I come from the Doctors Family, who believes that astrology and health go hand in hand almost always, so reading Dr Deepak Singla’s Medical Astrology was such a pleasure. It was the book with which I could relate easily at many levels. This is a perfect first book to read about medical astrology and makes you think about how health and ill-health are in some way connected with stars. To those with previous knowledge of medical and astrological concepts, like the stars, houses and dimensions, as well as the signs of the zodiac, this turned out to be a very informative and engaging book.
This book Medical Astrology by Dr. Deepak Singla, talks about your basic nature and how the Zodiac signs affect them. The author describes the main role of medical astrology as identifying the underlying astrodynamic patterns which connect mind and body, addressing the inherent problems of the exterior symptoms. Many diseases such as Diabetes, Respiratory, Heart, eyes and etc are explained in a very detailed way along with the rashis that rule that particular house.
What I most liked about the book is that the author is not attempting to replace the medical team but rather is complementing them. The author describes how the process works– changing our relationship with our more difficult characteristics through awareness and alertness.
What’s more, the narrative and language of the book Medical Astrology by Deepak Singla, are simple yet super engaging. This is a book you can keep coming back to every time you feel like.
This is a perfect book for people like me, who are always curious to know more about astrology and how it affects our health. I highly recommend this book to you all. I rate this book 4 on 5.
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This book is not what it claims to be!
The first part of this review covers some background about the Medical Astrology subject for the benefit of people who are not familiar with it. The second part focuses on the book’s content. The third part brings some points to the attention of the author for possible inclusion in the next edition of the book, while the final part is the summary of this review.
Part 1
What is the Origin of Medical Astrology?
• Vedas
Vedic astrology, which is one of the six Vedangas. The ancient Hindu texts on Jyotisha only discuss timekeeping, and never mention astrology as a tool for medical aspects like diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease. The field of Jyotisha deals with ascertaining time, particularly forecasting auspicious day and time for Vedic rituals. Each of the four Vedas has its own Jyotisha-sastra.
Lagadha’s Vedanga-Jyotisha states the importance of the study of astronomy as follows:
वेदा हि यज्ञार्थमभिप्रवृत्ताः कालानुपूर्वा विहिताश्च यज्ञाः।
तस्मादिदं कालविधानशास्त्रं यो ज्येतिषं वेद स वेद यज्ञान् ॥
• Puranas and Itihasas
References from Ramayana:
ततो यज्ञे समाप्ते तु ऋतूनां षट्समत्ययु: ।
ततश्च द्वादशे मासे चैत्रे नावमिके तिथौ ।।1.18.8।।
नक्षत्रेऽदितिदैवत्ये स्वोच्चसंस्थेषु पञ्चसु ।
ग्रहेषु कर्कटे लग्ने वाक्पताविन्दुना सह ।।1.18.9।।
प्रोद्यमाने जगन्नाथं सर्वलोकनमस्कृतम् ।
कौसल्याऽजनयद्रामं सर्वलक्षणसंयुतम् ।।1.18.10।।
In the Ramayana, we find several references to time calculations, evil dreams, and the conjunction of Malefics and auspicious occasions. No remedies were applied nor talked about by great sages like Vasistha and Viswamitra.
• Ancient History of India
Even the most revered Hindu astronomers who were experts in astrology – Varāhamihira and Bhaskaracharya, did not propose any medical remedies based on astrology in their elaborate works on astronomy.
Based on astrology, Varāhamihira predicted the death of his country’s prince at a very young age. He not only gave the precise date and time of death but also gave the cause for the death as a varaha (boar). Despite the king taking all possible measures to protect his son the imminent death falls on the price at the precise time and the cause of the death was also as predicted by Varāhamihira.
Though Bhaskaracharya’s astrological calculations predicted his own daughter Lilavathi’s misfortune due to not marrying her off at the right time, he could not control it even with his best efforts.
• Medieval times
Medical Astronomy was a popular subject during medieval times in the West (mainly in Greece, England, and few other European countries). Medical Astrology could be considered as a subspecialty of Greek Medicine. The ancient Egyptians, however, had their Astro-medical science in Jatromathematics.
Most of the published books or even manuscripts available today in the area of medical astrology are from Europe and Greece; we can hardly count in fingers the number of books of Indian origin in this field.
“A Physician without a knowledge of astrology has no right to call himself a physician.” – Hippocrates
“It is more important to know what soft of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.” – Hippocrates
Medical Astrology was very popular in Europe in the medieval period. It took 3 to 4 centuries to become popular as a book genre in India. Indian authors started focusing on this area in the 21st century only.
Carefully picking together with the sutras/mantras that are addressing health matters from large Jyotisha books, so that they make some meaning and appear to be a separate subject by itself the magic behind the so-called Vedic medical astrology. The actual medical knowledge of the Vedic period is rooted in the subjects like Ayurveda, (Therapeutic) Yoga, and Vaastu, not in astrology. Astrology and Ayurveda are inseparable in human life. Even the medicinal herbs were collected and used at appropriate times for their efficacy.
