spiritual poverty and degeneracy and the lack of healthy roots resulted in a botched and bungled and suicidal society, due to the ongoing cultural and ethnic genocide aimed at the European peoples, and whether this was a cause or an effect is irrelevant, since the one thing we know is that the European peoples entered (or perhaps were guided) into nihilism. This explains the rise of Buddhism in the West, since Western Buddhism is nihilist at its core.

Remember when we visited with Ken Bowser, and he made some comments about the ridiculousness of the Lahiri ayanamsha being considered more spiritual? I do not believe you or I thought this way, however, I believe most, if not all, of the Western Jyotishis value the religion and philosophy of India more than astrology. The reason they value it more than astrology is because their subconscious mind or instinct or higher powers told them that India managed to keep the anicent Indo-European roots with strong connections to them, (i.e. their own roots) intact, far longer, against the continual onslaught of kaliyuga and the Avrahamic doctrine (cultural genocide) and then later the communism/egalitarianism/post-modernism/nihilism/existentialism/deconstructionism/suicide values (ethnic genocide). We live in an age of decay.

This is why (in my opinion) the Western Jyotish community mainly only writes introductory texts and astrology books containing stories about their path of discovery of the spirituality of India (i.e. the rediscovery of their own healthy sustainable roots). Some of them may reject what I wrote here about them, but they should know I am not insulting them.

Anyhow...
Last edited by varuna2 on Wed Jul 17, 2013 4:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

20
Hello Martin,

I personally think there are possibly three research topics under discussion here.

Firstly, what might be called ?Pioneers in the dissemination of Indian astrology in the west? which could be dated back to the 19th century and would focus a lot on events prior to WWII. Post war we have a figure like Robert De Luce who seems a bridge between the earlier period and the Vedic Astrology movement that later developed in the USA.

Secondly 'The Vedic Astrology' movement seems a much more modern development stemming from the 1990?s with roots going back to the late 1960?s and the hippy era with the influence of Indian spiritual ideas on that generation.

Thirdly, we have the major translators and Jyotish teachers in India itself who disseminated ideas to the west. A separate but equally interesting topic would be the influence of western astrological ideas on Indian astrology itself. The traffic was clearly going in both directions throughout the 20th century.

Sounds like you might need to write more than one article to do all this justice!

On the influence of Theosophy in terms of introducing awareness of Indian astrology I think one very clear example is the focus on the precession of the equinoxes. This seems to have first emerged in the late 19th/early 20th century. If you think about it the whole topic only really makes sense from a sidereal perspective. The tropical equinoxes go nowhere in the tropical zodiac since they are fixed by the seasons. This interest in a sidereal backdrop to the equinoxes seems to have been motivated by a greater awareness of the existence of a different zodiac used by Indian astrology by the Theosophists.

Anyway, in terms of historical information I think the link James gave above is very interesting. I hadn?t realised the Leo?s had such direct links with Indian astrologers/scholars on Jyotish. Firstly, N. Chindambaram Iyer by facilitating his translations of on the Brihat Jakata, Brihat Samhita, and Jinendramala. I had thought his work was only published in India to date. They also mention contact with an Indian astrologer called J.J. Chitnis who Bessie Leo states ? came in touch with us and later contributed a Hindu horoscope to our pages by the Jinendramala method.?

Bessie Leo also mentions Sepharial travelling to India. That no doubt help explains why Sepharial devotes a large chapter in his book ?New Manual of Astrology? (1898) to what he calls ?Hindu Astrology.?

Going further back I have dug up a link to a work by Zadkiel (Richard James Morrison, 1795-1874) from 1842 which includes an article on ?Hindu astrology?. http://catalogue.library.manchester.ac.uk/items/1065208

Access to translations of Jyotish texts was clearly important in disseminating Indian astrological ideas. For example, the British astrologer E.H. Bailey in a 1928 issue of 'The British Journal of Astrology' writes about how his proposed equal house system with centralised cusps is similar to the principles set out in the Sripatipaddhati.

I have only found a few random references but I am sure there was a lot more going on than I am aware of. The view of an authority on British astrology in this period like Kim Farnell would be useful.

Anyway, in the thread on Indian house systems I recently created Therese has mentioned the important figure of V. Subrahmanya Sastri who was both a scholar and Jyotish teacher. Sastri seems to have been the astrological teacher of Robert De Luce.

Incidentally, is the Jyotish scholar P.S. Sastri related to V. Subrahmanya Sastri?

