Before prediction comes calculation.
Siddhant Jyotish is the mathematical astronomy of India, the part of Jyotish you can check. Here is what it computes, what physicists actually said about Indian philosophy, and what research on mantra and meditation does and doesn't show.
What Siddhant Jyotish computes.
The positions of the grahas, the timing of eclipses and the turning of the calendar. These are things anyone can check, and they are where every student begins.
- 0° Ujjain was India's prime meridian
- Classical Indian astronomers measured longitude from the meridian of Ujjain, the city where Acharya ji trained.
- 3 Jyotish has three branches
- Siddhanta (astronomy and calculation), Samhita (cycles) and Hora (the birth chart). Siddhanta comes first.
- 72 yrs Ayanamsa tracks precession
- Earth's axis drifts about one degree every 72 years. Sidereal Jyotish corrects for it; modern astronomy measures the same precession.
- 1720s Ujjain's Vedh Shala
- Sawai Jai Singh II's masonry observatory still stands in Ujjain today.
Quantum physics and Indian philosophy: the honest version
You may have heard that quantum physics proves astrology. It doesn't. What is true is more interesting: the physicists who built quantum mechanics read Indian philosophy, and said so.
1929Heisenberg visits Tagore
Two years after the uncertainty principle, Werner Heisenberg spent time with Rabindranath Tagore. He later told Fritjof Capra the talks made quantum physics feel less strange.
1944Schrödinger and Vedanta
Erwin Schrödinger studied the Upanishads for decades and wrote about Vedanta's single consciousness. His equation came from physics; his philosophy from India.
Source: W. Moore, A Life of Erwin Schrödinger (1994)
1954Oppenheimer on Hindu thought
J. Robert Oppenheimer, who read the Gita in Sanskrit, said the questions atomic physics raised had long held a central place in Hindu and Buddhist thought.
Source: Science and the Common Understanding (1954)
What quantum theory does say
- At the atomic scale, measuring a system changes what you can know about it.
- Particles that interacted keep correlated properties at any distance.
- Reality is probabilistic at its smallest scale.
What it does not say
- It offers no mechanism by which planets shape a person's life.
- Entanglement cannot carry intentions, healing or energy between people.
- It is not medicine. Quantum healing claims have no scientific support, and we don't make them.
What research shows, and what it doesn't
| Study | What it shows | What it does not show | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mantra and heart rhythm | Recited mantra slowed breathing to about six breaths a minute and raised baroreflex sensitivity. | Effects specific to any one mantra. | BMJ, 2001 |
| Meditation programmes | Across 47 trials, moderate evidence of reduced anxiety and depression. | Spiritual or supernatural effects. | JAMA Internal Medicine, 2014 |
| Lunar cycle and sleep | Sleep onset shifted later in the nights before a full moon. | The Moon determining events. | Science Advances, 2021 |