Decoding Zodiac

Decoding Zodiac

[00:00:00] Fiona Marques:

[00:00:00] Introduction and Welcome

[00:00:00] Fiona Marques: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Vedic Astrology Podcast. My name is Fiona Marques.

Today's episode is a treasure trove

 because have you ever longed to know if the star signs hold deeper secrets beyond daily horoscopes. Are you in search of a guide and a handbook that is not only unraveling the complexities of Vedic Astrology, but also showcases Vedic Astrology's practical application through real life case studies.

If so, your search ends here because today I would like to welcome the author of the seminal work "Decoding Zodiac with Vedic Astrology", Pratyush Bhattacharya,

Thank you for having me here.

Now "Decoding Zodiac with Vedic Astrology" possesses the power to transform your understanding of the zodiac signs, elevating them from prosaic, over popularized caricatures into logically categorized, profound archetypes. There's a reason why at "The Asheville Vedic Astrology Apprenticeship Program" we start right here with Rasis and Signs, because these archetypes can be systematically decoded to unveil their true role in unfolding our karma.

And people like Pratyush and my teacher, Ryan Kurczak, are bringing these Rasi's out of the shadows of Vedic Astrology and back into the major role that they deserve in chart interpretation. 

 During our discussion today, if at any time you find yourself grappling with the breadth of this book's content, please feel know that the full transcript is available on Buzzsprout or on my website at fionamarques.com/ TheVedicAstrologyPodcast. And if you prefer to follow it visually with the subtitles, it's also available on YouTube and you can get that from my website too. 

Pratyush, having you here is a privilege. 

[00:02:01] Contents and Origins of "Decoding Zodiac with Vedic Astrology"

[00:02:01] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Maybe a good place to start. Can you tell us a little bit about what inspired you to write this book?

I started with Astrology back in 2007. I scoured the internet for resources, information. It was there, but what was not there was knowledge. Nothing was structured. It was many fantastic pieces of information just floating around. For the first 6-7 years of my learning journey, that's what I struggled with. Then I found Ernst Willhelm. And started learning with him who helped me to a great extent to organize what I knew and add a lot more to what I already knew and therefore make the first, I would say, holistic system in my mind that I could apply in a replicable manner to chart reading.

 That's the key thing for me. It has to be replicable to be called scientific. 

It must be replicable.

[00:03:02] Fiona Marques: Yeah, same in "The Apprenticeship", where I learned Astrology is "What are those things that are replicable?" Now, this nearly 1000 page masterwork "Decoding Zodiac with Vedic Astrology" unfolds in three pivotal sections.

First, a deep dive into the vast knowledge and content of Vedic Astrology, viewed through the lens of the Zodiac Signs, also known as Rasi's. Then, it's an exhaustive handbook detailing every planet and Rasi interaction, even including a special section on the Nodes. And finally, this work takes on a focus of how to apply this knowledge with an array of detailed case studies and several suggested methods to harness this extensive wisdom within these pages and apply them in real life. 

[00:03:56] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Such a generous introduction for my book. I'm genuinely excited to be here.

[00:04:01] Fiona Marques: And in your preface you beautifully articulate the unique position that you're in to write this book because your childhood is a great combination of the mystical and the mundane.

[00:04:15] Pratyush Bhattacharya: My father was a palmist. He used to read palms for a living, and he did that for more than 40 years. So I grew up watching him consult with people, helping them with their problems. And so this dealing with Grahas and Rasis and all astrological terminologies was very day to day affair for me. I did not even know that this wasn't usual until I grew up and started, meeting with other people outside my family boundaries. So before I knew the multiplication tables, I knew the names of the Rasis, the Grahas, and the Houses.

 That's so weird, but I'm glad it was that way. I wouldn't have it any other way.

[00:04:59] Fiona Marques: But then did you also dabble in sciences?

[00:05:04] Pratyush Bhattacharya: That's true. Because one thing about my family's knowledge bothered me is that it wasn't methodical enough. It wasn't replicable enough. That this method works, and this method doesn't work, and I don't know when something may work or may not work. That uncertainty really bothered me. There are many experts in my family who are all very competent mystics in their own right, but they relied on the mystical quality of mysticism a little too much. Their way was that unless you have some internal gift going on, you can't do it right. Now that didn't settle well with me because I wanted this subject to become popularized. I wanted everybody to have access to it. And that could only be possible if it was teachable. And in order for it to become teachable, it must not rely on being gifted. 

At least a basic level of efficiency one should be able to achieve in this just by learning, just by using their grit and wit. Gift is of course important in every field. That differentiates between the good and the best. One should at least be able to become good by following structured methods laid out for them.

