How is Jyotish different from Western astrology?
What’s your sign? No, what’s your real sign? It’s usually different in Vedic and Western astrology charts! Why? First, the Vedic astrology system uses the actual physically observed positions of the stars and planets in the sky at the place and time of your birth. It’s basically a map of the sky. Jyotish is much older than Western astrology. In fact, it is the original astrological science and the source of Western astrology. But when Jyotish was brought to Europe it was translated from the original Sanskrit to Persian, then to Arabic, to Greek and then Latin. Naturally, something was lost in the process of being translated through so many languages. Because of this misunderstanding, Western astrologers started calculating planetary positions differently from what they actually saw in the sky. By now, 3,000 years later, these positions differ by more than 23 degrees. For example, in the Vedic chart at right the Sun appears at 9 Aquarius. In the corresponding Western chart, the Sun is a
