Philosophical Foundation

In the piece I will discuss some of the similarities and differences between philosophical foundations used in Hellenistic Astrology and Hindu Astrology, we will try to see how these foundations inform astrological symbols and help us understand the purpose of astrology.  My contention is that the Shankhya foundation in Indian astrology, while having some intriguing similarity to Greeks such as Plato, offers a more complete and integrated basis to astrology, than did the philosophical schools of Greek philosophy. 

Greek Astrology and Philosophy 

What is called western astrology, can be thought to stem from Persian / Mesopotamian / Egyptian astrology, given what is left from Hellenistic antiquity.  The texts we inherited are not clear on this point, and what is left from the earliest authors or Sages are only fragments, scattered in several authors, like Hephaistio.   The underlying philosophy (what I mean by philosophy is the First Principles) behind such texts was not very obvious to elucidate, by the early exponents like V. Valens, Polemy, Maternus, Hephaistio etc.   We can say that from the writings we have now, which are probably not really complete.   So its up to us to revive the philosophy using what we know of Greek, Chaldean, Babylonian or Egyptian magic and philosophy.   And do this in order to get deeper into Dorotheus de Sidon, 1st century AD one of the earliest text, then Ptolemy, Vettius Valens, both 2nd century AD and others like Hephaisto of Thebes, 5th century AD, to name the best and longest exponents of Hellenistic astrology.  

The longest text, written by Vettius Valens, show a man searching far and wide for knowledge, methods, period systems, time lords, length of life and other bits of information.   He travelled across the middle east.   So Valens and others were striving to find Greek philosophical ideas to express or understand astrology, to understand fate and its implications.  But the earlier astrologers referenced by them were Berossus, Asclepius, Nechepso and Petosiris, the last 2 being Egyptians.  These had astrology schools and still had access to earliest methods and teachings.  Their time period is not totally clear.   Scholars puts them in the last 2nd or 3rd centuries before JC.  But there are references to the Tomb of Petosiris in 4th century BCE, and of Nechepso the "King", from 7th century BCE in encyclopedic articles under their name.  Another ancient divine figure is of course, Hermes Trismegistus, date unknown, who may have been a sage, a god, perhaps a yogi like the Rishis of India, and who seem to be the originator of the Art, or at least he had access to more original ideas of the roost of the Art.

The astrology books and methods written in Greek, were transmitted to us via the Persians, up till the 8th century, then Arabic became compulsory under Islam, they turned to Arabic around the 8th century, with Masha Allah, Abu Mashar, Sahl, etc. around 800 AD, and then via European astrologers of the middle age.  

So if it was something of a lost art at the time of Valens, when he was trying to kepp it alive in the 2nd century AD,  there was even more of a loss by 800 AD.   By the 20th century there was not anymore a solid cosmological and philosophical foundation.  Its even clear from the references to Dorotheus de Sidon in Masha Allah in the 8th century AD, that the Dorotheus text was becoming hard to understand. 

The astrology methods in India were somehow similar.   12 signs and a 12 sign zodiac, coming from Mesopotamia, before the 3rd and 4th century, probably before the 6th century.  The zodiac was sidereal because all extent ancient charts, starting from 410 BCE were sidereal.   We do not seem to have a single tropical chart in ancient Greek astrology !   (the same for Indian astrology).   Scholars assume from the texts that Mesopotamians were only doing general astrology for some elevated figures like the Kings, and for countries, or for divination.    For this reason, nearly all scholars believe that natal astrology, for human beings is a Greek development, or modification or invention, which is just a guess in my view due to the meager amount of texts from earlier periods. 

Of course there were philosophical elements in those Greek texts.   Recent writers such as Robert Schmidt have made a fascinating linguistic study of the Greek texts and found elements and philosophical concepts of Form and Matter, the Same and the Other, referring to Plato and Aristotle, 3rd century BC, Empedocles 4th century BC, among other Greek philosophers, and have derived insights from these. These insights are applied to Signs, Planets and Aspects, the 3 building blocks of astrology.   One example is that Aspect is a visual term.   Aspects were sometimes named "glances" in Valens and the Greek philosophical ideas associated with looking at an object became a focus for understanding relations between planets.  So if there is an Aspect between 2 planets, it means that one or both planets, are able to see the other, and therefore connect, impart a signification one to the other, and link significations or a particular fate to that combination.

