Astrology is perhaps the most ancient subject and also in a way the most tabooed. It is the most ancient because as far back as we have been able to investigate the history of mankind, astrology has been in existence. Astrological inscriptions have been found on bone remnants from the Sumerian civilization which existed twenty-five thousand years before Jesus. Bone remnants have been discovered with astrological inscriptions and with an outline of the moon’s orbit in the sky.
But in India this science is even older. In the Rigveda, reference is made to a certain constellation of the stars which could only have occurred ninety-five thousand years ago. Because of this, Lokmanya Tilak concluded that the Vedas must certainly be even more ancient: the constellation of the stars as the Vedas described it could only have occurred at a certain moment ninety-five thousand years ago, so that particular vedic reference must be at least ninety-five thousand years old.
That particular vedic reference could not have been added at a later period. Other, younger generations would not have been able to work out a constellation that existed many years before. But now we have scientific methods which we can use to discover where the stars were at a particular moment in the distant past.
The deepest laws of astrology were first discovered in India. In fact it was only because of astrology that mathematics was born. To make astrological calculations, first mathematics was needed.
The digits used in arithmetic were invented in India — the numbers one to ten which exist in all the world’s languages are basically Indian in origin. And throughout the world the decimal system has been accepted: the decimal system was born in India, and it slowly spread throughout the entire world. When you say “nine” in English, it is only a modification of the Sanskrit word nav. When you say “eight” in English, it is only a modification of the Sanskrit word acht. The numerals one to nine, prevalent in all the world’s languages, came into existence only because of the influence of Indian astrology.
The first knowledge about the existence of astrology reached the Sumerian civilization from India. Six thousand years before Jesus, the Sumerians were the first to open the doors of astrology to the Western world. The Sumerians laid the foundation for the scientific study of the constellation. They constructed a gigantic tower, seven hundred feet tall, and from that tower Sumerian priests used to observe the sky twenty-four hours a day. Sumerian metaphysicians soon learned that whatever happens to mankind is somehow ultimately connected with the stars — they are the source.
Six thousand years before Jesus, it was the view in Sumeria that whenever illness occurs, whenever epidemics are born, the stars are somehow connected. These days there is a scientific basis for this view. And those who understand the science of astrology today say it was the Sumerians who began the history of mankind.