The language that led me to astrology
Reading in the original, not in translation
It was my degree in Languages and Literature that led me to Sanskrit, and it was while studying the language that Vedic astrology appeared. Not as a new subject: I was already inside it without knowing, because the texts I used to practise reading were the core texts of jyotiṣa.
I began reading in the original and translating verse by verse the Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra, attributed to Parāśara and considered the root of Vedic astrology; the Bṛhat Jātaka, by Varāhamihira, from the 6th century; the Sārāvalī, by Kalyāṇavarman; and the Phaladīpikā, by Mantreśvara.
Translating changes what you understand. A verse that becomes a catchphrase in Portuguese is usually a technical instruction in the original. That is why everything here is connected: the way I teach yoga, the way I read a chart and the way I teach the language all come from the same place.
Sanskrit is a carefully constructed language. Every sound has its place in the mouth, and Pāṇini's grammar described this in around four thousand rules, in the 4th century before the common era, a thousand-odd years before anyone in Europe wrote a similar grammar.
Learn more
I write about the language, about the texts and about what turns up in translation. It is free, it arrives by email and it is also where I announce new classes.
Sign me upIn-person workshop, made to happen inside a yoga space.
- Philosophical context from yoga to tantra
- The names of the postures and what each one means
- Mantras in transliteration and pronunciation without stumbling
- How to bring this into your class
The alphabet from the start: the order of the sounds and why it is that way, how to write it by hand, how to transliterate it, how to pronounce it and how to read it. We practise with mantras and with the names of the nine planets and the twelve signs of jyotiṣa. You come out reading and writing devanāgarī.
The natural next step for anyone who already reads the alphabet: cases, verbs, sandhi, compounds and the logic of the grammar of Pāṇini, the grammarian who described Sanskrit in around four thousand rules. The course leads to reading, verse by verse and in the original, texts of Kashmir Shaivism such as the Vijñāna Bhairava, with 112 practices of attention, and the Śiva Sūtra, aphorisms on consciousness. This is where the language stops being sound and becomes meaning.