For Plato,  "philosophers considered the heavens to be moved by immaterial agents. Plato believed the cause to be a world-soul, created according to mathematical principles, which governed the daily motion of the heavens (the motion of the Same) and the opposed motions of the planets along the zodiac (the motion of the Different, or of the Other) [Cornford].   In Plato the Form is mathematically ordered with numbers.  
Here is what Plato writes in Timaeus :  ""a description of what is changeless, fixed and clearly intelligible will be changeless and fixed," (29b), while a description of what changes and is likely, will also change and be just likely. "As being is to becoming, so is truth to belief" (29c). Therefore, in a description of the physical world, one "should not look for anything more than a likely story" (29d).
This view relates to the idea in Shankhya that the original principle or "idea" of the world is beyond the obvious, beyond material.   But if we study nature, (Prakriti) we only have a "likely story", not the whole story, not the best understanding of what the world really is.  

In Shankhya, Purusha, or Spirit, or Consciousness, is eternal, divine and immaterial, it always exists, and is a first cause of everything that exists.   For Plato, the Form (capitalised) is the original principle hidden behind the physical world of nature and matter.   We could say that This Form is divine, imbued with awareness and causing things.  So there is similarity or agreement with Shankhya that nature (Prakriti) is animated by a mysterious imperceptible agent, Purusha, or perhaps the Form in Plato.  
Then, Shankhya itself is a word meaning "enumeration" or number, which is intriguing in relation to the number system that Plato and Pythagoras say orders the universe. 

Planetary Spheres

In TImaeus, Plato explains the formation of the solar system :

"Time, then, and the heaven came into being at the same instant in order that, having been created together, if ever there was to be a dissolution of them, they might be dissolved together. It was framed after the pattern of the eternal nature, that it might resemble this as far as was possible; for the pattern exists from eternity, and the created heaven has been, and is, and will be, in all time. Such was the mind and thought of God in the creation of time. The sun and moon and five other stars, which are called the planets, were created by him in order to distinguish and preserve the numbers of time; and when he had made-their several bodies, he placed them in the orbits in which the circle of the other was revolving-in seven orbits seven stars. First, there was the moon in the orbit nearest the earth, and next the sun, in the second orbit above the earth; then came the morning star and the star sacred to Hermes, moving in orbits which have an equal swiftness with the sun, but in an opposite direction; and this is the reason why the sun and Hermes and Lucifer overtake and are overtaken by each other."

This shows a spiritual (non material) foundation of time and of the heaven (planetary and star formation) together.  Planets are seen to be placed in "orbits on which the circle of the other was revolving-seven orbits, seven stars (planets)".   

In Timaeus we find the idea of Spheres surrounding the earth on which planets and the stars revolve.  The planetary orbits are apparented to the Spheres also used by Aristotle and other authors.  Arab astrologers in the 12th century will actually comment that these Spheres might be "abstract" places : " Fakhr al-Din al-Razi about whether the celestial spheres are real, concrete physical bodies or "merely the abstract circles in the heavens traced out… by the various stars and planets." 

Or as Plato would say, these are "ideal" spheres on which celestial planets move.
The Planetary Spheres in Plato, Aristotle (or claimed to be from Aristotle), and Ptolemy (Almagest) were not present to my knowledge in India.
Now if the Spheres holding the planets are made of the quintessence, a non solid non material elementary stuff, this is reminiscent of an idea that was very present in India. We will write about that. 

In De Mundo, Aristotle or a writer thought to be Aristotle mentions a theory of rotating planetary Spheres being the source of all events on earth.   Earlier philosophers like Plato held similar views of the Spheres where the planets rotate in the aethereal Spheres.  Here is a medieval description of these Spheres. 

"The world is divided in two parts, the elemental region,  and the aethereal.   The elemental region is constantly subject to alteration, and comprises the four elements, earth, water air and fire.   The aethereal region, which philosophers call the fifth essence, encompasses by its concavity, the elemental.  its substance remain always unvaried, and consists of 10 Spheres, on which the greater one always spherically environs the next smaller, and so on in consecutive order.   First therefore around the circle of Fire, God the Creator of the world placed the Sphere of the Moon, and then of mercury, that of Venus, that of the Sun and afterwards those of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Each of these Spheres contain but one Star : and these stars, in passing through the zodiac, always struggle against the primum mobile, or the motion of the tenth sphere; they are also entirely luminous. In the next place follows the firmament, which is the eighth or starry sphere, and which trembles or vibrates (trepidat) in two small circles at the beginning of Aries and Libra (as placed in the ninth sphere); this motion is called by astronomers the motion of the access and recess of the fixed stars.... "  [Cosmographia of Peter Apianus, 1574]

