
''Ayanamsa'' (: ), also ''ayanabhāga'' (), is the
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
term for many systems used in
Hindu astrology to account for the
precession of equinoxes
In astronomy, axial precession is a gravity-induced, slow, and continuous change in the orientation of an astronomical body's rotational axis. In the absence of precession, the astronomical body's orbit would show axial parallelism. In parti ...
.
[Barbara Pijan, https://barbarapijan.com/bpa/Amsha/Ayanamsha.htm] There are also systems of ayanamsa used in
Western sidereal astrology, such as the Fagan/Bradley Ayanamsa.
Overview
There are various systems of Ayanamsa that are in use in Hindu astrology (also known as
Vedic
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed ...
astrology) such as the
Raman Ayanamsa and the Krishnamurthy Ayanamsa,
but the Lahiri Ayanamsa, named after its
inventor
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,
astronomer
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Nirmal Chandra Lahiri (1906-1980), is by far the most prevalent system in India.
Critics of Lahiri Ayanamsa have proposed an ayanamsa called True Chitra Paksha Ayanamsa.
There are other existing ayanamsa such as Raman, Pushya Paksha, Rohini, Kërr A.I, Usha Shashi and Chandra Hari. However, Dulakara ayanamsa is precise; the zero ayanamsa year according to it is 232 CE.
The use of ayanamsa to account for the precession of equinoxes is believed to have been defined in
Vedic texts
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas ( or ; ), sometimes collectively called the Veda, are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed i ...
at least 2,500 years before the
Greek
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astronomer
Hipparchus
Hipparchus (; , ; BC) was a Ancient Greek astronomy, Greek astronomer, geographer, and mathematician. He is considered the founder of trigonometry, but is most famous for his incidental discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. Hippar ...
quantified the precession of equinoxes in 127 B.C. While critical scholars believe these "Vedic texts", at least those centering Spica Cittā (or 0° Libra, Tūla Rāśi), were composed in the common era, between 200 and 400 CE.
Lahiri intended that Spica be centered in Cittā (0° Tūla, tropical LIB) and exactly 180° from tropical ARI. Spica's ecliptic longitude was approximately 203.2° in the mid 1950s, 203.84° in 2000 and thus its presumed ayanamsa is 23.84° (J2000), 24.2° by 2026, and 25.0° by 2083.
Centering Spica in Cittā, as Lahiri does, pushes Aldebaran and Regulus off-center and pushes Antares west and outside its namesake nakshatra. Allowing Spica 45' to 1° east of Cittā's center better aligns Pleiades in Kattikā, centers Aldebaran in Rohini, Regulus in Maghā, and Antares to define the western boundary of Jyestha.
See also
*
Western sidereal astrology
References
External links
Controversial topics in astrology and Vedic astronomy
Technical factors of Hindu astrology
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