Astrological Medicine: Performing medical procedures at a selected point of time when the stars and the planets are in favourable positions for the patient. Examples are: (a) In anticipation of a marvelous birth chart for the newborn, people are choosing a date and time to take out the child from the mother’s womb through a caesarian section. (b) Similarly, patients are choosing an auspicious date and time for performing major surgery on them so that the surgery will be successful. (c) visiting the doctor at certain auspicious times or avoiding doctor’s visits on certain bad days of the week.
Part 2:
Having explored some background of medical astrology subject, now let us dive into the actual content of Dr. Deepak Singla’s book on this theme.
In the introduction part of the book, the author has mentioned that “… the practical knowledge of Medical Astrology, which I have gained till date through my deep study and research …”. But he did not mention which books he had studied, how many case studies he did before arriving at these results.
The author, having conducted deep study and research, would have given some statistical data to support the content he has presented here. He hardly gave one example from the life of Amitabh Bachchan.
Had he included, in his deep study and research, how much percentage of cases were in agreement and how much percentage of cases were not in agreement with the medical astronomy points he had studied or proposed by him here?
Author from his research has claimed that “… one can always by exercising strong will and preventive remedial measures override even the strong probabilities.” While from the Puranas, stories of Markandeya and Savitri and Satyavan support this idea; Varāhamihira and Bhaskaracharya – Lilavathi stories from ancient Indian history stand as counterexamples.
Anubandha chatustayam (Vishaya, Sambandha, Prayojana, Adhikari) details are missing.
• The disclaimer found in the initial pages of the book indicates that this book is directly for the patients themselves but not for the healers.
• However, this book is not a ready- t-o use cookbook. Need basic and little advanced knowledge of astrology to understand and interpret some terminology and tables given in the book. Not every patient will have the required knowledge to use this book successfully.
• Also, by no means this small 138-page book gives complete knowledge about medical astronomy. For someone to have a better grasp of the subject or start practicing more knowledge is required. No bibliography, no references for further reading are given.
What is presented in this book is not Vedic Astrology!
• Section 2 of the book is fully dependent on the zodiac sign in which the Sun is present at the time of birth. The Sun moves from one zodiac sign to another once in 30 days. But Vedic astrology has got a lot of dependence on Lunar sings (which changes once in every 2.5 days) and Rising sign (ascendant or Lagna– the zodiac sign that was rising the eastern horizon at the time of birth).
Only Western astrology solely depends on Sun zodiac signs.
Aries – (Mar. 21 – April 19),
Taurus – (April 20 – May 20),
Gemini – (May 21 – June 21), …
• In Indian history, Varāhamihira (505 – 587 CE) is the one who understood and introduced the zodiac signs, predictive calculations for auspicious ceremonies, and astrological computations.
Origin of Gemology?
No evidence of using gemstones for their healing powers is found in Puranas. Varāhamihira’s Brihat Samhita has dedicated five chapters to Gemology. To achieve good outcomes for people in each of the four varnas (Kshatriyas, Brahmins, Vaniks, and Sudras) different gemstones have been recommended in Varāhamihira’s Brihat Samhita. No recommendations have been given based on individuals’ birth charts to counter the bad effects in their lives. Bhaskaracharya also did not talk about the medical purposes of gemstones in his Siddhānta Śiromaṇi.
Part 3
Around 400 CE, the faith in the magic forces of gemstones and their medicinal properties attracted people in Greece.
Let me present few things, in my opinion, the author could have included for making this book a versatile one.
• There are some areas like Vaastu Shastra & Nimitta Shastra (Omens) that have been left out of the preview of this book for the present.
• Nakshatra padas are not mentioned since they are not taken into consideration in Western astrology.
Some more …
• Effects of eclipses, transits, and occultations
• Any precautions the young couples should take when they are getting ready to have babies for the children to have the best of health
• Performing Homas for better health
• Any precautions the expecting mothers should take
• Effects of wife, children, etc. through marriage on the health of individuals
Part 4
Overall, this is just one more book among the dozens of books available in the market on the subject of Medical Astronomy. Copy editing of the book’s content could be improved. A very simple book with not enough information on any topic – Neither a technical reference book for the practicing astrologers nor a primer on Medical Astrology for the layman: just touched upon gemstones, rudrakshas; one arbitrary real-life example about Amitabh Bachchan’s injury during Coolie movie production time. To prove a hypothesis is correct, one needs to prove all possible cases of the proposition. On the contrary, to prove a theory is wrong, just one negative example is enough. Thus, the Amitabh Bachchan’s accident incident mentioned in the book is not enough to prove that Medical Astrology is not a pseudo-science.
Of course, no published book in the market is comprehensive enough. More detailed writings in the form of question and answer are waiting in the manuscript form in the Sanskrit language. Someone needs to bring them to light.