Part 1 - Preface to the Correlation

Astrology was practiced by many ancient cultures to look into the future. Divinations in those times were the means to interpret future. They supposedly originated from mimetic magic which ‘deduced the future of events from the behaviour of things’. (Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upaniṣads, p.388.). Magic was practiced by the Indo-European races with the belief that ‘by imitating the cosmic processes they could control or assist them’. (Magic and Religion, p. 82.). Actively performed actions played a role as an outsource of such a thought process though it was with the aid of the gods and the spirits who were fancied to be controlling the cosmic processes. Actions as prayers and sacrifices were directed towards these gods in order to pacify them. Till the period of the primitive IndoGermans, magic appear to be separated from Astrology which constituted of omens and portents. (The History of Indian Literature, p.264.) Mythology also played a role in the formulation of Astrology though it surfaced as a product of activity of the human intellect thereby chiefly mental rather than a physical one expressing similar ideas, desires and habits in myths inspite of the difference in the cultural practices. The commonest myths pertained to the Sun and the Moon, the day and the night and the sky as explanations of the recurring natural phenomena in connection with the life and death of human. These were perhaps the first of the kind in conceptualizing the ideology of man regarding his connection with the other world as also of the course of the rising and the setting Sun providing the notion of rebirth of man thereby establishing a religious creativity resulting in the worship of the luminaries. The belief of existence and its travel outside the body is recorded in the Paleolithic through the Mesolithic continuing in the Neolithic population reflecting in their systems of burials orienting them towards the east displaying a tendency of connecting the destiny of the soul with the path of the Sun. (A History of Religious Ideas, Volume I, p. 33.). The idea of immortality also co-existed in the early cultures. The anthropomorphized deities in all probability represented this idea and were commonly addressed as deivos (Skt. Devas originating from √ div ‘to shine’.) in the Indo-European period while were being connected with light and heaven (Vedic Mythology, p. 8.).

The same root contributed for the term day and also for the bright sky (The Origin of the Aryans, p. 324, 328.) and Dyaus a development as to sharing the divinity with the gods appears in the correspondence between the heaven and the earth by means of the cosmic light forms and their motion. The connection with light is evidently natural on the ground especially a moral one that man prefers light and shrinks from darkness which can be expressed as a man’s instinct rather than a religious one (Origin and Evolution of Religion, p. 106) and which reflects in the observance and worship of early man connecting Astrology with cosmic and human actions in the early period.

The idea of the order in the universe as a supreme law governing all the things in the world conceptualized as Ṛta also contributed to the correlation of cosmic order of the light forms to the ritual order in the Indo-Iranian phase. Although the concept of time displayed in the notion of Ṛta or Aśa connected with ritual actions have a utility as early as the Upper Paleolithic period which records the usage of a lunar cycle for a practical purpose.(A History of Religious Ideas, Volume I, p.22).

Sacrifices though reported in somewhat similar period the worship of fire until the Indo-European times was animalist rather than anthropomorphic (Religion and Philosophy of Veda, p. 38). Intermingling of human qualities and actions with the cosmic activity is a development later to this and till the period of the Veda frequent association of man and cosmos for enquiries regarding future is evident and an organized system for the same in the form of divinations and actions on luminaries for their fulfillment occurs up to this period though the growth up to here can be termed as that of an adolescent standing on the verge of his cosmic habitat eager to surpass it and with the knowledge gathered from the habitat ready for a more mature footing for a better understanding of the roots of his own identity and their outcome.