In Surya Siddantha, and in the Puranas, a divya (divine, meaning non perceptible)  cosmos is ordered by deities, who arrange all events according to karma. Surya Siddantha is a very old (date unknown) and sacred Indian sanskrit text considered an astronomical theory of the cosmos (solar system) and cosmological model of the Divine Planets and their theory.  Siddantha itself is the name for all ancient texts describing the calculation theory of planets.  This particular Surya S. was written by Rishis, Sages in ancient India.  

Because Surya Siddantha has a solid history and foundation in India, such cosmology would be more likely originate there in India rather than the Middle East.   The Surya Siddantha still contains elaborate mathematics and astronomical equations, both for the Divine planes and planets, and also, according to Vinay Jha, for the physical planets that everyone knows, though they are kept in secrecy mostly.  Vinay Jha discusses several such fascinating equations on his website.   http://vedicastrology.wikidot.com/ayanamsha-vs-precession

Yet in Plato there are concepts alluding to the Divine Planets.  Plato posits a world of Forms, which are uncreated, not perceivable be the senses, and always exist.  Are those Divine Planets and their Divine revolutions related to the Planetary Spheres of ancient Greeks ?

Ptolemy and Vettius Valens make an effort to link Aristotelian ideas with Astrology, and also Valens, to Stoic ideas.   For example, we find the 4 Elements theory in Ptolemy and Valens,  discussed by Plato, Aristotle, Empedocles, and later by then the Stoics.  The 5th element in Hindu philosophy does not appear anymore in modern western astrology,  but we saw it in Plato and ancient Greeks, as the Quintessense, or the 5th essence,  5th element,  the stuff of the Sphere of [fixed] stars in the firmament.  It is also mentioned in the passage above by Peter Apianus.  It is the aethereal sphere, and strangely got forgotten sometime around the Renaissance.

So even though neither Aristotle, Empedocles nor Plato were astrologers, and didn't write astrology books, they understood astrology philosophicaly, in a metaphysical sense, and had opinions on its use.

The case of Ptolemy is very interesting because the influence of Aristotle on him shows as a season-based set of influence bearing on zodiac signs and planets.   The ratio of humidity, dryness, heat and cold, coming from Aristotle, shows the effects and causes of the 4 Elements, and then of planets.   And these quite material effects are seen as causal for Ptolemy, meaning, seasons, temperature, wetness begin to be causal on the affairs of men and countries.  Ptolemy became enormously influential in the centuries after his life, and his natural causal views remained very influential for astrologers using his tropical zodiac in the western world to this day.   This despite several philosophers like Plotinus (3rd century AD) deriding the notion of planets causing events, as in :      

        1  "-If one says that if the bird flies high is signifies some high heroic deed.  But if because, looking at the stars, they announce what has happened to particular people, they adduce this as evidence that the happenings were caused by the stars, then in the same way, birds would be the causes of what they indicate, and so would everything at which the soothsayers look when they foretell."

The debate between natural causes and astrology showing signs to life events remained throughout history in Europe, in fact this debate is still prevalent today.   And the natural causes prevailed often, but we will see how this view wasn't supported in India. 

So it seems more likely that Ptolemy was trying to find a philosophical support using the very famous Aristotle, in order to elaborate an astrological system having a philosophical foundation.

This connects once more to the Surya Siddantha notion that planets are not physical bodies, but divine in origin, planets being deities.  In Surya Siddantha these planets revolve on divine planes, not physical planes, and these have different measurements.  The divine cosmos has a smaller size and the orbits are all slightly different than the physical measurements known to scientists.  Plato did not explicitly say that, but if his ideal orbits or Spheres stem from some ancient philosophy in Egypt, Mesopotomia or India, it may have begun to be half forgotten during his time in the 4th century BCE.   Or he left it himself half explained for occult reasons.  We have to remember that the known history does not go much before the 6 and 7 th century even though mystical philosophers like Rudolf Steiner have commented how very much more ancient is the history of astrology in India and Persia, going back to antediluvian worlds.  