[00:06:22] 12 Archetypal Complexes we call Rasis or Zodiac Signs

[00:06:22] Fiona Marques: This reminds meof masculine and feminine and east and west. 

[00:06:29] Pratyush Bhattacharya: This core idea of masculine and feminine is probably one of the most common thing associated with mysticism.

And in the East, in Sanskrit, we use the words Purusha and Prakriti for that. 

 The most fundamental archetypes are the Purusha and Prakriti, that masculine and the feminine. These are about surviving in times of scarcity and surviving in times of abundance.

All archetypes are skills we evolved through our course of existence on Earth. Those who could not evolve, they didn't survive. Those who evolved got to reproduce and pass on their cultural inheritance.

[00:07:11] Fiona Marques: You're saying that archetypes are a little bit like genes, that the cultures that were able to survive were also able to pass on their archetypes. 

[00:07:19] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Yes. In the sense that these qualities can be developed by individuals and then transmitted to the next generation through nurturing, not by nature, because genes are transmitted by nature. Archetypal qualities, which we call our customs, are transmitted through nurturing. So in that sense, it is like genes because it contains conceptual, very abstract knowledge that helped the previous generation survive in their own circumstances. 

So in astrology, everything we study is an archetype. In fact, archetypal complexes. The Rasi's are archetypal complexes of 16 key archetypes. 

 But the most fundamental archetypes are the Purusha and Prakriti that masculine and the feminine. These are about surviving in times of scarcity and surviving in times of abundance. 

[00:08:14] Fiona Marques: And the feminine is what helps us survive in times of abundance.

[00:08:19] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Now, that might sound counterintuitive because we think scarcity is the enemy of survival, right? Things get scarce. We die. Why would abundance require specific skills to survive in it? The truth is this abundance is the end of growth. You want to grow until you become abundant. Abundance means saturation.

What do you do when all of your tasks are taken care of? It may feel very intriguing to be in that state, but you won't like that state for a long time. If we just take a vacation from your work and stay in vacation for six months, you would want to go back to work. Now vacation will start to feel like imprisonment.

That's when abundance starts to get you. You have to know how to use abundance to expand yourself. That's the job of abundance. The way you survive in abundance is by using it to continuously push yourself to explore the unknown. That's why you'll see that the moment the culture becomes abundant financially, they start exploring science and art to an extensive degree.

That's what keeps it going on.

[00:09:34] Fiona Marques: And that abundance allows you to explore within; the world within the self. 

[00:09:40] Pratyush Bhattacharya: It creates the possibility of doing so.

The problem appears in the form that if you are too used to living in scarcity, you'll be too scared to explore your internal world. So you wouldn't even know when you have achieved abundance and when you are supposed to switch from exploring and controlling the external world and doing the same in the internal world. That's where the struggle begins.

[00:10:06] Fiona Marques: Wow. Fantastic. I'm aware that we have an enormous book that I want to share generously with our listeners. 

[00:10:12] How Rasis, Grahas and Houses work together

[00:10:14] Fiona Marques: Tell me a little bit about how you think astrologers or astrology enthusiasts, benefit from understanding the Rasis more deeply?

[00:10:23] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Let me begin with the distinction between the Grahas, Rasis, and Houses. So this is one of the things that has grabbed my attention for a long time, since my beginning days of learning astrology, is that the distinction was never mentioned clearly anywhere.

 For instance, let's say,some person has a relationship problem. They're not doing well in relationship. Is it a problem of Venus? Is it a problem of Libra? Or is it a problem of the 7th House?

[00:10:54] Fiona Marques: I think this is every young astrologer's moment. You've got your gold star from your teacher, or you've read your books, you've done your YouTube videos, however it is that you've achieved your competence. And then you get the charts and this exact question comes up.

[00:11:09] Pratyush Bhattacharya: So I realized that in order to differentiate the utilities of the Grahas, Rasis, and Houses, I need to go back to the classics, specifically to Parashara's Brihat Parashari Hora Shastra. Parashara has written extensively on the Grahas. And in the first chapter of the Grahas, he opens the chapter with something very significant. That Grahas are conscious entities, and Rasis are their limbs. 

[00:11:42] Fiona Marques: I felt there was something in there, because I felt like it was using a model to tell us how these two things should fit into the overall approach towards reading a chart.

[00:11:52] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Grahas being conscious indicates what we need in order to survive and thrive. Because as conscious beings we have needs. And these needs arise from the very fact that we are conscious. If you lie in a comatose state, we don't have any needs anymore. 

