Vedic & Celtic Astrology

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Vedic & Celtic Astrology

excerps from Peter Berresford Ellis

 

In all histories of western astrology there is a curious omission. There

are no references to early Irish, nor - indeed - ancient Celtic,

astrological practices. In fact, the only serious scholarly study on Celtic

astrology was published in a French academic journal in 1902. [1]

<mhtml:mid://00000063/#Note1> This dissertation, in the light of modem

research, is open to debate.

 

The major reason for this neglect of the subject, at least during the

last fifty years, has undoubtedly been the insidious influence of Robert

Graves' The White Goddess (1949). This book has done singular disservice to

those who seek to study the realities of Celtic cosmology and, especially,

the practice of astrology. Graves was not a Celtic scholar. His highly

imaginative inventions of the so-called 'tree calendar' and 'tree zodiac'

inspired an outpouring of books purporting to be on 'Celtic astrology'.

Graves and his acolytes have, unfortunately, seized the popular imagination

but their 'tree zodiac' has nothing at all to do with the realities of the

ancient Celtic world.

 

Greek and Latin writers show clearly that the Celts were not only advanced

in astronomy but that they were respected, especially by the Greeks, for

their 'speculations from the stars'. Even the Romans, from Caesar to Pliny,

paid tribute to their astronomy. One of the first to note that the ancient

Celts believed the world to be round (not flat) was Martial (c. AD 40-103/4)

who, himself, claimed Celtic ancestry.

 

The famous 1st Century BC Coligny Calendar, once thought to be the most

extensive document in a Celtic language but now surpassed by other

fascinating discoveries, has been dated to its original computation, by its

astronomical observations and calculations. This highly sophisticated lunar

and solar predictor was, according to the leading Celtic scholar, Dr Garrett

Olmsted, first constructed in 1100 BC. [2] <mhtml:mid://00000063/#Note2> It

is important to note that the concepts of the calendar find parallels in

Vedic cosmology.

 

To turn to the position in Ireland, the evidence shows that the Irish,

like the rest of the Celtic world, were also highly advanced in astronomical

observation, particularly in the construction of calendars.

 

The constellation of Leo was known as An Corran, which means a reaping

hook. Next time you look at Leo note the sequence of brighter stars rising

above Regulus in the shape of a back-to-front question mark'?' which

consequently resembles a sickle. Mars was called An Cosnaighe or 'the

defender'. Venus was identified by at least three or four ancient names, as

was Mercury. These survive in modem Manx; The Pole Star was An Gaelin - the

beam that lights the way home. The Galaxy or Milky Way was called Bealach na

Bo Finne (the way of the white cow). Of the sun and moon we have a

surprisingly extensive vocabulary in Old Irish. There are five names for the

sun and six for the moon, all native concepts.

 

Aries became An Rea or Reithe, a translation of ram (aries = Latin for ram

and so on); thus the constellation of Cancer was known as An Portán, the

crab. There being no concept of lion in Old Irish the word used for Leo here

was Cú - a large hound; while Virgo was Oighbhean, a young girl; Capricorn

became Pocán, the goat; Sagittarius was An Saighead, an archer or soldier,

and so on.

 

We can perceive areas where the native and imported concepts ran side by

side for Orion was named An Selgaire Mhór (The Great Hunter) but the Belt of

Orion was called Buaile an Bhodaigh (enclosure or belt or the enlightened).

 

Indeed, in Old Irish there were at least seven words for an astrologer.

Rollagedagh (one who gains knowledge from the stars), fisatóir (one who

gains knowledge from the heavens) - still found in Manx fysseree as a word

for philosopher; eastrolach (one who gains knowledge from the moon), fathach

(one steeped in prophecy) and n éladoir (one who divinates from the sky),

and réalt-eolach (one versed in astrology) and réaltóir. To be pedantic,

néladoir is argued as meaning a 'cloud diviner' but it is glossed in a 14th

Century manuscript as 'astrologer' as are all these terms.

 

In the Brehon Laws we find that astronomers/astrologers had to be

qualified. The degree of foirceadlaidhe was a degree of the fifth order of

wisdom, in which one had to prove their knowledge of astronomy and

astrology. The earliest word for a horoscope in Irish occurs as

nemindithibh, noted by Dr Whitley Stokes in the Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus.