Indeed, it seems that these astrologers of the early middle east, in the effervescent intellectual times of Alexandria around the 1st century AD, were trying to understand books and ideas that were long gone.   Vettius Valens was travelling far and wide trying to find the source and secrets of an astrology whose source was in the distant past.  There was metaphysical ideas everywhere in Plato and Greek philosophers, but a native astrological philosophy is not inbred in the philosophy of those times.  All these are in contrast to the Indian writings.   

Indian Astrology and Sankhya

Indian astrology on the contrary, is based on a philosophical system, even a cosmological scheme, or at least it uses philosophical ideas with enormous roots in Indian philosophy, and for this there are 2 candidates',  Samkhya philosophy and Surya Siddantha.   In the 1980s and 90s R. Santhanam and Kapoor produced their English translation of Brihat Parasara Hora Shastra (2), by Rishi Parasara, followed by the translation of G Sharma, and it became the foremost authoritative book, in and outside of India. Likewise, the first few chapters of Lomasha Samhita were published on the Saptarishis.com website in the 2010s. Both Lomasha and  Parasara are long known to be some of the 18 Rishis (Sages) who taught Astrology to mankind. The first few chapters of BPHS and Lomasha do contain delineations of astrological ideas in terms of Shankhya.  Most importantly the planets are understood from the 3 Gunas, 5 Elements, Doshas and these principles are known basic principles in several ancient Indian schools of philosophy and Ayurveda.   These are clear Shankhya notions that are discussed in the root text of Shankhya by Kapila, and also discussed at length in the Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, the Vedas and the Puranas.  

Both texts, BPHS and Lomasha are quite similar in approach, showing astrological teachings being given to a chosen student, and they write about the role of Krishna, Vishnu, as main founding God, each being an image of the same figure, and then about many deities and gods associated with the planets understood as Grahas.  The Grahas are not physical bodies, but deities whose role is “to give humans the fruits of their karma” to quote Parasara.   A similar idea of Planets not being bodies but deities is repeated several times in Surya Siddantha and the Puranas.   The orbits and revolutions are sometimes written as Divya (divine) revolutions, not physical revolutions.  So a metaphysical and spiritual foundation is given from the start. Grahas or planets are deities and not mere physical bodies, and they are endowed with qualities such as Gunas, one of the 5 Elements, which are not described in purely materialistic terms in Indian philosophy as they are in Greek philosophy, and then Grahas possess many other qualities and associations with the material worlds, but these associations are given AFTER the divine or spiritual associations to deities and Gunas are given. Meaning the material crystallisations are a result of the spiritual precipitations into nature, into Prakriti.

Shankhya and Indian philosophy in general, are difficult texts to approach from a westerner's point of view.   Shankhya describes a world whose origin is not physical. Actually in Genesis an immaterial origin was also shown. Here is Genesis 1, International translation:

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

These are very evocative images which are deeply mystical and would require extended study. But Genesis and the Bible are not used in western astrological texts.   And since the Renaissance in the west, studying nature with the intellect has become the norm, and astrology is not considered a serious study, rather more a superstition.    

Shamhya is used in Indian astrology.  It is often described as a dualistic philosophy, because it holds 2 realities as basic principles of the world, Purusha and Prakriti.  Of these, Purusha is the Self, or Spirit, or Consciousness.  Some writers have seen Purusha synonymous with Atman, or Soul.  Purusha is a divine essence, it is spiritual.  Purusha relates to an individual identity as being spiritual and being a spirit. Purusha is totally immaterial. And this is a very important notion, because if Purusha is immaterial it is not perceivable by the senses !

On the contrary Prakriti is nature. Actually Prakriti is unmanifest Nature. And Shankhya being an enumeration (the word means number) of a many principles present in the world, describes its precipitation into nature. During incarnation, Prakriti begins from being unmanifest, on to a state of mind called Mahat, or Budhi, which intellects the world, to a more distinct individual awareness, a point of view which is Ahamkara. This Ahamkara is part of the mind. Ahamakara we call Ego in the west. It is the state of being, or having a separate identity from other beings. But for Shankhya, this is an illusion of being separate, since at the unmanifested core there is no separation of one Spirit and another Spirit.   In Purusha, we are Purusha, we are one.   Yet Purusha being such an elevated position of consciousness, requires the discipline of the yogi to become actual for a person.  It is unreachable to ordinary people.

