Some Basics of Astrology Revisited - I

After I started learning Astrology, I came across many assumptions like

twelve signs and what they represent in our lives and their classification,
nine planets, their properties and how they affect our lives etc. But, there
was no real reference to explain why 12 houses represent what they
represent and why these planets affect us the way they affect us. The
general belief is that this is the knowledge handed over to us by our sages
and we follow them. And, this knowledge was handed over to our sages by
none other than Brahma himself. All that is fine. But, my problem was that I
could not find the basis for all these assumptions on the physical plane. As
these planets affect us on the physical plane, there should be some way to
explain their properties on the physical plane. Because, everything that
exists in this universe – stars, planets, us, all objects… are all energy forms
and energy forms constantly interact with each other in this universe
through radiation. Each and every object in this universe emits radiation.
There should be a logical method to explain the effect of planets on us.
Only, we don’t know it very well today. It is a humungous task to find
plausible explanation of each and every assumption that we make in
Astrology. It could consume the time of many over many births to find all
answers. Nevertheless, I wanted to make a start and see what is that I can
discover during my lifetime.

In Astrology, we classify planets into various categories such as Satvik,

Rajasik and Tamasik based on tri-gunas. We also classify them into natural
benefics and natural malefics. In addition, we also have for any given planet
some planets are considered friends and some other planets considered as
enemies. We have many mythological stories from ancient times to help us
remember their gunas, friendships etc. in an easy manner. I applaud our
ancestors for developing such a wonderful system for helping everyone,
especially astrologers to easily recall a story and then attribute certain
properties to planets. These are juicy stories that stay in memory and hence
easy to recall. But, what is the real basis behind such classification? This
question always haunted me from the very beginning of my astrological
journey. If you ask any astrologer why Jupiter is classified as satvik, he
would easily quote references from mythology. He would say that Jupiter is
none other than Brishaspathi, the Guru of Gods – a satvik person and hence
Jupiter is considered a satvik planet. But, what I wanted to know was, why
the planet Jupiter, a physical body, found in our Solar system is capable of
inducing satvik thoughts in us?

As per Indian Astrology, Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Mars and Ketu are classified as
Satvik planets, Mercury and Venus as Rajasik planets, Saturn and Rahu are
known as tamasik planets. In another classification Jupiter, Venus, Mercury
and Moon are classified as natural benefics and Sun, Mars, Saturn, Rahu and
Ketu are classified as natural malefics. I always wondered about the basis of
this classification. As I believe that the planets affect us on the physical
plane, there should be some physical properties of these planets based on
which we could explain the classification as used in Astrology.

I looked at different properties of the planets like what they are made up
of, how big they are and how far are they from earth to get a clue on their
classification. But, none gave any clue. Finally, I found one correlation to
build a bridge between what is assumed in astrology and what we could find
on the physical plane. I didn’t know that what I learnt in my primary school
would help me out here. It is VIBGYOR! Yes, it is the spectrum of light and
the sequential arrangement of different colours in the spectrum holds the
key! First list these colours in the right order and mark the planets
associated with these colours against respective colours, you will observe
some pattern:

Violet ------------- Saturn

Indigo
Blue --------------- Venus
Green ------------- Mercury
Yellow ------------ Jupiter
Orange ------------ Sun
Red ---------------- Mars

I would give a pale yellow or off-white colour to Moon and hence place him
between Jupiter and Mercury. To make the picture more complete, let us
add the invisible radiation also to accommodate both Rahu and Ketu:

Ultraviolet ------- Rahu

Violet/Indigo ---- Saturn
Blue --------------- Venus
Green ------------- Mercury
Off-white --------- Moon
Yellow ------------ Jupiter
Orange ------------ Sun
Red ---------------- Mars
Infra-Red --------- Ketu

Have you started seeing a pattern now? If not, look at the following groups
that make it easier:

Ultraviolet ------- Rahu

Violet/Indigo ---- Saturn
Blue --------------- Venus
Green ------------- Mercury

Off-White -------- Moon

Yellow ------------ Jupiter
Orange ------------ Sun
Red ---------------- Mars
Infra-Red --------- Ketu
Notice that the planets in the top group are friends to each other and the
planets in the bottom group are friends to each other as assumed in
Astrology! Not only this, we can also see another set of classification,
keeping the planets in the same VIBGYOR sequence:

Ultraviolet ------- Rahu

Violet/Indigo ---- Saturn

Blue --------------- Venus

Green ------------- Mercury
Off-White -------- Moon
Yellow ------------ Jupiter

Orange ------------ Sun

Red ---------------- Mars
Infra-Red --------- Ketu

The top and bottom group consists of natural malefics and the middle group
consists of natural benefics!

That is not all, there appears to be another set of classification even while
keeping the same VIBGYOR sequence, but for a small exception:

Ultraviolet ------- Rahu

Violet/Indigo ---- Saturn

Blue --------------- Venus

Green ------------- Mercury

Off-White -------- Moon

Yellow ------------ Jupiter
Orange ------------ Sun

Red ---------------- Mars

Infra-Red --------- Ketu

We have four groups of planets here, the top and bottom being Tamasik,
second being Rajasik and the third being Satvik.

It is clear that such a planet classification has some meaning on the physical
plane also. Let us see more closely what the arrangement of VIBGYOR
represent. It would not be wrong to assume that the radiation of each of the
planet is very similar in wavelengths of the colours they represent in
Astrolgy. Look at the following picture [1]:
 We can draw the following
conclusions based the spectrum
diagram on the left and the
colour that each planet
represents:

1. The electromagnetic
radiation of all physical
planets in the solar system
is mostly in the visible
spectrum range (between
400 to 700 nanometers -
nm)
2. Rahu (ultraviolet, 10 to
400 nm) and Ketu
(infrared, between 700 nm
to 1mm) radiations are
beyond the visible range.
3. Within the range between
Rahu and Ketu, planets
emitting in higher
wavelengths (above 540
nm) seem to be friendly to
each other and planets emitting in lower wavelengths (below 540 nm)
seem to be friendly to each other
4. Planets emitting radiation in higher wavelengths and lower
wavelengths seem to be not in harmony with each other.
5. The radiation that is considered as benefic to us is small range of
wavelengths between 440 to 580 nm.
6. In general, the radiation wavelengths of Tamasik planets will be
either lower than 440 nm and higher than 620 nm
7. In general, the radiation wavelengths of Rajasik planets would in the
range of 440 to 540 nm
8. In general, the radiation wavelengths of Satvik planets would be
between 540 to 620 nm

I am not sure if I have hit the bull’s eye in finding the basis for the planetary
classification in Astrology. There could be more to it. The exploration
continues.

References:

[1] http://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/EDDOCS/Wavelengths_for_Colors.html