© Penelope Gan – All Rights Reserved - Shiva and Parvati at a Vedic Astrologer’s shack in Manali, Himachal Pradesh, INDIA
“I believe that our lives are deeply interconnected with those around us and our environment. That the world we live in is of our own making”
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or is it?
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Three probable outcomes it appears: Good. Nothing. Doomed.
Three time frames: Past. Present. Future.
And that pretty much sums up the (pseudo)science of astrology for me for the longest of time.
Whilst numerous traditions and applications employing astrological concepts have arisen since its earliest recorded beginning in the 3rd millennium BC, coupled with the fact that it has played an important role in the shaping of culture, early astronomy, the Vedas and various disciplines throughout history, it’s place remains at the edge of superstition and hocus pocus fun and uncanny truth for me. With that in view, I’ve always ‘tempted’ faith and traded on the thin line of desired ‘predictiveness’ and ‘divinatory’ knowledge by visiting tarrot readers, cartomancers, crytallomancers, cheiromancers, and fortune tellers at large.
Having never visited a Vedic astrologer before, I was excited at the prospect of seeing one and I was over the moon when through an interpreter I was granted permission to photograph and document the Vedic astrologer’s ‘art’ …
Indian astrology uses a different zodiac than Western astrology and is a branch of Vedic science. It is widely believed and commonly used by Indians at large with State money being used to fund research into Vedic astrology until recently.
Vedic astrology made centre stage – appearing on numerous major international press – in the first quarter of 2007 when Bollywood bombshell Aishwarya Rai was sued by some human rights activist groups for allegedly ‘marrying’ a tree – thus, bringing to light the belief of Mangal Dosha, or ‘manglik’(1) as it is more popularly know.
A person who is born a ‘manglik’ is believed to have devastating effects on marriage; causing discomfort and tension in relationship, leading to separation and divorce, and in some cases, it is believed to have cause untimely death of one spouse!
It is further believed that the negative consequences will be resolve if two ‘manglik’ marries as they ‘cancel’ each other out, but for a single-‘manglik’ marriage, the negative effect can be resolved if the ‘manglik’ first performs a ceremony called kumbh vivah, which involves the ‘marriage’ to a banana or peepal tree, or a silver or golden idol (Murti) of the Hindu God Vishnu.
Although increasing number of individuals are placing less emphasis on consulting the astrological charts during the selection of life partners and Indian pop-culture have downplayed the supposedly negative effects of marrying ‘manglik’ by popularising such unions in movies such as Biwi-O-Biwi (1981) and more recently Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006), one can’t help wondering if Abhishek Bachchan’s character Sunny who marries Simran (Dia Mirza) – a ‘manglik’- against the astrologer’s recommendation, is indeed art imitating life, or a precursor to his fans on his impending marriage to Aishwarya Rai in April 2007 … and if indeed Aishwarya Rai is a ‘manglik’.
As for the perfect union between Shiva and Parvati, one that has seen many manifestations, reincarnations and remarriages, one can only assume the planets were all well lined up for them with great celestial forces pulling them together, for only the divine Parvati could see past Shiva’s asceticism; of snakes, smoking pipes, ashes, matted hair …
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(1) Mangal Dosha is an astrological combination that occurs if Mars is in the 2nd, 4th, 7th, 8th or 12th house of the Vedic astrology Ascendant chart. A person who is born under these conditions is known as a ‘manglik’.
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