Parasara gives Ahamkara to the moon.  He gives the Self or the Soul to the Sun, though it is unclear that this Soul is the ONE Soul, or more an individual Spirit.   It actually is more like the individual Spirit of a human being, because every chart has a sun somewhere which is related to the unique Self of that person.  This is not unlike Purusha.  But it is not purely Purusha. 

Prakriti then continues its precipitation, incarnation, materialisation into the 3 Gunas, then differents instruments called the 5 subtle elements, 5 gross elements , 5 organs of cognition and action.
Prakriti as nature is a process by which consciousness descends into physical matter, through the mind, Ego, subtle organs of cognitions, 5 senses of perceptions and then organs used in order to act upon the world. This concludes the materialisation into physical matter of a consciousness which had, it is surmissed, decided to create, enjoy, manifest life, on another level from its own.

Indian astrology follows the Shankhya scheme, with Parasara giving the 5 elements to the 5 Starry planets.  They are here in order of Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn, for fire, earth, ether, water and air.   Note that in older western texts like William Lilly these 5 elements were still remembered as a side note.

The 5 senses of Prakriti are able to perceive nature to some extent at least. Shankhya describes Prakriti at length with its 24 tattvas, or true principles, given above.  There is a last tattva, the 25th being Purusha itself,  and this one is transcendent, and is not perceivable by the Senses. See the table below for the map of Prakriti.

So these Sankhya concepts forming a description of what ancient Sages have “seen” of the world, with its origin outside any access by the senses, we can see how our modern world will have difficulty accepting such a viewpoint. Most philosophical systems born in the west since the Renaissance, and even before, are reasoned out processes and intellectual constructions.  All modern sciences are attempting to describe what they see in matter and nature, and from that extrapolate what the entire world must be like. They use instruments to refine what the senses fail to see, like microscopes, telescopes.  Still they are unable to locate consciousness, love, God, Spirit, within matter.  For the most part, they are actually surprisingly uninterested in these things.   What they cannot see must not exist, they tell us.  Don't speculate on God, they tell us.  We never have proof of God.  

Since the Renaissance and what we can call the birth of modern science, the approach to knowledge took on a more materialistic approach. Before the Renaissance the savants were called Natural Philosophers. They were looking at spirituality and nature in an inclusive, non materialistic way. They did not say we separate spirit which we will not study, and matter which we will study. They were studying chemistry, alchemy, medicine, astrology, religion without the skeptical distinction of modern times. They had not taken on the skepticism and materialism which have infused every aspect of modern life.  They began their inquiry from the opposite side from where the Shankhya Rishis started out. Those Rishis worked from yogic consciousness which they elaborated on in Vedic texts. They explained that once their mind where cleared of obstructions thru their extended meditative disciplines, they were able to see the world and its myriad aspects as maya,  an illusory image.  But the underlying principles of the world are what they describe in Shankhya and other philosophical systems like Advaita and Yoga, the Vedas and Puranas.  To us then, who cannot have access to expanded consciousness, Shankhya seems speculation as we cannot see, smell, hear or feel Purusha, and we cannot prove, the key word of western science, its existence. Nor can we prove the Gunas are present in nature or human beings.  We can say there maybe an energy there.  But we are unsure what it is.  We are not trained to know it.   we are trained to be skeptical.  Now to a Rishi who sees the world outside of physical eyes or senses, modern science, by looking only at Prakriti, nature, is using a part of the mind, Mahat, Budhi, and Ahamkara, that Shankhya has described as fragmented, a part of the mind not being the whole of consciousness.  

In conclusion this piece discussed some aspects of Shankhya present in Indian astrology, how Greek astrology has some elements that were part of the Greek philosophy of the time, somehow resembling Shankhya, but not as clearly rooted in philosophy as Jyotish and Shankhya. 

Pierre Touchard  fev. 2018, rev. jan. 2024

1 Timaeus, Plato, Penguin Pub.

2  Hellenistic Astrology, Chris Brennan, 2017, Amor Fati Publications, page 152.

3 Shankhya Sutras of Kapila http://www.hinduwebsite.com/sacredscripts/hinduism/kapila/kapila.asp

4  Brihat Parasara Hora Sastra, transl. Santhanam & Kapoor, Ranjan Pub. 1986.

5 Lomasha Samhita, first few chapters, Saptarishis website, India, transl. Veneet Kumar