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Santhanam:
A Memoir
By
K.N.Rao, India.
S
K. N. Rao needs no introduction, he runs
the biggest school of astrology in the world,
has produced the highest number of top
quality books which has cult following, and
is known for his outstanding predictive
ability.
History
acknowledges
his
contribution in popularizing Vargas usage
in India & USA, Double Transit
phenomenon & Chara Dasha. He is
considered as the one who showed for the
first time exhibited in astrology what was
termed spell bounding writing styles in
Jyotish, using narratives with top class
jyotish content, a style now adopted by
many over the decades. It is often found that
what he writes in one line is 15 page articles
for others. For his articles visit
www.journalofastrology.com
me for suggesting his name for the editorship of the proposed astrological magazine.
But Santhanam laid down a condition that he would accept it if I promised to
contribute articles regularly to it. I agreed. That moribund magazine, Your
Astrologer, had made no impact with Santhanam having quarrels with the owner
about some payments, one of the many unpleasant episodes of his life.
Chart: R Santhanam 21 May 1944, 20:20, Tirupati, India
Santhanam gave me his horoscope and asked for some predictions and I
predicted that he would become famous nationally and internationally but should
avoid negative view of ......Why ? He asked me and I told him to see the degrees of
Mars and Rahu in his ninth house afflicting an exalted Jupiter. Then a bad
exchange of the sixth and ninth lords was bad for his dealings with higher placed
people. It was an exchange of Atmakaraka and Gnathikaraka. He did not agree with me
when I told him that it also showed his differences with his father who was a priest
in the world famous Tirupati temple where he was born. I looked deeper into his
horoscope and said that he could have an unorthodox marriage late, say around the
age of thirty one. He said that he had married in 1975 a girl from Kerala who was a
non- Brahmin. He neither told me nor did I ask him if it had estranged him from
his own family members. He also told me that he had two sons from the marriage.
In 1985 when I was transferred to Bhubaneshwar as Accountant General of
Orissa, he wrote to me that he had decided to start an astrological journal of his
own, The Times of Astrology and took a promise from me that I would contribute
articles to it regularly which I did till 1990. His brief experience with Your
Astrologer had taught him the tricks of the trade. I wrote to him and later even told
The Asc given by KNR is 18 Sc 44 , this matches with Kala but does not match with Jhora for some unknown reason,
readers can test it on other softwares too. - SA
him that instead of looking like a rival to the Astrological Magazine, he should plan
to seek writers in northern India and popularise the lesser discussed astrological
techniques like chakras. Give the astrological world something different,
something desperately needed like researches in other dashas, get articles written in
Hindi by experienced astrologers of northern India and get them translated. The
vast unexplored, untapped legacy of Hindu astrology has to be brought to the
surface which I did later when K.K.Joshi wrote his book on Kota Chakra and
Shalimini Dhasmana on Patakirista Chakra etc. My advice was based on the influence,
from Parashari angle, on the influence of Saturn from the eighth house on the tenth, second
and the fifth house in his horoscope. It did help him later in becoming something of an
astrologer archaelogist inspite of spraying Saturnine gloom all over his personality.
But he persuaded some of the well known contributors to the Astrological
Magazine (leaving me because I had promised to be a regular contributor) and was
threatening to become a rival of Dr. Raman against whose giant stature, he was
always appearing very puny.
During this period one day he saw an important man in hotel industry at my
place who came to consult me. I introduced him as an astrologer. Back home that
man rang me up and asked me if he could appoint Santhanam in his hotel as an
astrologer. I asked him to contact Santhanam and ask for his willingness as
Santhanam needed lot of help being in financial distress. What about his
proficiency in English and Hindi was the question this man had asked me and I
told him that Santhanam had a very good ability to pick up languages fast. In fact
he knew five or six languages at least, Tamil, Telugu, English, Hindi, a bit of
Bengali and Malayalam.
Santhanam accepted the offer and prospered but he was tied down to Delhi
and could not travel to other places to collect astrological books and manuscripts
for which he had an unquenchable thirst.
Chara Dasha
Vrischika 1944 -1952
Tula 1952-1958
Kanya 1958-1963
Simha 1963-1966
Karka 1966-1969
Mithuna 1969-1979
Vrisha 1979-1990
Mesha 1990-1993
Meena 1993-2001
Let me narrate some events of his life through Chara dasha as I knew from
the bits which he told me, very parsimoniously for some reasons.
