Hi everyone. My name is Ajit and I recently joined this Jyotish learning community. I feel blessed to have found Ernst's teachings and hope to build a solid foundation in Jyotish through his guidance and the feedback/input of others in this community.
I have a very basic question. Can anyone point me to a good visual or video resource that shows the Tropical Zodiac from our point of view on Earth? I can visualize the ecliptic from Ernst's description of local space, as that circular belt going around the earth (through which the sun and other planets move) at a particular angle to the prime vertical. However, I'm not sure how someone would make sense of this from their position in local space, and I'm also not sure how someone would make all these calculations to understand what portion of the sky is rising at a certain time. I can see how in a Sidereal system the marker stars (constellations) can be used to delineate space, but don't know how ancient peoples (or even a layperson today) would actually understand that the sun is appearing, from our point of view, in different portions of the sky with each passing day.
I have seen many visuals of the "cross" - i.e., the vertical movement from solstice to solstice and the horizontal as the two equinox points. In this example, the vertical movement is obvious if you live north or south of the equator, but I don't understand the horizontal axis, as I would think that the equinox point is just one point, with either the sun moving upwards from it at tropical Aries and moving down from it in tropical Libra.
Also, what about people living right on the equator? How would the sun's motion, viewed tropically, be discerned? And to complicate things, what about if you lived in, say, Chile or Australia? The solstices are inverted from the northern hemisphere - would the symbology of the zodiac still hold? Would the movement of the sun and the other planets through the signs still make sense?
Ok, I realize I've asked a few questions here! I'm sure I'm not the first to ask them. But if anyone can kindly explain some of these basics to me and/or point me in the direction of other learning resources, I would greatly appreciate that. Thanks in advance.
Hi, welcome.
My interest in astrology and Ernst's teachings got started on this topic too. It is one of my favorites.
I'm not entirely sure that I understood all of your questions, so I'll just include some thoughts here, and let others chime in. Or if you ask other questions then maybe I'll have a better understanding of what you want to know.
One of the best ways that I have learned this is through Stellarium, which is a free planetarium software available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
I've been considering making a video showing beginners how to use Stellarium, so maybe I'll be motivated to do that soon.
That is an especially good way to see the rising sign. The rising sign is determined by the intersection of the horizon and the prime vertical/equator/ecliptic at the east point (depending on the house system you are using -- Ernst uses Campanus, so for that it is the prime vertical), so in Stellarium you can have it draw the horizon and prime vertical and/or equator and then you can just look.
When you say you "don't know how ancient peoples (or even a layperson today) would actually understand that the sun is appearing, from our point of view, in different portions of the sky with each passing day," I say that I don't know this either and would love to hear someone else's answer.
As to people living on the equator or in the summer hemisphere, the solstices are not actually inverted. It is confusing because we usually say "summer solstice" for the north, which is "winter solstice" in the south. But summer and winter have to do with the our location. Astronomically the solstice actually has to do with the position of the sun, not with the season.
The summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and the winter solstice in the southern both happen when the Sun is at the its point most north of the equator. We should really call this the "northern solstice". Likewise, the inverse should really be called the "southern solstice", because the Sun is south most of the equator; this is true in both hemispheres. Even if you live on the equator, the Sun is only "directly overhead" on the equinoxes, otherwise it is still north or south of the equator.
Thus, the symbology does not change because the symbology is not based on seasons, it is based on the position and movement of the Sun, which is the same for all places on Earth, even though it appears differently in different places, due to the Earth's tilt.
You can check out this article I wrote on this topic; it includes photos from Stellarium.
So there's a lot of words but I'm not sure if there are a lot of answers to your questions.
Thanks, Josh! I appreciate the detailed answer. Yes, this is definitely helpful to me. Thanks for the article link - I have looked at it and it has answered some of my questions.