Some views on Prasna

Prasna

by
Narasimha P.V.R. Rao

There are many rules and approaches in prasna. But, at the end, prasna is all about your connection with god. If it is strong, you will get an answer. When god wants to speak to you, he speaks in the language you understand and using the prototypes you expect.

I used to argue with Pt Sanjay Rath on whether prasna chart should be cast for the time queror posed the prasna or when astrologer cast the chart and analyzed it. My father takes the time when queror decided to pose a prasna and makes a chart for that time.

But Sanjay ji does not care about when the queror thought of the prasna and posed prasna. For him, the moment he starts analysis is important. He makes a chart for that moment. If a prasna was posed at 2 pm but he analyzed it at 5 pm, he makes the chart at 5 pm.

Sanjay ji and I had a debate on this on vedic-astrology list a couple of years back.

I saw my father making excellent predictions with his approach. I also heard from other students of Sanjay ji about Sanjay ji's prowess in prasna and saw it to an extent when he was in US. I was thinking along the lines that prasna is a highly subjective area of astrology and god gives answers if He wants, irrespective of the techniques used.

One interesting thing happened when Sanjay ji was at my house, which re-inforced this view. A lady came for help regarding her elder sister's child. Sanjay ji used a prasna to guess the problem and suggest a solution. His analysis was spot on (though we did not tell him anything beforehand to see how well he will guess). However, at the end, we discovered that my computer's time was off by 12 hours and hence the chart cast was wrong by 12 hours! Yet, Sanjay ji's diagnosis of the problem was spot on.

All the theoretical debates on whether chart must be cast for the time of the birth of the question or the posing of the prasna or the time of prasna analysis were answered the moment I saw an amazing reading of a chart cast based on a totally wrong prasna time (using any definition). This suggests to me that prasna is very subjective. If god wants to answer one's question, He will answer irrespective
of the prasna chart used.

It seems to me like prasna is not as scientific and objective as natal horoscopy.

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There was a discussion on ashtamangala prasna a while back.

When Pt Sanjay Rath came to New Jersey in August 2003, we did an ashta mangala prasna. A close relative of mine had just bought a house and moved in that week. They had a house warming party that evening and Sanjay ji and several of his students were among the guests.
Sanjay ji and we (his students) sat down around the room and did an ashta mangala prasna. We used the actual rising sign at that time in the analysis. We took into account several nimittas. An example was an half-open closet in the direction corresponding to Capricorn.
Another example was a girl in black dress coming into the room and leaving immediately, as soon as we talked about Saturn in the chart showing the previous owner of the house.

Sanjay ji concluded from the prasna and nimitta analysis that the previous owner left the house in distress and in a desparate situation. It was correct. The house was 4 years old and the first owner was evicted as she lost job and could not pay mortgage for several months. There were a few other things Sanjay ji found and they were correct. There were some indications about the future given based on prasna and some remedies suggested.

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We will do our monthly Full Moon Satya Narayana Vratam tomorrow (Feb 23) night, during 7 pm-10 pm. You are most welcome to attend the vratam and have prasadam for dinner. Please call 508-839-1218 for directions.

Shortly after the vratam, version 7.0 of Jagannatha Hora software will be released. You will have access to a lot of new features in the free version. Please wait for an announcement tomorrow night.

May Jupiter's light shine on us,
Narasimha