It's our consciousness that creates the needs. It tells us, "What do I need next in order to keep on surviving and thriving?" Therefore, these are the generators or representers of needs of survival as a human being on Earth.

The 7 Grahas are 7 distinct needs. These needs are so basic. Everybody, every moment perceives all these needs. Everything we do in life are driven by these needs.

And the Rasis, the limbs are repositories of skills. Why do I say so? Because if you imagine that the consciousness is about the mind, which decides what we need, it's the body that has to act in order to fulfill those needs. 

Now you may need right now a cup of coffee, but do you have the skills to make it? That's the question, right? So the Rasis are skills. which enables you to fulfill a specific need produced by a specific Graha.

So Grahas are needs, Rasis are skills.

And this reconciles the notion that certain Rasis are ruled by certain Grahas. Sowhen we say that Sun rules Leo, what I think in my mind is that In order to fulfill the need of the Sun, you must be able to implement the skills of Leo. 

That gives us a very nice model of looking at the interconnection between the Grahas and the Rasis.

The 12 Rasis are therefore 12 categories of skills which humans being developed over the course of evolution. We use these 12 skills all the time in order to fulfill the 7 needs. 

Why do I say 7? Because I do not want to include the lunar Nodes in this picture. 

Why? Because I don't rule any Rasis. 

There must have something different going on, which is really profound, not in the scope right now. 

Since in my model, Grahas are needs, Rasis are skills. Where does the Houses fit in? They are given a different utility. If you think about it, let's say you take the picture of the sky at any given moment and cast a horoscope. All are Grahas in Rasis. Depending on your location on Earth, there will be an ascendant, which will determine the Houses. That means the Grahas and Rasis and their placements are about time. They're valid for the entire 

Earth in a given instant of time. They do not encapsulate the location, the space. Which is about the Houses. So, the Houses literally captures your POV, your point of view of the space. It's where you are looking at towards space. So it's your perspective towards what's happening in your life. 

So the existential reality that every person experiences are the interactions between the Grahas and the Rasis. That holds true when they're born at that moment for the entire world. 

But because of the location they're born in, they're experiencing it from a very unique perspective, which generates the Houses. It's your perspective. It's your personal way of experiencing what has been happening in a global scale. In this case, in a solar system scale. 

So I like to call the Houses as motivations. This is your personal motives of doing something. 

So to put these things in perspective, let's just take one example, which integrates a Graha, a Rasi, and a House together. We go back to our initial example of the relationship issue, Venus, 7th House, and Libra. Let's take a random ascendant. Let's say there's a person who was born with a Gemini ascendant. That tells us that the 12 Houses are mapped to the 12 Rasis in a very unique way. Which is unique for him, at least for the two hours duration when he was born in this place. 

Now considering the whole sign system right now, because we can use many House systems to do this, but all of those things have the same connotation underneath. So for simplicity, we're going with the whole sign systems as of this moment.

So this person's 7th House falls in Sagittarius. That in and of itself has a profound meaning. It means this person's definition of the 7th House is the embodiment of the skills of Sagittarius. What I mean by this is each House being a unique motivation is produced by two archetypal components, the Purushartha and the Guna. Every House has a Purushartha and a Guna. It's like the name and the surname. The Purushartha is the name, the Guna is the surname. 

The 7th has a Purushartha called Kama. And its Guna is called Rajas. So it's Rajas Kama. Rajas means what I want to exchange with others. Kama means what I want specifically in return for what I'm offering.

The sixth House is Rajas Artha. This is where I offer something to my partner, hoping they would give me an equivalent return. The 7th shows us what I want in return.

So a Gemini ascendant person, because Sagittarius is mapped to the 7th House, they want Sagittarius in return from their partnerships. It doesn't matter what partnership it is, they want Sagittarius in return.

So that brings in the question, what is the skills of Sagittarius? It's the skill of understanding life deeply, and then acting according to your highest beliefs. Which is produced from that understanding. In simple terms, we can say Sagittarius is a skill of living a life of faith.

So Gemini Ascendant person, they want from their partner to give them faith. Because Gemini Ascendant their first House is mapped to the Gemini Rasi they are driven by information. They can gather too much information and not being able to organize them so that they can see the pattern in them and therefore find purpose. So they want their partner, which is the 7th, to give them that sense of purpose.

Now, Jupiter is not in a great shape. That means they keep choosing partners who cannot give them purpose. It's the selection modality, the way they filter out partners is not working well enough. So that answers the significance of the 7th House, in this case Sagittarius, and the lord of the 7th Rasi.

But where does Venus, which you all know has to do with relationships, and Libra fits in?

