Tibetan Astrology

A Tibetan-Mongolian horoscope reveals possible courses one’s life can take due to karma and thus indicates that no course is inevitable. Everything that happens arises dependently on innumerable causes and circumstances and what one does contributes to the course of one’s life.

Overview of the three waves of Buddhism reaching Mongolia from Central Asia and then Tibet, the subsequent exploitation of Buddhism by the Manchus, its suppression under the communist regime and the initial efforts at its revival.

An extensive glossary of Tibetan-English astro terms not found in most dictionaries.

The astro sciences of calendar-making, astronomy, astrology, and mathematics touch many aspects of Tibetan life. These sciences play a significant role in the Tibetan medical tradition.

An overview of the history of astrology in China and India, how they came to and developed in Tibet and, from there, to Mongolia and Central Asia.

A comparison of the Kalachakra, Hindu and Chinese New Years as well as the Chinese and Kalachakra systems of seasons. Although the Tibetan element-animal assignment system may be reminiscent of the Chinese, yet on closer examination there are significant differences.

Ten heavenly bodies are treated in the Kalachakra system, all of which are called “planets.” A common feature with the ancient Greek and Hindu systems is the naming of the days of the week after the planets.

Buddhism regards time as a nonstatic phenomenon, an interval on an individual mental continuum between the experiences of two sequential events.

The Buddhist abhidharma and Kalachakra literatures provide two distinct presentations of cosmology, each for a different purpose.

The Bon system of astrology was amalgamated with the Chinese astro materials that first came to Tibet in the mid-7th century. In the 11th century, with the introduction of the “Kalachakra Tantra” from India, its astro traditions were added as well to make the unique blend of...