From education to marriage, from career to travel, there is very little that Indians do not decide on the basis of their horoscopes; if you do not decide, then horoscopes and predictions based on it are a great influence on people’s actions. Therefore, it is imperative to understand what a horoscope is and how it is done. Also called birth chart or natal chart, it is a diagram or astral chart that represents the position of the planets, the sun, the moon, etc. in sensitive moments of a person’s life, mainly birth. Although this is the technical definition, in common language it generally refers to the predictions that an astrologer makes based on said astrological chart about the future of the person. It is an ancient phenomenon that finds mention not only in the Atharva-Veda (which describes the science behind this graph), but as part of the story in various epics such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Such was the central role of a horoscope in Vedic India that the painful married life and eventual separation of Ram and Sita in the Ramayana is explained by the combination of the 36 weapons (the optimum number being between 19 and 35 out of a total of 36). 36). of them), that is, the root of the story is in the natal chart.

The question remains whether horoscopes are scientific or not. Not much modern research has been devoted to proving the veracity of the claims that astrologers base on natal charts. Most commentators and even practitioners cannot say anything about the accuracy of the predictions and the presence of a large number of fraudulent experts undermines the credibility of the limited number of experts who actually practice this science with the correct approach. Tests carried out under controlled conditions have failed to establish any correlation between the position of the stars in time and space and the behavior of a person. Also based on the Barnum effect, it is possible to construct personality descriptions that are generic enough to fit and satisfy a large group at the same time. This effect comes from psychological testing, plus it casts a shadow of doubt on all the pseudoscience of horoscopes and astrological predictions.

Most people today have a hard time reconciling this historical importance of birth charts with the shadow of doubt that the advent of modern science has cast over their legitimacy. Despite this, predictive art is good business. Most of the TV channels air morning and brunch shows where caller problems are solved based on their graph. Columns with a similar bottom line are not hard to find in newspapers and magazines. World famous personalities like Dr. Rupa Batra and KN Rao have emerged solely due to this predictive science.

The main components of a graph are:

1. NATIVE: person in question

2. CELESTIAL SPHERE: sphere of imaginary projection of the zodiac, planets and constellations

3. PLANE OF THE ECUADOR: The equator of the Earth projected in space

4. PLANE OF THE ECLIPTIC: orbits of the sun and the earth, taken at an inclination of 23.5 degrees with respect to the equator

5. PLANE OF THE HORIZON: tangential to the earth at the point where it is centered on the native; this is to simplify the geometry of the graph

These complications in construction make gaining experience in chart-based astrological predictions a very difficult task. And as discussed, the credibility of the experience is also in question. In any case, predictions based on horoscopes are here to stay. With all the uncertainty that humans face in life, a crutch is required to know the future and what better than our own natal charts to do it!