Let's start with Libra. Being the 7th Rasi, Libra indicates what it takes to form and sustain a productive transactional relationship on Earth as a human being. This is your base needs. If you do not have Libra skills, it doesn't matter what your 7th House says. Libra is the base need. Then the 7th House, are the additional needs that you have because of your ascendant. Imagine Libra as pizza, but the topping you choose is your 7th House. So unless the pizza base is solid enough, your cheese is good enough. It doesn't matter what toppings you choose. That's how it fits in. 

If you don't have a well placed Venus, which I like to call resonant Venus, (I use the word resonance here because the Graha has to resonate with the Rasi it's in with). You do not know how to implement the skills of Libra well enough. Therefore, the fundamental skills of relationship, which includes negotiating peacefully, and getting what you want without exploiting the partner. That's the skill of Libra. If you don't have that, it doesn't matter what you want from them. They're not going to give it to you in the long run. Your relationships won't be sustainable.

With this picture in mind, when somebody asks me "My relationships are not working. What's the problem?" But I know where to look at. I'm going to start with the basics. First, we'll check the pizza bread. I'm going to look at Venus.

Is your dough good enough? It's not, and I'm not even going to look at the toppings. I say this is where your Venus is, which means you're trying to fulfill the needs of Venus using the skills of the Rasi it's sitting in. Because that's what the Rasi dough is by default. And that is not resonant with the needs of Venus. You need to change your strategy of fulfilling your needs from your partners. That will improve your dough. You will figure out how to adjust with your partner. Get your needs filled in a better way. That's the basis. 

If that part works out, if I see the person has a reasonably good Venus, reasonably good Libra, then I go to the 7th Rasi.

If Sagittarius is not in good shape, I'll tell them you're hoping to have faith in a partner. You want a partner who can give you faith and purpose in life, but you are not willing to let them do it when they want to do it. See Jupiter rules hearing, right? It's your ability to listen. If your Jupiter is not well placed, you are not capable of listening to words that are not being explicitly said. You will listen to what is being said and not what is being communicated. You need to work on your communication skills.

So it's a very different way of looking at the chart. But it's structured, it's layered, it's replicable.

[00:23:00] Fiona Marques: You've talked us through a whole case study now of how to break down this valuable information and apply it. Let's backtrack to fill in some of the richness of the book here 

[00:23:11] 16 Concepts that make up each Rasi Archetypal Complex

[00:23:11] Fiona Marques: There's what I consider to be an introductory portion of the book where you share the archetypes and how each component builds on its interacts with itself. So we have 16 elements, components that make up these archetypes and in the book you go through and discuss the rationale of each of these components, and then how it applies to each zodiac sign, so that this picture just gets richer and deeper. Let's talk about some of 

these 16?

[00:23:48] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Name your favorite Rasi. We're going to work with that.

[00:23:51] Fiona Marques: I was going to say, let's have a look at Pisces today, because

we've got plenty of planets in Pisces as we sit here to record this. And I also feel that we always start at Aries. By the time we get to Pisces, all of our neurons are completely used up. So let's bless Pisces with our first and bright attention.

[00:24:10] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Let's talk about the foundational archetypes that I typically use when I look at a Rasi. 

So the very first thing I look at is the gender. Is it masculine or feminine? What that tells us is the skill supposed to be used by your body to manipulate the external world, or is it supposed to be used by my mind to manipulate my internal world? Okay. So, Pisces being ruled by Jupiter means it's designed to fulfill the needs of Jupiter.

Think of it this way. Jupiter is a very foundational need. It's the need to have understanding of life. Without a good Jupiter, what happens is Life feels like a series of disconnected events, which has no pattern in it, and it may become very difficult to live that way. Because we don't realize this thing, we try to simulate the future every given moment. If we can't do that, we do not have an element of hope. Without a Jupiter, the future is dark and uncertain. Because we do not have the ability to extract patterns from our past incidents and project it into the future. Which is what we call hope.

The Rasi's of Jupiter, you can think of them as guidebooks written by Jupiter for us. That if you do this things, then you will be able to extrapolate patterns from the past and project hope in the future. So Jupiter wrote the book, and the book has two parts. One is Sagittarius, and the other is Pisces. It begins in Pisces. Obviously, the feminine comes first. Because Pisces ultimately tells you the mindset you need to be in to be able to understand life as it goes on, to be able to connect different pieces of life and have an interdisciplinary view of life as it unfolds.