Nem = heavens/sky while nemgnacht means a studying of the heavens, perhaps

our earliest word for astrology. Indithem is an act of consideration.

 

For overwhelming proof that predictive astrology was practiced in

ancient Ireland one only has to turn to the innumerable references in Irish

mythological texts and what are rather disparagingly referred to as 'pseudo'

histories, that is stories of early Irish history which fall in the

scholastic mind in the grey areas between mythology and history. Stories are

full of references of birth charts drawn up by Druids and also Christian

religious. In one text attributed to the 7th Century is there a question

asked of Cillin, which disproves the theory of some critics that the ancient

Irish merely look for omens in the clouds. Dénamh me an leársgáil na

realtai. Cen uair rathciuil agam?' ("Make me a map of the stars. What hour

will be auspicious for me?") Now the term leársgáil na realtai, a chart or

map of the stars, makes it clear what is wanted - a horoscope.

 

Most important is the statement given by Felim Bocht Ó hUigiunn in the

14th Century: 'bi uair ag an impidhe na reaht-eolais '-there is always a

correct moment to ask a question from the stars (or to gain star knowledge).

Any modem horary astrologer will tell you that much.

 

There is an 8th Century Irish poem which endorses the idea that the

ancient Irish did not begin work on building houses until a right moment to

start had been assessed by an astrologer. One verse says:

 

I have heard there was a house building In Tuaim Inbhir

Nor is there a house more auspicious with its stars with its sun and its

moon

 

To come to our most important question: it is pertinent to ask whether

anything can be salvaged of the earliest Irish astrological traditions

before the introduction of the Greco-Latin forms? It is still early days to

make definite pronouncements but initial researches indicate that the

ancient Irish, and, indeed, the ancient Celts, were practicing a predictive

form of astrology which paralleled the early Hindu forms, that which we now

called Vedic astrology. In other words, a study of linguistic concepts and

early cosmological motifs and calendrical philosophies of both Celtic

(inclusive of Old Irish) and Sanskrit/Vedic cultures give a path back to the

common Indo-European roots of our cultures,

 

This is not at all surprising. Most readers will be aware of the

Indo-European hypothesis and know that, of all the European cultures,

Ireland has preserved more links with the Hindu branch of the Indo-European

culture than any other western European people. The links between ancient

Irish culture and Sanskrit/Vedic culture have been commented on by scholars

since the 19th Century. As early as 1815 Adolphe Pictet had pointed out the

links in De l'affinite des langues celtiques avec le Sanscrit. Professor

Myles Dillon (1900-1972) was one of the leading pioneers in this fascinating

field of study, showing the commons points in mythology, in social custom

and, importantly in law. There are many points of reference in the Law of

the Sénechus or, as it is popularly known these days, the Brehon laws and

Hindu Laws. [13] <mhtml:mid://00000063/#Note13> But the common link of

language is obvious.

 

As Dr Calvert Watkins of Harvard University has pointed out: the Celtic

languages, most clearly Old Irish, represent an extraordinarily archaic and

conservative linguistic tradition within the Indo-European tradition.... The

classical Old Irish nominal and verbal system of the eighth century of the

Christian era is a far truer reflection of the state of affairs in

Indo-European than is the Latin system of more than a thousand years before.

In the syntactic domain of word order, the structure of the archaic Old

Irish sentence can be compared only with that of the sentence in Vedic

Sanskrit or the Hittite of the Old Kingdom.' [14]

<mhtml:mid://00000063/#Note14>

 

As early as 1895 Dr Heinrich Zimmer had observed corresponding

cosmological perceptions in the earliest surviving Celtic calendar, that of

Coligny, and Vedic cosmology. The final word confirming this appears to be

Dr Olmsted's detailed analysis of the calendar. [15]

<mhtml:mid://00000063/#Note15>

 

The idea that these 'signposts' might lead to the fact that ancient

Celtic astrology and Vedic astrology also had a common link, another

surviving parallel, was thrown into sharp relief by a small gloss on a 9th

Century Irish manuscript at Wurzburg. The word budh was glossed by 'point of

fire' and 'planet Mercury'. Certainly Cormac's 10th Century Glossary (an

early Irish dictionary) explains that budh/bott' means 'Aine's fire', Aine

was an Irish deity, thought to be a moon goddess, although she appears in a

male form as well as female. If budh was a name for Mercury then it places

us close to the Vedic ball game.

