Astrology in India: A Sociological Inquiry

195 Pages·2021·5.944 MB·English

by  Nupurnima Yadav

ASTROLOGY IN INDIA
This book critically examines the larger world of astrology in India, its ubiquity
and relationship with religion, caste, gender, class and aspirations.
It looks at astrology through an empirical and phenomenological lens, ana-
lyzing different meanings and questions associated with it. How do people see
astrology—as magic, science, religion, or a knowledge system? The volume anal-
yses the role of astrology in religious and social ceremonies; the interplay of faith
and fear; beliefs, practices, mysticism, and scepticism in middle-class households;
and gendered negotiations in everyday life. It also delves into how astrology has
emerged as a livelihood and an industry, the continued fascination with it even
in an era of technological advancement, and its domination of the vernacular
media.
Insightful and highly comprehensive, this book will be useful for scholars and
researchers of sociology, political sociology, social anthropology, anthropology,
cultural studies, gender studies and urban Sociology.
Nupurnima Yadav did her PhD from the Centre for the Study of Social Sys-
tems, Jawaharlal Nehru University. She is currently working as an Assistant Profes-
sor in the Department of Sociology at Sri Venkateswara College. Her publications
include her recent co-edited book Sociology of India 2021, Creative Destruction
and Enterprising Economy, in the (eds) Crisis of Social Transformation in India 2015,
Fearsome goddess Seetala and Faithful Communities, Nidan: International Journal for
the Study of Hinduism.

ASTROLOGY IN INDIA
A Sociological Inquiry
Nupurnima Yadav
First published 2022
by Routledge
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© 2022 Nupurnima Yadav
The right of Nupurnima Yadav to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978-0-367-53064-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-55391-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-09329-9 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003093299
Typeset in Bembo
by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.
Dedicated to my beloved father
CONTENTS
List of figures vii
List of tables viii
Foreword ix
Acknowledgements xii
Glossary xiii
1 Introduction 1
2 Astrology and fluid boundaries of the field 22
3 Understanding the system of astrology 41
4 Words of the practitioners: Astrologers and operational astrology 65
5 Middle class households: Beliefs, practices, and refutation 93
6 Mediated astrology through religious conventions
and technology 118
7 Conclusion 144
Bibliography 157
Annexures 173
Index 177
FIGURES
2.1 Regional representation of believers versus non-believers in
Delhi and NCR 33
3.1 Representation of believers in astrology 59
4.1 Representation of a total number of participants versus
non-believers who consulted astrologers 67
4.2 Representation of men and women believers who visited
astrologers 78
5.1 Representation of men and women believers 101
5.2 Representation of women and men non-believers 110
TABLES
1.1 Occupational profile of the participants 17
2.1 Different moon signs and their constituents 27
2.2 Description of focused group discussions 27
3.1 Elucidation of twelve houses of a kundli and their significance 62
4.1 Planets and their specialisation 82
2A.1 Number of believers versus non-believers 173
3A.1 Number of believers in astrology 173
4A.1 Number of total participants and non-believers who visited
astrologers 173
4A.2 Number of men and women believers who visited astrologers 174
5A.1 Number of men and women believers 174
5A.2 Number of men and women non-believers 174
FOREWORD
Sociologists and social anthropologists in India have often focused on the role
of the Hindu religion, its beliefs and practices and functions in diverse commu-
nities. The pantheon of deities, cosmological beliefs, constellations, nature and
culture interface and body and cosmos relationships are the staple of understand-
ing how Indian lives are structured. These also inform the agential aspects of
everyday practices. The existence of so-called non-western ways of knowing the
world, natural, human and supernatural entailed in epistemologies, understood
as “non-scientific”, call for systematic exploration of the knowledge systems.
Their utilization in social lives of communities is an empirical question to be
examined by social scientists. Astrology is often considered by rationalists as
occult science, illogical with little scientific evidence with dubious predictive
value. For its practitioners and consumers, however, it remains real, logical, and
very important to understand how in local cosmic configurations, humans are
entangled? Its instrumentality and in which ways it could help find solutions to
queries, sufferings and crises of life are often seen as useful and even essential in
certain life situations. Astrology as a knowledge system invokes mystical beliefs,
magical practices and assumed logic to deal with existential questions and help
find solutions. In recent times, the overt government support to “Indian tradi-
tions, beliefs and practices” has helped reduce the orthodoxies and often justified
astrology and other epistemologies especially related to health and well-being as
important assets.
Though understood as an ancient system, astrology today has emerged a very
useful resource, widely used by middle-class Indians. In recent years, uncer-
tainties about life and a desire to control nature and destiny might be propelling
its wide-scale consumption. Sociologists and Social anthropologists have, how-
ever, not paid sufficient attention to this phenomenon. Understood as a tradi-
tional, scripture-based knowledge and practice, in recent years, it has taken new