What is Vedic Astrology?

If you’ve ever met an attractive stranger at a party and asked, “Hey baby, what’s your sign?” it probably didn’t go so well. Not only can such a cliche question get you an eye-rolling response, it won’t help you with what you’re hoping to know – if this person could be your “special someone” to spend the rest of your mortal days with.

Ah, if only it were that simple…

Here’s the thing: since the dawn of time, humankind has been looking to the stars to understand the course of human events. Virtually every great civilization has had its own system of astrology, including the Celts, Mayans, Egyptians, Greeks, Persians, Chinese, and Hebrews, to name just a few.

But I gotta tell ya – no one system of zodiacal analysis has figured out interpersonal relationships like the system of ancient India, also known as Vedic astrology.

Vedic astrology is first found written about in the Vedas, some of the spiritual scriptures of Hindu philosophy, believed by some scholars to be over 5,000 years old. Here’s the amazing part – traditionally, if you were a Hindu, you didn’t get married without the blessing of an astrologer. (This astrological “thumbs up/thumbs down” is still done for the majority of Hindu marriages in India to this day.)

The whole idea of marriage in traditional, Eastern cultures is nothing like in modern Western culture. You married once to a mate selected by your parents whom you didn’t so much as meet until your wedding ceremony (gulp). Divorce was non-existent (and is still extremely rare). And if a man died first, his wife would throw herself onto his funeral pyre, sacrificing herself. So, you didn’t want to just marry anyone. It was literally a matter of life and death to know if you were compatible, and if the “destiny” of your love and life together would go smoothly (and that they had good longevity, for reasons I think I’ve made clear…) Talk about pressure!

So astrologers, and Hindu society as a whole, have taken this whole topic extremely seriously, and have been highly motivated for thousands of years to know what they’re doing. Fortunately, they’ve figured a few things out.

Many tools and techniques are unique to Vedic astrology, and differ a great deal from the more commonly known system practiced in the West, called Tropical or Western astrology. The two biggest differences are that the Vedic system uses a different zodiac called the Sidereal zodiac (meaning “of the stars”), causing the calculations from one system to the next to be around 24 degrees off (making most people a different Sun sign, Moon sign, and Rising sign than in the Western system), and focusing on the Moon, not the Sun. (Good luck asking that hot stranger, “Hey baby, what’s your Moon sign?”)

You see, your Sun sign, though an important indicator of your talents, interests, career, and behavior, is not so much reflective of your emotional personality or psychology, or how you’ll relate to others. All of that is indicated by your Moon sign, and not just the 12 Greek signs of the zodiac (which at some point were incorporated into Vedic astrology, because they work) but the traditional 27 smaller constellations the Moon travels through in the course of a month, referred to as nakshatras, or “lunar mansions.”

There are many ways to understand each of these more specific Moon signs. They each have an animal symbol, a nature, an element, a gender, a caste, a temperament, an action, etc. It is by comparing these powerful, distinct aspects of two people’s Moon nakshatras that you can know all about how you’ll feel together (if you can feel understood, loved, appreciated, comforted, or not…), and if your life together will unfold with ease, or constant challenges. It’s truly amazing.

Vedic astrology is often called “predictive” astrology, as well, because your chart is believed to be more a map of your destiny (what will happen) than of your potential (what you could choose to make happen with your free will). Thus, it’s full of amazing predictive techniques, the most compelling being that of looking to planetary periods – cycles of influence which last from six to twenty years and cover your life span, revealing what you can expect to go through and when. These periods, known as dasas, are literally like having a “train schedule” for your life, explaining periods of success or failure in all aspects such as career, health, finances, and of course – romance.

So, you see, love really is in your stars. And it’s vast and complicated, just like relationships are. So the next time you see an attractive stranger you’re hoping could be your “special someone,” do yourself a favor – walk over and pay them a sincere compliment. I promise you, you won’t get that eye-rolling response, and you just might find that romantic destiny you’re hoping for.

Vedic Astrologer Carol Allen is the host of Karma Air’s Enlightening Relationships and the author of the eBook, Love Is in the Stars, which can be found on the website of the same name.