And then Sagittarius enables you to find your way in that map of meaning you constructed. So in a very basic way, you can think of it this way. Pisces is our skill set to design a map of meaning of our life. And Sagittarius is our compass. It guides us to navigate that map. And it's embedded in the very symbol of Sagittarius. That arrow pointing towards the star is literally pointing towards the pole star. It's a compass. 

So let's come back to Pisces. Let's talk about gender. It's feminine. That means this is about developing a mind space. A particular mindset in this context. Each of the 16 archetypes are qualities you can cultivate within yourself. To enter the Pisces mindset and become an embodiment of it. What do you get in return? You get a map of meaning of your life. Nothing in your life will feel like coincidence if you can become a perfect embodiment of Pisces. Everything fits together. Everything becomes providence. 

Now, beyond gender, what else do we have? The very next thing I look at is the modality of the Rasi. There are three modalities. The official names are Fixed, Movable, and Dual. Now I changed it around a little bit because that makes more sense to me because these names are already translations from Sanskrit. So I didn't find it that much of a crime to re translate them as I saw fit. So I did that. I beg everybody's pardon for that if it's too confusing. I like to use the word Dynamic for Rasis that are Movable, Static for the Rasis that are Fixed, and I kept the Dual as Dual. In fact, I like to use the word Adaptive that I think is much more useful for us. It's more suggestive at what it does. 

Rasis that are Dynamic are designed to bring change to a system. Whatever's happening right now, it's supposed to upset the equilibrium by bringing in new influences. Static Rasis are designed to stabilize a system. When the new things are introduced, there's a phase of integrating the new with the old so that things become restabilized. That's the job of the Static Rasis. That's a skill they bring to the table. The Dual Rasis are very interesting. They observe the Static and the Dynamic Rasis and learn how to do their job in a better way in the next iteration. They're about updating the quality and strategy of implementation of the Static and Dynamic Rasis.

[00:29:05] Fiona Marques: The process improvement team.

[00:29:07] Pratyush Bhattacharya: It's iterative improvement thing.

Yeah, that's very true. So now there are four Dual Rasis, Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. It's so interesting and intriguing that these four Rasis are ruled by Mercury and Jupiter, which are all about learning. That means being able to update your skills is what we define as learning in Astrology.

And Pisces is about learning better how to understand the world. It's about updating your map of meaning. It's not about just forming a map of meaning. It about keeping updating it. Each time I learn a new concept that I find is a valid one, I must be able to integrate that concept with my existing map of concepts. Which will send a ripple down the entire map and alter it. Pisces is the ability to do that alteration.

Why is it so important? Why is it a Dual thing? Because if you cannot integrate new concepts into your existing way of understanding something, then very quickly you fall behind. Your way of looking at the world becomes dogmatic. So that's the very important skill Pisces brings to the table. It's about constantly updating your way of looking at the world. 

And you can sense that this is already a very internal process. Which tells us why it's feminine. Why it tells you at first, be feminine, go inside you. And then you do that. You can't do this in action. It has to be done in perception.

[00:30:47] Fiona Marques: It's very interesting that you share that Pratyush, because I asked you about Pisces because we know that by transit, we have a lot of planets moving through Pisces right now. And I have really noticed in my clients and people just in my life, everybody feeling a bit more sleepy or heavy or kind of, like a lot is going, a lot is going on internally. And there's not as much energy to extrovert and to be out in the world. So it's just very interesting that you share that people are maybe doing a lot of integration right now.

[00:31:24] Pratyush Bhattacharya: They are.

[00:31:24] Fiona Marques: There is certainly a lot going on in the world that we need to integrate integrate and understand, and that's what these transits help us to do.

 So we've looked at a couple of the 16 but let's talk about a few others as well. 

[00:31:37] Pratyush Bhattacharya: The third thing I will look at is the Guna of the Rasi. The Guna concept is not that familiar in the West. I do not know why, but it's such an important thing. The Guna captures exactly why we need to use the Rasi. In the context of personal, interpersonal, and global.

Pisces is a 

Satva Rasi, S A T V A, Satva.

It means, if you can embody the skills of Pisces, you become capable of contributing something to the world.

The Tamas Rasis are about ensuring your safety and survival. The Rajas is about exchange and enjoying what other people bring to the table. This is transactional. Sattva is about giving back. Once your needs are fulfilled, you give back because there is nothing else for you to do.

Pisces is a Sattva Rasi. It's about giving back. So what it tells me is this, if you just use these three Archetypal constructs here. The Pisces is a Feminine Dual, Sattva Rasi. Which means it needs you to go into the mode of internal contemplation (Feminine), to update your map of meaning (Dual), which will enable you to give back to the world (Sattva).

[00:33:07] Fiona Marques: It's been so instructive to have you share an example about Pisces. And I want to underline that in the book, Pratyush goes through every single one of these 16. Sometimes they combine them together. It make sense to explain them together. But every one of these 16 particular categories or archetypes that make up our understanding of what you're calling abilities in that area, Pratyush shares in the book the thought process. So if you work that way, you can read this book and understand how to think about the zodiac signs in this very logical, replicable, categorized, table kind of way. So that is all there in the book. 

But let's say that's overwhelming. You can just open up to the "Sun in Pisces". Or you can open the page to where it says "Saturn in Pisces" or any combination of any planet in any Rasi, this handbook "Decoding the Zodiac" is going to give you paragraphs about how the Sun interacts with those 16 categories that we just described as Pisces or how Saturn interacts. 

[00:34:21] Pratyush Bhattacharya: I like this word you use, interact. It's so important to, understand. They're interacting.

[00:34:25] Fiona Marques: And that's why this book is immediately useful. The very first section that we've just been describing goes through the thought process of understanding the differentiation of the 16 components 

 but if that's all overwhelming, you haven't quite got with it yet, you, the moment you buy this book, you can start using it today because Pratyush has pre digested, you've done that contemplation and thinking and put together your thoughts. And in that section, you explain the reasoning of why the Sun is more supported here or less supported there, or why Mars or any planet that you pick.

And then also in that section, you very generously then talk about the Nodes. You explain all about how they're constructed, what effect they're going to have. So that middle third of the book is immediately accessible. You can start using it today to read charts. To bring the Rasi wisdom back into your chart reading.

But while I have Pratyush here, I want to talk about the final third of the book, because this is where you take those two sections, and you apply them to real live case studies where you go through sign by sign, planet by planet, and demonstrate how this methodology can be implemented. 

And also in that section, you suggest a few other ways that Astrologers or Astrology enthusiasts can begin to really embody this knowledge.

Tell me a little bit about the suggestions you make, either the story approach or the Astrology 24/7.

[00:36:13] Pratyush Bhattacharya: These are my favorite topics because I do this thing all day. 

[00:36:16] Applying Zodiacal Archetypal Complexes to Myths, Epics and Art

[00:36:16] Pratyush Bhattacharya: So let's start with the story approach. Archetypes are fundamental stories. These are our stories. And when a fictional character becomes suddenly popular, say, I don't know, Harry Potter, Darth Vader, Superman, Batman. It's no coincidence. People who write stories are super smart people. They know archetypes very, very well. They know exactly how to embody them, craft them together in a package, and then present it to us. And that's why you'll see that, especially in comic book stories, most stories are just reenactments of deep mythological stories that has been existing in that culture for millennia. It's just a retelling of the story. And mythologies survive by retelling. They need to be reinvented for every generation. So I think we can use powerful culture, ritual of the human civilization itself to help us understand which archetypes resonates with us. So in many ways, some of us might be Batman in our own life. Maybe part of us, are Superman. And it's true, what Superman does, it extracts that quality and makes it an ideal abstract manifestation. It makes it eternal and puts it beyond time and space. 

But if you bring it to time and space, it fragments and becomes components of your own personality's makeup. For instance, a very deep quality of Superman is that he comes from an alien planet. He's not of Earth. He's not welcome here. Who has not faced this feeling that I'm not welcome here? I'm an odd one out. So in that way, you are Superman. A very tiny fragment of Superman is there within you. It connects you to the archetype of Superman. 

But then again, Superman is the kind of person who is very sweet, generous, and keeps giving back to the world. He sacrifices his own life, own happiness. He doesn't care what the world says about him, he doesn't care about criticism. He just knows that "Because of my power, I have great responsibility". You have felt that way, at least in some context of your life, where you're willingly sacrificed for people who care about knowing you won't be getting anything in return. You are a Superman in the time.

So in this context, if you are this kind of a person who is going through a phase in life, where maybe you are giving back something to people, but not getting enough in return. If you encounter a Superman story at that time in life, you'll resonate to it strongly. You'll see yourself in that mirror, in that image.

This is why fictional characters that resonate with you, encapsulates the stories you are living right now. It's so important to look into them and use as a mirror, as a probe to look into yourself, into your own subconscious. So when you like a song, a piece of art, don't take it casually. It's your own mind telling you this is who you are right now. Decode it. Apply the archetypes of the Astrological structures, which are discussed in the book, to figure out how this particular piece of work, piece of fiction, maps to the Astrological reality. Because that's the middle ground. 

Here's the archetypal structure, the fictional character. It maps to the astrological framework. And here's you. The framework maps back to you. So if you can map it to the middle ground, you can map it to yourself.

Like for instance, the Superman archetype, it's just a retelling of the story of Jesus. He does all the things Jesus does: alien birth, which is coming from the gods, the divine, immaculate conception is essentially alien birth. It's an unnatural way of being conceived. Then Superman also dies. In fact, all the major movies, he has to die before he comes back and then kills the villain. Which is also something that happens to Harry Potter. Same story. Humans must die in order to be seen as divine incarnation. Which is why Jesus has to be killed and resurrected.

The core idea is this, that the Sun may set, but what makes it Solar is that it always comes back. That the darkest night is just a prelude to the brightest day. These are all manifestations of the Sun archetype. 

So if you can resonate with Superman, you know that deep down you're resonating with your Sun. You should go back to look at your chart and see what Sun is doing in the chart. It tells you, you need to pay more attention to that. That part needs more unpacking, need more healing to do.

So that's the story approach I like to offer to people because I think it's mostly useful for children. As a parent, if you find your child struggling, look at the drawings, look at what they talk about, look at the toys they like. Map them back to the archetypes of the Rasis, the Grahas and the Houses. That will tell you what they're going through. This can be invaluable information as a parent to help you guide your parenting strategies.

[00:41:46] Fiona Marques: So being unconscious or not paying attention allows the natal chart to operate at its baseline. But if we can bring our attention to what we're attracted to in art, music, stories, theater, reading books, even if we're a little bit sleepy or unconscious to it, something inside of ourself is saying, "This is important!" And then we can use our attention, commit to a process of analyzing the story in terms of this framework of archetypes that you've outlined, which will allow us to wake up to the potential of improving the Sun in our birth chart or improving whichever planet it was that we've identified.

And through that awareness and being awake. are you outlining for us a way to improve our experience in life?

[00:42:46] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Absolutely true. That's a very nice way of putting it. Let me expand on that a bit. It's that even though everybody has a face, we see every face except our own. Unless there is a mirror. things are mirrors. Things you resonate with reflects back to us who we are. And we should take that seriously. Because it's very important to know who we are. It's a favor being done to us. 

And I think that's why artists are really important. I think this is a true importance of artists. They create mirrors for us. It's an invaluable service they offer. It's not something superfluous. It's art is not about enjoyment. It's not about just beautification. It's about developing mirrors for everybody. And the better the artist, they can create such a mirror where everybody can see at least some part of themselves reflected back.

[00:43:47] Fiona Marques: Wonderful. So I encourage everybody to also consult the end of the book to find out how to apply these things, both through case studies through, we just talked about the story method and there's also astrology 24 7, 

As we talk about these three sections, I'm just realizing that, in a way they follow that "Dynamic", "Stabilizing" and "Process Improvement" that you were talking about. That the first part of the book introduces us all of these new ideas to us. The second part of the book really stabilizes, just lock them into place. Then the third part is ...

[00:44:20] Pratyush Bhattacharya: iterative improvement by implementation.

[00:44:22] Fiona Marques: for us, the reader to, to do that process improvement in our own life. So, there's just a wealth of support here in this book for you. If you're interested in Vedic Astrology, if you're interested in the Zodiac signs and you're interested in how ancient wisdom can be used right now in daily life, this is a great resource to go to.

[00:44:46] Learnings and Next Projects

[00:44:46] Fiona Marques: Tell me, as we wind up, Pratyush, what is it that you yourself learned through this, what must have been an enormous process to, to write this book? How has this changed you as a person?

[00:45:01] Pratyush Bhattacharya: It's too much to talk about really, no? Because the first and the most profound thing I learned is that did not know enough. I was genuinely under equipped to attempt a project of this scale. But as I went into it, I realized I'm not going to give up. At worst, I'll end up with something I need to throw to the trash can, which I'm okay with. I told myself this is a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

So I did that. And I, and that did happen. The book that you see right now was originally more than 1200 pages. I threw over 700 pages. So to keep the core part of it. And that's one thing. 

The second is that my clarity of application of the concepts genuinely improved. It's one thing to read a chart to a client, to a student and go through it. It's a whole another thing to write a structured analysis of a horoscope for a book that's going to be there in the internet for posterity. It's a whole new level of challenge. And there are 15 of this case studies, which are all done in a very rigorous in depth manner. These are supposed to be models of analysis for students. So I had to live up to that standard because for the very first moment I wanted to write a textbook of astrology. That's how it's designed. Here's the concepts, here's the examples, here's the applications, here's the, even the exercise in the end, this 24 7 stuff, these are exercises for the student.

So in the process, I learned a lot from myself. I learned what I did not know. That's the best thing I could hope to learn from any project. So yeah, I said that's certainly helped me.

[00:46:49] Fiona Marques: And what are you working on now?

[00:46:52] Pratyush Bhattacharya: When I started writing the first book, it was very clear to me that I will not be able to encapsulate Grahas, Rasis, and Houses in a single book. And I also realized that Rasis and Grahas are at a certain level of competence. Houses are like, it's a quantum jump between the complexity levels of these two things.

So the first book is designed for serious beginners. These are not for tourists, but for explorers. You come in, you explore, and you master, you find your way around the chart.

You can think this is more of study of the time based part of the horoscope. Because the Grahas and Rasis are created by time. 

The second book focuses exhaustively on the Houses. How do you integrate the Grahas, the Rasis with the Houses? And it follows the same formula of the first book. It gives the concepts, first the Astronomy of it, the Math part of it, then the Astrology of it. Then the applications of it. And then examples of it. That's the second book going on.

And one thing, this has happened almost spontaneously is that the Lunar Nodes have been capturing my attention more and more. Each time I sit down to write about it, I can write another chapter. They always feel like that. Because it's an endless, abyss of wisdom. I use the word abyss in a very specific context here, because it's dark, it represents a subconscious.

I planned to write one chapter in the first book. Ended up writing two, because it's too much. 

In the second book, the same happened. I planned to write one. Now I'm writing the third chapter in it, about the Nodes. I could write more. It's so important. That's how the second book's journey is going.

It will focus significantly on application and integration of Houses, Rasis, and Grahas in a holistic model.

[00:48:48] Fiona Marques: Great Pratyush. And how can people interact with you.

[00:48:53] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Right now I don't have that much of a media outreach because I'm really busy writing the books. Once I finish this book I'll start a youtube channel and form and website and to reach out to people. I have plans for that. Right now, I do offer private classes. And people can reach out to me through my email which is in the book, 

 they can reach out to me through Facebook. I'm there. It's available. Very soon, I'll be developing infrastructures to interact with people in a much more reliable way.

[00:49:23] Fiona Marques: As I share this book with our listeners, that seems the logical extension. So I'm very happy to hear that is coming in the future. Pratyush, 

 is there anything else that you would like to add.

[00:49:36] Pratyush Bhattacharya:

[00:49:36] The Importance of Scope in Predictive Astrology

[00:49:36] Pratyush Bhattacharya: I think one of the key things that people need to put their mind on before entering the field of Astrology is to ask themselves, what is the scope of the subject? It's such an important thing to consider ourselves. 

Because if you consider the mystical aspect of it, we may feel like it can answer every question out there. It cannot. It has its very distinct limitations. One core limitation is that astrology answers only questions that are existentially valid. Like for instance, if you ask "What's my profession, how do I earn my money?" I can tell you in great details what the skills, archetypal skills you employ in your workplace to make your money. But unless I know about your culture, the time you live in, I cannot filter it down to an actual real life existing job. 

So that is not a deficiency in the subject. It's by design. If you solve a mathematical problem, it may end up giving you an infinite number of solutions. That does not mean that it's wrong. All of those are right. Like for example, if I say simply SinX=0, how many solutions are literally infinite number of solutions?

Each of them are right. But unless you specify me the domain of X, I cannot give you specific solutions. 

That is something we need to keep in mind before trying to predict whatever is asked from us. Because it's very easy to beat ourselves up as Astrologers, because we cannot predict this. But we should actually ask ourselves, is it a fault of our predictive model, or that the question lies outside the scope of the subject. It eases the burden on ourselves. There's too much burden to begin with. It eases that. That's something I can offer to everybody. That it's not all on yourself. The questions need to be framed in a way that it should be answerable. 

[00:51:48] Fiona Marques: Thank you for easing the burden of Astrologers everywhere. As we sometimes feel, we should be able to predict everything. 

[00:51:56] Farewell

[00:51:56] Fiona Marques: I'm filled to overflowing with our conversation. 

[00:51:59] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Thank you for having me. It's a fantastic discussion. 

[00:52:02] Fiona Marques: I'm looking forward to having you back on the Vedic Astrology Podcast, hopefully very soon to talk more about Rasis, more about Grahas and at some point about Bhavas. 

Exactly. Yeah. It's been just a joy. Thanks so much for being here and thanks everybody for listening. I look forward to being with you next time on the Vedic Astrology Podcast. Thanks everyone. Bye.

[00:52:26] Pratyush Bhattacharya: Bye.

[00:52:27] Fiona Marques: Bye.