Did Sage Parasara discover celestial patterns or command celestials to follow his sutras?

Did Sage Parasara discover celestial patterns or command celestials to follow his sutras?

Astrology is a vast subject that requires no introduction. Marriages, thread ceremonies (upanayana), projects, etc. are carried out by the believers based on astrology. Though astrology applies to all castes, cultures and races, jyotish is mainly for hindus in particular and Indians in general, where some believe it has vedic origins. That is like limiting the origin of jyotish to the time period of vedas. But creation is older than that. Hence, stars and planets could already be in existence when Sage Parasara codified jyotish, since he was the father of Veda Vyasa whose birth took place 5000 years ago.

On the other hand, Sage Parasara was the earliest human to command the respect of celestials who fell into his expectations to deliver karma phala (fruit of karma) to humans. Before him, the celestials could have just existed as dhooma (dust cloud) which eventually coalesced into the stars and planets as we have come to know.

We can for now set aside the seed first or tree first question and proceed to understanding jyotish. After Sage Parasara came Sage Jaimini (0-250 BCE). He gave to mankind Jaimini Sutras or Upadesa Sutras consisting of 936 sutras or concise expressions, divided into four chapters. The guruparampara can be traced to modern times. Luminaries like Santhanam, Raman, et al. brought us in print and discourse the various sutras collated over centuries.

An important aspect of jyotish is karma phala. According to Brihat Parasara, celestials exist to disperse karma phala. For example, a soul is born into a royal family when the jyotish of the King, Queen and the native (the soul in question) match as per the sutras of Sage Parasara. This raises the question, how do celestials determine the exact time of birth among other things like latitude, longitude, etc. The Brihat Parasara says it is based on the coitus muhurt which we think is random. However, the birth is not always a random event as our puranas testify. Aditya (Sun) was delivered much after the trimester by the will of parents. The modern day caesarean deliveries at the precise time and location are well known.

All births are not the same. A blind child is born to perfectly fit parents because of the karma of the child and the family it is born into. A child could die prematurely contributing to infant mortality (which Brihat Parasara delineates at length). A vaccinated child could also acquire the illness and perish if the celestials decide that the soul had exhausted its karma and could move on to the next stage of evolution on the karmic ladder. For example, it could ascend to heaven, while the bereaved parents remain on earth to experience prarabda karma.

Are the celestials only capable of granting karma phala? Many of our stotras say a goddess such as Lalita Devi is "karma phala dayinee" or the disperser of karma phala. How could that happen? Imagine a devotee of Lalita Devi offering astute prayers by waking up early, making ablutions and performing pooja every day. Over a period of time his karma phala vis-a-vis Lalita devi accrues and being a generous goddess she wants the devotee to gain a rupee. A planet like Sani might feel that is excessive, and take away 50 paise. Others like Venus might want to contribute 25 paise and so on. Eventually the devotee may get just 10% which is still a credit on the positive side for the effort he put in. If he had performed sahasra namas (1000 names) set to raga with complete understanding of chandas then he could be offered Rs.10 by the goddess. And 10% of it is bigger than 10 paise. It is to be noted that the planets while contributing or debiting the amount still follow Sage Parasara's sutras. That is, planet Ketu remains neutral if the Kundli or natal horoscope does not show a Ketu dasa or aspect at the time the devotee was rewarded by the goddess while Sani and Venus aspect or carry out the dasa at the time of goddesse's benevolence.

No discussion on jyotish is complete without remedies. A graha santi is the ritual to appease the planets to either accentuate the reward or mitigate the punishment. Some jyotish's recommend donating wealth or wearing gem stones of certain color both of which come as sharing one's wealth with the less fortunate (a gem stone could be mined in Africa, polished in Gujarat and set into jewelry in Andhra Pradesh, thus benefiting the whole supply chain).

Now coming to the seed or tree question, we all know Newton's laws provided the first known laws of nature including the celestials. Does it mean Newton created a law that celestials didn't follow? Hardly, as he was credited for discovering the laws of motion and gravitational effects. This is important for the scientists among us to know. Whereas, Sage Parasara set the celestials to motion in fixed orbits so that they can dispense good or bad to the humans under their influence based on their deeds in previous birth and current birth. One can say the ambit of Sage Parasara goes from macroscopic to microscopic by even influencing the ganas of Lord Siva who are believed to cause happiness and misery. So nothing is outside the ken of the Sage! Of course, the celestials follow his sutras diligently and those deities with free-will do so based on their own preferences.

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