title: "Class 99 — Saptarishis Interview: PVR Narasimha Rao — Astrological Journey & JHora Origins" class_number: 99 source_file: v99.txt tags: [vedic-astrology, jyotisha, pvr-narasimha-rao, jhora, saptarishis-astrology, interview, ayanamsa, divisional-charts, surya-siddhanta, drik-siddhanta, parasara, jaimini, bhava-pada, arudha, tithi-pravesh, varshaphala, tropical-sidereal, sanjay-rath]

🕉️ Class 99 — Saptarishis Interview: PVR Narasimha Rao — Astrological Journey & JHora Origins

A Saptarishis Astrology interview with Shri P.V.R. Narasimha Rao — the creator of JHora software — in which he traces his entire astrological journey: from childhood learning in Machilipatnam, through his encounter with Sanjay Rath, his spiritual turning point with Dr. Manish Pandit, his Surya Siddhanta detour, and his rebooted, research-based approach to ayanāṃśa, divisional charts, and time-reckoning.

📋 Table of Contents

1. Introduction by Host (Sunil — Saptarishis Astrology)
2. Phase 1 — Childhood Roots in Machilipatnam
3. Phase 2 — Serious Study Begins at 23 (IIT → Rice → India)
4. Phase 3 — Departure from India & the Real Search
5. Phase 4 — Sanjay Rath & the Parampara Secrets
6. Phase 5 — Sanskrit Scholarship & Digging into Parāśara
7. Deep Teaching — Bhāva vs. Pada: Meaning vs. Word
8. Phase 6 — Spiritual Guru Dr. Manish Pandit
9. Phase 7 — The Surya Siddhanta Detour
10. Phase 8 — The Reboot: Ayanamsha Research
11. Phase 9 — Divisional Chart Definitions Corrected
12. Phase 10 — Redefining the Year: Tropical Reckoning
13. On Sharing Knowledge Publicly
14. Astrological Journey — Timeline Summary
15. Cross-References
16. Sanskrit Terms & Key Names

🎙️ Introduction by Host

Host: Sunil (Saptarishis Astrology channel, recorded after the host's pilgrimage to Tirupati — note the freshly shaved head).

"Somebody who is responsible for the eight years of Saptarishis Astrology magazine, somebody who's responsible to put me back on the astrology track. Nobody has done what he has done. Every day, 90% of Vedic astrologers in the world have to thank him every hour — we open something every hour. It's all because of him."

The host describes how in 2002, seeking guidance on a film business in Australia, he wrote to PVR Narasimha Rao, was directed to join the Vedic Astrology Yahoo Group, and thereby restarted his own astrological journey.

🌱 Phase 1 — Childhood Roots in Machilipatnam

Father: Śrī P.V.S. Chalapathi Rau (Pingali Venkatasubramanya Chalapathi Rau) — a well-known astrologer in Machilipatnam, Andhra Pradesh.

Notable achievement of the father: in a state election, he predicted the exact number of seats NTR's party would win — based on the candidate's horoscope and a praśna chart.

Learning lineage:

Maternal Grandfather → Maternal Uncle → P.V.S. Chalapathi Rau → P.V.R. Narasimha Rao

First exposure: Age 8. The pattern was informal: summer + winter breaks for study, forgetting once school resumed — cycling through basics for many years.

Sanskrit learning (concurrent):

• Introduced to Sanskrit at age 8 alongside astrology
• Correspondence course examinations by Bharati Vidya Bhavan, Mumbai
• Passed Bhāṣā Kovida (equivalent to a bachelor's in Sanskrit literature) at age 11
• Later cleared Bhāṣā Viśārada (another BA-equivalent from the Baroda board) with distinction — without taking the full series, qualifying directly for the final exam

"I have two bachelor's degrees in Sanskrit. I was very comfortable with Sanskrit. I could compose poetry in Sanskrit."

🎓 Phase 2 — Serious Study Begins at 23

Academic background:

• Bachelor's at IIT Madras
• Master's at Rice University

After completing his master's, he returned to Machilipatnam for a 4–5 month break before starting work as an engineer. Time spent with his father became the first period of serious, sustained astrological study.

