GAYATRI DEVI VASUDEVA...WORLD'S BEST WOMAN ASTROLOGER

I had parted company with Dr. Raman after my strong differences with him over his ayanamsha. This could have been avoided.

A long letter I had written to Gayatri Devi Vasudeva after the death of. Raman in 1998 was never acknowledged and answered. She told me that she never received it.

In October 2010, when I met Gayatri at Vishakhapatnam in a world astrology conference sponsored by the spiritual guru, Shivananda Murthy garu, an old affection I have for her, she having become something of a very talented niece of mine, was revived. She was as usual very well mannered, courteous, respectful and dignified. She spoke brilliantly with graphic illustration in the conference.

She is now editing Modern Astrology, a monthly magazine she said and some strange melancholy crept inside me. Astrological Magazine was world’s best and best known astrological magazine of the world. It gave opportunity to so many writers to enrich the richest astrological tradition of the world, which is Indian. It gave opportunity to writers like me, new to writing on astrology (though I had written enough both in Hindi and English for thirty years before writing for the Astrological Magazine). Once Dr. Raman wrote to me that he wanted to publish my articles continuously which he did.

In Vishakhapatnam, I was moved when the great Madhura Krishnamurthy Shastri, the Sanskrit scholar and great researcher in astrology, paid a rich tribute in Telugu, to Dr. Raman recalling how he had put Indian astrology on the world stage and created so many writers some of whom are famous now nationally and internationally.

In 1985, when I was posted as Accountant General, Orissa, an office with many problems, Dr. Raman had written to me a letter that he had decided to entrust the responsibility of the Astrological Magazine to his daughter, Gayatri. I was not surprised as Gayatri had by then contributed many fine articles to the Astrological Magazine, unlike the other children of Dr. Raman who contributed once in a while and not on astrology. Dr. Raman had said that he had put the “burden of the Astrological Magazine on the young shoulders of Gayatri”. It did not surprise me as she had proven her astrological ability for more than six years by then. Her name started appearing on the Astrological Magazine since then as joint editor with Dr.Raman remaining as the editor. The further promise Dr. Raman took from me was that I would contribute articles as regularly as I had done till then.

I knew that Gayatri was working hard to keep up the excellence of the Astrological Magazine as all the requests for articles through letters and telephone calls came from Gayatri since 1985 and never from Dr. Raman.

We had heard Dr. Raman speak many times with his slightly indistinct accent speeches which some Indians even could not understand. Many American friends told me that they had found it difficult to understand when Dr. Raman delivered speeches.

In 1983, when I first heard   Gayatri speak at Bangalore, I told Dr. Raman that his daughter was a better speaker than he was because of a very distinct, clear and reasonably slow tempo of her speaking. I heard again in San Francisco in 1994 in the ACVA conference, now as a more mature and experience astrologer speaking with incisive astrological logic. It was then that I got her horoscope and saw the connection of the ninth and tenth houses the promise of carrying on the legacy of her father.

Better still in Jaimini where her Amatyakaraka connected with the tenth lord aspects her ninth house. (I have not taken her permission reveal her horoscope.)

I continued writing very regularly for the Astrological Magazine till 1990 after which I had more time, since I had retired, to write books. But by then, Gayatri had blossomed out as a mature editor, though still a joint editor.

I had examined Dr. Raman’s horoscope in 1985 to see why he had taken that decision. In Vimshottari dasha it was the dasha of Mercury the fifth lord for this purpose and the antardasha of Jupiter second and eleventh lord in the tenth house. From Mercury, Jupiter the fifth lord aspects the tenth house from Simha. Astrologically it was the right decision to be taken and Dr. Raman must have seen it astrologically also, I presumed, after examining the horoscope of Gayatri among all his children.

I was very happy, in a very subjective way, as I learnt my astrology from my mother and if Gayatri learnt from her father, it was a happy father daughter heritage as in my case it is mother son heritage. When a father or a guru or a teacher hands over his heritage to his children, disciples or shishyas, there will generally be the planetary connection between the fifth and ninth houses and/ or lords with the tenth house and its lord coming into this combination also sometimes.

In the case of shisya who inherits the heritage of his guru, the ninth house and/or its lord will get connected with the lagna or the tenth house and/or its lord. If the fifth, ninth and eleventh lords and houses form this combination, there will be many students or shishyas as in my case.

AK Moon, Amk Sun, BK Mars, MK Mercury, PK Jupiter, GK Saturn, DK Venus

See it in the case of Rama Krishna Paramhamsa where the fifth lord Mercury is the lagna aspected by Jupiter the eleventh lord showing that he passed on his heritage not to one but many disciples. In Vivekananda’s horoscope the ninth lord is in his lagna, Dhanu.

 In the case of Anandmoyee Ma the lagna and the tenth lord, exalted Jupiter goes into the fifth house while the fifth lord, Moon   into the ninth house and receives the aspect of the lagna lord. Many people do not know that Ma Anandmoyee has many great siddha disciples whose grace and miracles are known only to some people in close circles.

Yogi Harbhajan has his fifth and tenth lord Mercury and Mars (his lagna is Kumbha) conjoined and aspected by Jupiter, the eleventh lord showing many of his disciples, including his two sons carrying on his legacy.

In the case of Dr. Raman it is rare combination of the fifth, ninth and tenth lords combined in the seventh house showing many of his children, and many of his unknown disciples who picked up astrology reading his books, carrying on his tradition. Among them all, Dr. Raman lives through his famous daughter, the best known woman astrologer of the world. I rate her as the best woman astrologer of the world.

From Jaimini point of view, Dr. Raman took the decision in 1985 to entrust the responsibility to Gayatri in the Chara dasha of Meena from where the Putrakarka falls in the ninth house and aspects the fifth house where the Amatyakaraka is placed.

Gayatri continued as the joint editor of the Astrological Magazine till 1998 when Dr. Raman died and became its editor and continued in that position till 2007 or later when the AM closed down. She has the enviable record of editing, predicting and writing for the Astrological Magazine for twenty two years which is far longer than the editorship of an astrological magazine by anyone other than Dr. Raman and Hardeo Sharmaji among those known to me.

I was sorry when I heard that the Astrological Magazine closed down. I am happy now that the worthy daughter of Dr. Raman is carrying on her father’s tradition through Modern Astrology now.

Gayatri is the worthy daughter of a worthy father and let us wish, for the sake of astrology and in memory of Dr. Raman, her to succeed in shaping into a great editor and of course astrologer for a great tradition to continue. Remember, without Dr. Raman’s pioneering services, Hindu astrology would not have been on the world stage in so convincing, dominating and unchallenged way. Her daughter is now carrying on the great tradition, the only historically provable parampara in the world traceable from the last decades of the nineteenth century. There is no other Jyotish parampara   which can be proven to exist historically.                    .

(29 November 2010)