The clash between rational and disciples of astrology has been continuing for hundreds of years.

The first group believes that astrology is a mere superstition and a nice gambit to deceive people, while the later group has wide regards for it.

After the introduction of internet or other sophisticated technology, the attraction of Indian astrology knows no bounds.

The foundation of Indian astrology or Jyotisha is the idea of bandhu of the Vedas or scriptures, which is the link between the microcosm and the macrocosm.

There is a big difference between the Indian and western astrology. Whereas Western astrology favors the tropical zodiac, the Jyotisha system uses the sidereal zodiac. The difference, due to the precession of the equinoctial points, gets clear over time.

Jyotisha consists of various nuanced sub-systems of interpretation and prediction with elements not found in Hellenistic astrology, such as its system of lunar mansions (nakshatras).

Besides all this, do you consider ‘Astrology’ as a science? It may be but the rational prefer to hurl scathing attacks against this always.

This approach came into light once more when Prof. Dr. Jayant Narlikar, an eminent scientist and internationally acclaimed astro-physicist, attacked over it recently.

He said, “Astrology is not science, but superstition.”

Narlikar was speaking at a seminar “Astrology-a pseudo-sience” in Rourkela last night organised by the Orissa Rationalists Association.

Moreover, he also mentioned various researches that proved the misconceptions of astrology and the pertinent gurus to a great extent.

While speaking on an investigation in the recent past, Dr. Jayant stated, “We took the horoscope of 100 mentally retarded and 100 bright children and jumbled them up. Finally, we tried to find out from the astrologers whether they can spot them rightly in which 50 persons participated. We gave 40 horoscopes to each individual. Surprisingly many did not return their findings to us and of those who did the highest was 22 correct answers and 17 was the average. And it was like the chances one takes with coins where the chances of heads and tails always come.”

“Our future lies in our hands and not on the position of planets,” added Prof. Narlikar.

But, the number of convinced people among viewers is still unknown.