First major self-prediction (age 24):

Using only:

• Rāśi chart
• Navamsha
• Vimshottari Dasha
• Gochara (transits)

He identified a 5-day window: Mercury Dasha lord in the 8th house in vārottama (Pushkara Navamsha), and 9th lord Venus in the 9th house in vārottama Gochara.

"I said: during this period there is going to be a big breakthrough in life, something really auspicious."

The predicted event: a completely unexpected job opportunity abroad arrived (no résumé had even been written). This experience confirmed that astrology works.

"That really told me — man, there is something in this subject."

🔭 Phase 3 — Departure from India & the Real Search

Once abroad (settled in the Boston area), real intellectual searching began. The tools available — Rāśi chart, Navamsha, Vimshottari, Gochara — proved insufficient:

"I found some charts where twins even had the same Rāśi and Navamsha chart. Two people with totally different lives — one with multiple master's degrees, the other artistic with no education. Both had the same Rāśi and Navamsha. This made me more curious."

This drove him deeper into classical literature:

• Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra (Parāśara)
• Dr. B.V. Raman's books
• K.N. Rao's books
• Varāhamihira (Bṛhat Jātaka etc.)
• Kalyan Varma (Sārāvalī)

🤝 Phase 4 — Sanjay Rath & the Parampara Secrets

Meeting: ~1996–1998, through Ben Collins' Jyotish mailing list (predecessor to today's online groups). Later, the Vedic Astrology Yahoo Group was started together and became a global hub for research.

Conference: Ukiah, California — the host (Sunil) and Phyllis Firak-Mitz were both present.

What Sanjay Rath gave:

1. Secrets from his parampara (traditional lineage tracing back to Śrī Achyutānanda, one of the Pañca Sakhās of Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, from near Puri, Odisha)
2. Special techniques: Tithi Praveśa (lunar annual charts), Chara Dasha, Nārāyaṇa Dasha, Sūta Dasha, Tārā Dasha, Durgā Dasha, etc.
3. Deep focus on Parāśara and Jaimini

On Jaimini's cryptic language:

"He will say: you jump from here to there, you get it. What do you get? Where do you jump from? Where do you jump to? No idea. But the same terminology that Jaimini uses is also in Parāśara — and Parāśara talks in more descriptive, less cryptic language."

Key insight: Concepts considered exclusively "Jaimini" — Chara Dasha, Sthira Dasha, Trikona Dasha, Arudhapāda, Charākaraka — are all present in Parāśara's BPHS.

📿 Phase 5 — Sanskrit Scholarship & Digging into Parāśara

"The Bible of Jyotish as far as I'm concerned — Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra."

Parāśara is the authority for both Jyotish and Dharma Śāstra for Kali Yuga:

"He was trying to create a compendium of all astrological knowledge — just as Vyāsa was coding all spiritual knowledge for future generations."

The experience of reading Parāśara:

"On the surface I could understand the literal meaning. But after meditating on it, I kept contemplating, and suddenly I realized whatever I had been understanding was only the superficial meaning. There is something more, something deeper. This is how rishis teach. They don't spoon-feed you. There are layers of meaning."

🔮 Deep Teaching — Bhāva vs. Pada: Meaning vs. Word

This is the centrepiece teaching of the interview — a profound insight arrived at by reflection on Sanskrit word meanings.

The Discovery

Parāśara uses two distinct terms:

• Houses are called bhāva (Sanskrit: meaning)
• Arudha padas are called pada (Sanskrit: word)

"Pada literally means word. Bhāva literally means meaning."

The Analogy

"When I am saying something, these are all padas — these are all words. And then they have a meaning behind them. When I say 'planet,' planet is just a word. The meaning I have in mind is: something moving in the skies having influence on us."

Communication works because:

1. The speaker encodes meaning into words (padas)
2. The listener recreates the meaning from those words
3. There is a shared grammar and convention that bridges the two

This mirrors the Kālidāsa invocation:

Vāgarthāviva saṃpṛktau vāgartha pratipattaye. Jagataḥ pitarau vande Pārvatī Parameśvarau. "I bow to the mother and father of the universe — Pārvati and Parameśvara — who are united like word and meaning."

Shiva = the Essence (meaning / intangible) Pārvati = the Manifestation (word / tangible)

This also maps to Sanjay Rath's parampara teaching:

• Sachāpīṭham = seat of truth → Bhāva (house) = intangible meaning
• Māyāpīṭham = seat of illusion → Pada (Arudha) = tangible word/symbol

The Astrological Conclusion

flowchart LR
    A[Any signification\ne.g. vehicle] --> B{Type of question}
    B --> |Tangible:\nWhich car do I drive?\nWhat the world can SEE| C[Ārūḍha Pada\nA4 for vehicle\nManifested, outward]
    B --> |Intangible:\nHow happy am I with my vehicle?\nInternal experience| D[Bhāva House\n4th house\nMeaning, inward]

Practical examples:

"What I'm feeling inside — that is the actual house. The things the world can see — those are from the padas."

"Like this, everything the rishis have taught has layers of meanings. If you understand Sanskrit, you will first see the superficial meaning. As you keep digging, newer and newer layers will manifest. I suspect there is no end."

🧘 Phase 6 — Spiritual Guru: Dr. Manish Pandit

Dr. Manish Pandit — nuclear physicist based in the UK — contacted PVR Narasimha Rao around 2004.

Effect: reignited spiritual sādhanā, producing significant inner progress.

As spiritual progress deepened, interest in Jyotish was waning — the inner world became more compelling.

But Dr. Pandit instructed:

"You have to — No, no, no. You can't leave Jyotish. You have more to do. Become serious about Jyotish."

He also directed PVR Narasimha Rao to receive teachings from Śrī Vinay Jain on a different method of computing planetary positions (Sūrya Siddhānta):

"Take whatever Vinay Jain gives you and go with it. It will make a big difference to your astrological pursuits. This is a big turning point."

🔢 Phase 7 — The Surya Siddhanta Detour (~2010)

Sūrya Siddhānta = ancient analytical planetary model (formula-based calculation, similar to modern ephemeris but with values sometimes off by up to half a sign or more).

Most traditional Indian astrologers historically used the Sūrya Siddhānta ayanāṃśa — closer to Raman and Yukteswar ayanamsas than to Lahiri.

PVR Narasimha Rao adopted it completely for ~1.5 years but found:

"Eventually I realized this is not really working well. If I take various corner cases, tricky examples, this is not panning out."

He confronted Dr. Pandit, who said: "Okay, then leave it. Go back to Dṛk Siddhānta."

Then added: "Well, it did make a big difference to your astrological pursuit" — implying the detour served a purpose beyond the Sūrya Siddhānta itself.

The benefit: The forced reboot destroyed his comfort zone and enabled groundbreaking research on first principles.

The unexpected second benefit: The public skepticism this generated acted as a knowledge safeguard — an echo of the classical injunction that deep knowledge should only be passed to worthy śiṣyas:

"This skepticism — the loss of faith that I went through — was really very useful to me. Still there are some people who follow me, but some have stopped, which is a blessing in disguise."

🔬 Phase 8 — The Reboot: Ayanamsha Research

Background on Lahiri Ayanamsha

The Lahiri ayanāṃśa was not created by an astrologer but by an astronomer (N.C. Lahiri) tasked by Nehru's government to standardize festival calendars for independent India.

Method:

• Sought a bright star at the beginning of Aries — none found
• Found Spica (Citrā star) near the beginning of Libra
• Fixed Spica at 0° Libra → derived the ayanamsha

Political dimension: Lahiri had strong political connections to Nehru. Prominent astrologers resisted; it was adopted anyway. Later popularized by K.N. Rao (partly through rivalry with Dr. B.V. Raman).

Critical flaw in how divisional charts were used with Lahiri:

"The astrologers using this ayanamsha were not really using any technique that depends on the accuracy of the ayanamsha — they weren't really using divisional charts. Their take was: Rāśi chart is the main thing; divisional charts are just secondary — to confirm the Rāśi, never to override it."

"If Narasimha's wife gives her opinion, and then you ask Narasimha — if Narasimha agrees, you follow it. If Narasimha disagrees, you overrule him and follow his wife. Bottom line: Narasimha doesn't matter. So this is giving lip service to divisional charts."

PVR's conclusion: For divisional charts to have real utility, they must have an independent, specific role not subordinate to the Rāśi chart. This is only possible with an accurate ayanamsha.

Result: Pushpaksha Ayanamsha — a new ayanamsha developed through research into classical clues.

📐 Phase 9 — Divisional Chart Definitions Corrected

Even with the corrected ayanamsha, divisional charts were still not performing well. Investigation revealed corrupted definitions in modern translations.

Case study — D-24 (Chaturviṃśāṁśa):

Standard definition (Santhanam, G.C. Sharma translations):

• Odd signs: divide into 24 parts, starting Leo → Cancer (forward zodiacally, then repeat)
• Even signs: divide into 24 parts, starting Cancer → Gemini (forward zodiacally)

Parāśara's actual instruction (found in Sanskrit): For even signs, the counting is reversed.

Correct definition:

"Once I applied this definition and looked at events in learning that happened in people I know, things started to make a lot more sense."

Scope of the problem: Multiple divisional charts had similar definition errors due to translators blindly following each other without independently checking the Sanskrit.

Result: PVR Narasimha Rao rebooted and independently re-derived the definitions of most divisional charts from the original Sanskrit.

⏳ Phase 10 — Redefining the Year: Tropical Reckoning for Varshaphala

Issue: Varṣaphala (Solar Return chart) and Tithi Praveśa (Lunar Birthday chart) both require knowing "when the year begins." The standard Indian method uses the sidereal solar year — Sun returns to the same sidereal longitude.

Problem: Sri Rama was born in spring. If someone calculates his Varshaphala chart many millennia later, the Sun's return to the same sidereal position would occur in summer, winter, autumn — drifting through the seasons. This is astronomically consistent but karmically absurd.

Discovery:

"For the purpose of making charts, use the sidereal zodiac. But for the purpose of reckoning time — months, seasons, and years — use the tropical Sun."

In other words: the year (and thus the Varshaphala return) should be defined by the Sun returning to the same tropical longitude (same position relative to seasons and equinoxes), not the same sidereal longitude.

Impact: The Lagna of the Varshaphala/Tithi Pravesha chart shifts by several signs every year compared to the old method. When corrected, predictions became significantly more accurate.

📤 On Sharing Knowledge Publicly

Parāśara and Varāhamihira both teach that deep astrological knowledge should be imparted only to worthy students (yogya śiṣya). Modern life makes this difficult.

PVR Narasimha Rao's approach:

"Put it out freely in the public domain and let whoever wants it pick it up."

He acknowledges this makes him vulnerable to misuse of knowledge. But the natural skepticism generated by his public changes in position (Jagannath → Surya Siddhanta → Pushpaksha Ayanamsha) acts as a self-regulating filter:

"The skepticism — the loss of faith among some followers — that is really a blessing in disguise. This is a safeguard that nature or my gurus have created for me."

🌀 Astrological Journey — Timeline

flowchart TD
    A[Age 8 — Childhood, Machilipatnam\nFather's teachings + Sanskrit study] --> B
    B[Age 11-12 — Bhāṣā Kovida\n2 BA-equivalent Sanskrit degrees] --> C
    C[Age 23 — IIT Madras + Rice Univ\nPost-master's serious study with father] --> D
    D[Age 24 — First major self-prediction\nJob opportunity confirmed astrology works] --> E
    E[Late 1990s — Boston, USA\nDeep dive into classics\nPārāśara, Raman, KN Rao, Varāhamihira] --> F
    F[~1996-98 — Meets Sanjay Rath\nVedic Astrology Yahoo Group\nParampara secrets, Tithi Pravesha, JHora dev begins] --> G
    G[~2004 — Spiritual guru Dr. Manish Pandit\nSādhanā deepens; renewed commitment to Jyotish] --> H
    H[~2010 — Surya Siddhanta phase\n~1.5 years; abandoned; reboot begins] --> I
    I[Post-2010 — Pushpaksha Ayanamsha\nD-chart definitions corrected\nTropical year for Varshaphala/Tithi Pravesha\nJHora rebuilt on new foundations] --> J
    J[Ongoing — Teaching, writing\nSaptarishis interview & beyond]

📊 Key Intellectual Contributions Summary

🔗 Cross-References

📝 Sanskrit Terms & Key Names

Om Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