 

 

 

Boudi and the stem budh appear in all the Celtic languages. It means - all

victorious, gift of teaching, accomplished, exulted, virtue and so forth. In

Breton today, for example, boud means 'to be'. You will see the stem in the

name Bouddica, more commonly referred to in English as Boadicea, the Celtic

warrior queen of the Iceni who led an uprising against Roman rule in 60 AD

The important thing is that the word occurs in Sanskrit and Buddha is the

past participle of the stem budh, to know or enlightened. This is the title

given to Sakyamuni Gautama - the Enlightened One. What is important is that

in the Vedas the planet Mercury is also known as budh.

 

Can the Celtic branch of Indo-European and the Sanskrit branch of

Indo-European both retain this same concept? What other common concepts do

the Celts and the Vedas have in common when observing the night sky? I

believe that this research will eventually point the way to the earliest

forms of Celtic astronomy and astrology. The Old Irish name for the month of

July, incidentally, was Boidhmis (month of Boidh). Orion's Belt, as

previously mentioned, was BuaiIe an Bhodaigh. And Budh na Saoghal was a term

for 'world knowledge'.

 

But, as I stress, it is early days as yet. The research is ongoing and I

am well aware that my good friend, Professor Gearóid Mac Eoin is currently

is inclined to believe that budh in Irish is only a 'ghost word', an element

deriving from bith 'world, life' often given as findbudh and which was

misidentified by Micheál Ó Cléirigh, compiler of Foclóir no Sanasan Nua, the

first published Irish dictionary, printed in Louvain in 1643. There is still

much to sort out linguistically before we can draw the final line but these

studies are demonstrating early Irish perceptions of cosmology.

 

Naturally, most astrologers would doubtless like to see, as final proof,

a collection of specific early Irish, or Celtic, charts - comparable with

surviving Greek horoscopes of Vattius Valens, or Critodemus or Antigonus of

Nicaea. Such charts have still to be to be found and identified. I am not

too sanguine about this. We are lucky that the 8th/9th Century Irish charts

survive in Basel. A lot of early material was destroyed in the 17th and 18th

Century during the concentrated attempts to suppress the Irish language and

books and manuscripts. I doubt that we will find anything that predates the

medieval period. That is not to say the situation is entirely without hope.

[16] <mhtml:mid://00000063/#Note16>

 

The field of research is wide and there are, sadly, hardly any workers

in it. To give an idea of the problem, the vast wealth of Irish language

medical books are still fairly untouched by translators or researchers. Our

Knowledge of Irish mythology is based on some 150 tales Professor Kuno Meyer

and Dr Eleanor Hull have both estimated that there are a further 400

identified texts that had not been examined and that a further 50/100 which

could still be hidden in libraries. This should give an idea of the enormity

of the task to be undertaken in areas of Irish manuscript research.

 

Texts in Continental Celtic are still being discovered. In 1993 a bronze

tablet with 200 lines of legal material in Celtic was found in Northern

Spain. So far, however, the Coligny Calendar remains our principal text from

the pre-Greco-Roman period giving information on early Celtic cosmology.

 

What we can be sure of, at this time, is that the Irish (and the Celts

generally) have a long tradition of astrological learning stretching back to

a time before Christianity and the incoming of Greek and Latin learning. We

can trace the development of Irish astrology fairly easily from the 7th

Century AD, when our records in Irish and Hiberno-Latin begin to survive.

But for anything prior to this period we must, at this time, turn to

Continental Celtic remains.

 

One point cannot be over stressed; that this long and rich tradition of

Celtic astrology has been sadly neglected and, albeit perhaps unwittingly,

suppressed by those who would prefer to follow the fantasies and inventions

of Robert Graves and his 'tree zodiac'. Until recently, in an Irish and

wider Celtic context, we have not been able to see the star' for the trees!

 

 

 

sent to me by my son in law

 

Richard MacKai