Mark
Last edited by Mark on Sat Jul 13, 2013 10:53 am, edited 9 times in total.
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

21
Varuna 2 wrote:
I have not been involved in the astrology community, and so I do not know who won what awards or who was considered the most influential, but I have read a number of texts by various Western Jyotishi's mentioned in this thread and for the most part the texts coming out of the Western Jyotish community are sort of like Linda Goodman (Western contemporary Jyotish authors) vs Ptolemy or Valens (classical Jyotisha texts). I regret to say this, but after being introduced to jyotish through Behari, I went to the classical texts and later on when I read the texts from Westerners it was like going back to kindergarten, over and over again, either that or they wrote stories about their spiritual journey in a book about astrology - but in both cases one would want to stick to the ancient and classical texts if one was interested in learning Jyotisha to an optimal level, and not that I have a problem with stories about spiritual paths. It seems like almost everyone writes a kindergarten astrology book or two, as an introduction to Jyotish, and that is as far as it goes. I do not know what their classes are like because I only studied through texts and on my own.
I have no objection to your sentiment i.e. traditional texts over popularised introductions. Its certainly where we should probably be going after reading some more basic introductions. Still, I think you are exceptionally harsh in lumping all the western Vedic community together like this. Bear in mind too that you are describing introductions to the topic for a western readership that are completely new to the topic. The situation is quite different in India.

Moreover, we all need to start somewhere. As we are on the topic I started my own astrology interest with Linda Goodman's books myself. I may have left that approach a long way behind but it sparked an initial interest. There is a place for popular astrology too in our astrological community.

I dont dispute a lot of over-simplification of Jyotish techniques may have been promoted by several of these North American authors in their books. How authentic their approach are is something one could surely only judge by studying in depth with them. Still, you almost seem to be suggesting that there are no decent practitioners of Jyotish in the west at all.

In any case, Martin has made it clear his article is not focusing on the quality of the astrology being offered but rather what has been most influential in the west.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

23
Pankajdubey wrote:
Vivian E.Robson
He gave a detailed account of Hindu horoscope matching in his,

Astrology and Sex
I had forgotten about this. The book was first published in 1941 the year before Robson's death. The relevant section you refer to is Chapter XXI entitled 'The Hindu Method of Comparison'. Its typical of Robson though that the chapter is very succinct at just over 4 pages! Robson also discusses the Nakshatras in his book The Fixed Stars and Constellations (1923)

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

24
Mark wrote:Sounds like you might need to write more than one article to do all this justice!
Indeed! The piece I'm currently writing is dictated by context as well as by limitations of space (and, increasingly, of time!), though. For what it's worth, the article is currently organized under three headings: Translators and educators; The appeal to (and of) n??igranthas; and Cultural transmission and western practitioners.

Thanks very much for the Sepharial reference, which had escaped me. Zadkiel's article would have been even more interesting, as it predates theosophy; but it seems difficult to find as an online resource.
Incidentally, is the Jyotish scholar P.S. Sastri related to V. Subrahmanya Sastri?
Probably not. It is a very common Brahmin name (originally an epithet; it just means 'learned', 'versed in [sacred] texts').
https://astrology.martingansten.com/

25
Does anyone happen to know the years of birth (and, for the first two names, of death) of the following astrologers?

- R. Gopalakrishna Row and N. V. Raghavachary (friends of K. S. Krishnamurti, both published under the pseudonym 'Meena')
- K. Subramaniam and K. Hariharan, sons of K. S. Krishnamurti
- Hart deFouw
- Andrew Foss

Edit: And is deFouw Canadian by birth?
https://astrology.martingansten.com/

26
Martin Gansten wrote:Thank you for these additional comments, Therese. I'm glad I posted my question here; the article will definitely be the better for it.
I am happy I could be of help, Martin. Perhaps it was destiny that the early American Council symposiums were held in San Rafael, California (San Francisco Bay Area), a stone's throw from my doorstep. I spent a fair amount of time observing the interpersonal dynamics among members of the core group.

I remember that K.N. Rao would hold court late into the evening sustained by black coffee and chocolate, quite a treat for his adoring American students! Someone had snapped a photo of my husband and myself with B.V. Raman looking at some new software, Raman holding a copy of the newsletter I published at the time. Raman was always humble and gracious in his demeanor. A prized photo to this day!
http://www.snowcrest.net/sunrise/LostZodiac.htm

27
Remaining with the subject of early British references to Indian astrology I see that Alan Leo's Dictionary of Astrology (1929) has an extensive section on 'Hindu astrology'.

Of course Leo himself died in 1917. The book was actually put together by Vivian Robson using notes left behind by Leo. Robson had been working on his own dictionary of astrology but Bessie Leo persuaded him to drop that project and instead edit a book using Leo's notes. However, I expect that a lot of Robson's insights went into the work too.

Being very scrupulous Robson makes a note as editor in the book that Leo had taken the whole section on 'Hindu Astrology' from an article by Sepharial that had previously appeared in Leo's publication Modern Astrology.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly