Is astrology credible?

A new study says young Britons have started believing in horoscopes like never before, writes Pavan K Varma.

A recent survey reported in newspapers last week revealed that the young in Britain have begun to believe in horoscopes like never before. Three thousand people were polled, and two-thirds of them said that they believe horoscopes are true. Significantly, only one-third believed the Bible to be true.

I don’t know how I would react if I am asked: do you believe in astrology? One part of me, the side committed to rationality and the scientific spirit and to ‘modernism’ would be quick to say ‘Of course not’. But another part would prompt a more ambivalent response. There are limits to rationalism, especially if that rationalism is defined by the limits of what we can understand and comprehend. There is so much in the world that is not fully or even adequately explained through the prism of mechanical rationality. 

If we are willing to believe, as religion prompts us to do, that birth and death and the period in between is part of a grand cosmic scheme, then we are already making a quantum jump of faith that goes beyond the known perimeters of rationality. Besides, for so much that is known and verifiable, so much is not - and perhaps can never be - fully known. Why are we born? Why do we die? Why are some people luckier than others? What is the role of chance in our lives? How much is predetermined, and how much is subject to change due to our individual efforts? 

The notion that a planet millions of light years away can influence our lives seems unbelievable. Yet because the human mind, from the vantage point of what it knows today, finds that difficult to believe should not be a reason to dismiss the possibility all together. If someone was to be told only 50 years ago that an instrument not bigger than one’s palm could beam a signal from anywhere in the world and make you talk instantly to someone thousands of miles away, the response would be one of disbelief. But it happens routinely today.

Astronomy and astrology are very ancient pursuits in India. The bedrock of their study was mathematics. Indian astronomers and mathematicians such as Aryabhata I (5th century), Brahmagupta (6th century) and Bhaskara (12th century) made groundbreaking contributions to the development and elaboration of mathematical concepts. The Bhrigu Samhita, a treatise on astrology first written in Vedic times, compiles at least 5,00,000 horoscopes, and claims to have an infinite number of records of people and the events in their lives. On the basis of this database, 45 million horoscopes can be permuted.