Foreword

In a way book writing on a subject towards the end of 20th century is easy because there are many models of earlier books available. It is for this reason that in the USA they describe such books as Cook Books. Rarely is there any insightful understanding of astrological combinations in such books. Like what we call classics the recent books suffer from fossilized astrological beliefs of feudal times. To have the courage to depart from that yet not ignoring them, needs a lifetime of hard work and not a mere quick reading of other books and assembling them like Indian computers.

Deepak Kapoor’s book on prashna is an exception to the cook book style. Producing a cook book or a translation in English of a book in Sanskrit which has been translated in Hindi has become a piece of intellectual trickery and cowardice of writers of books on astrology. An English version of a Hindi translation without the writers good grasp of Sanskrit, particularly the secret grammar of jyotish, is more often than not a masterly deception of recent writers of books on astrology. It is for this reason that Jaimini Sutras continue to be riddles for us even now.

The merit of Deepak Kapoor’s book should be evaluated against this contemporary trend in astrological writing. He makes a good start, after a very useful introduction, by giving a summary of the 56 shlokas of shatpanchasika of Prithuyashas. Any one who wants to master this branch of astrology must digest Shatpanchasika which is the subtlest, and the most brilliant book on prashna, so brief, yet covering every aspect of a prashna. If one has the patience to go deeper and deeper into various permutations and combinations of these 56 shlokas, according to a rough calculation, these will cover more than 200 types of questions.

The author has explained the principles of Tajik and shown with clarity how they are to be applied to prashna. It is an area generally full of immensely conflicting interpretations. Deepak Kapoor seems to have come out of this tangled web. But readers must try out his methods over a period of time themselves. For instance the use of sahams is generally more conflicting and it needs to be decided whether it gives the promised results all or not. Readers will ask a question: In the small classic Shatpanchasika it is parashari aspect that come into use. If Tajik aspects particularly Ithsala, Rudda etc. show different results, what is the way out of this resulting confusion? I solved this problem in my own way by resorting to different methods in 1972 but have not been doing prashna astrology much therwafter.

The analysis and the resultant success or failure of a question based on the Moon and it’s nakshatra is and has been a tricky area but the author has stressed its use in analysis of prashna charts. In fact he has advocated the use of nakshatras in prashna analysis with confidence, which has been an area shrouded in darkness. Can this factor be overstressed? Only future researches and time will tell.