Vrischika dasha (1944 to 1952)
research in a very practical way and produce convincing results. It was not necessary, I
insisted, to quote translators as final authorities as they had their own differences
like doing chara dasha for women in a way different than for men. Try and see
which works. In the age in which we live, it is the practical and replicable results
that matter. I told him that I had never accepted Raman ayanamsha but have said
repeatedly that it was he who created a big national and international stage for
Indian astrologers and that he, being a very practical astrologer, knew what to
accept and what to ignore, not sticking to dogmas of astrology. But Santhanam had
a mind totally closed and he decided to attack Dr.Raman not on academic grounds
but even for the donations he received and the foundation he had created. I told
him, and he knew, that when in 1983 there was a concerted attack on astrology in
the English press in Delhi under the editorship of Khuswant Singh and
B.G.Verghese, Dr. Raman had asked me to defend astrology, a situation extremely
precarious and embarassing for me because I was imprisoned in the government
service conduct rules. I did it alone, with no astrologer even helping me. I was an
unknown man in the world of astrology and had no interest in getting known at all.
Destiny forced me and then I had seen from close quarters how mean, petty, selfish, low
minded astrologers were, never fighting for the cause of astrology but fighting each other.
How was Santhanam better than another man running what he called an
astrological journal and writing vituperative pieces against astrologers not prepared
to declare him a great astrologer of the world?
Santhanam was not alive when in 2003, exactly after twenty years again I had to
fight the battle for astrology in the Supreme Court, all alone, an ailing man without any
help from any astrologer. The astrological community is a shameless community talking
hypocritically of the legacy of rishis but behaving in a very petty, low and mean manner
always.
It had become extremely unpleasant. There was crassness, low and mean
mentality in some of his writings which made some pages of his magazine look like
a charnel house as my Christian friends called it. Can astrologers avoid taking to
the low road so desperately to seek fame?
So far it has not been so. Read the internet discussions which creates more
disappointment and disgust than happiness. There are more Santhanams now
crawling all over the internet.
Vrisha-Karka (1987-88)
Mercury and Venus are in Mrityubhaga. Extend the application of this to the rashis these
two planets own and watch events in their antardasha. He wrote some anti Raman
articles in his magazine hitting him below the belt. I told him that technical
differences of academic level would be welcome and would stimulate new lines of
inquiry while his writings became a reflection of his own bitterness. He did not
agree with me and wrote more such pieces. Gnathikaraka from Karka aspecting the
tenth house from Vrisha made it extremely unpleasant.
the solar ingress chart of April every year for his annual predictions. His weakness was
mundane astrology in which he did not get much success but in individual natal
astrology, he did give some good predictions to some people.
It was later that he decided to do some work on Nadi astrology.
Santhanam continued to do excellent work in Meena period. He was at his
best as a discoverer of nadi astrology. His Devakeralam was a major contribution
but he did not seem to understand the secrets of nadi like the late C.S.Patel or
Bhrigu by the late K.C.Saxena among the people I had met and known. I had met
C.S.Patel only once, never discussed nadi but his writings are there to show his
depth of knowledge. K.C.Saxena who came to my house very regularly seemed to
have reached a stage of very deep understanding of what he called the science of
Bhrigu astrology.
A belief shared among some astrologers is that those go into the
understanding of nadi or Bhrigu astrology meet with tragic fate and most of them
have a short life, which I did not accept. Yet when K.C.Saxena died, this belief
spread more and some people asked me why I did not believe it. I said in that case,
even those doing non-Bhrigu astrology should also suffer. That difference
continues till this day.
If Santhanam had lived long he might have revived nadi astrology in a big way2 but
the curse said to be attached to it, killed him said a young friend of mine who has understood
Bhrigu rather well.
Death Meena- Oct 1997 Meena-Tula (DKN) Mithuna(DK)
Jupiter afflicted with GK and aspected by Sun led to differences of opinion
with his father and also to an unorthodox marriage which can be seen in many
more ways. But in this dasha, the heavily afflicted fifth lord Jupiter took its toll on
his health. I remembered an incident. An Angust shastri, those who can read the
thumb and sometimes give amazing predictions, was at my place when Santhanam
dropped in, perhaps in 1984. I introduced him and asked him if he would be
interested in having his thumb read. He agreed. The angust shastri said that he had
met with an accident during the last one year. Santhanam said he had and it was
Vrisha Dhanu in 1983. I will say it to the credit of Santhanam that he kept his mind
open on such subjects and did not pass his usual quick cynical remarks as he did
about others, particularly the Delhi women whom he seemed to hate for their ultra
modern way of living. The angust shastri as usual told some negative things only
and referred to no achievements.
2 Our mentor has mentioned many years back to us that Santhanam had called him from Varanasi during his last days
and said that he had finally discovered THE missing link in Astrology via Bhrighu Nadi, which was supplied by
mentor to him via Shri Suren Bhagat (he wrote a book called Golden Keys of Shastiamsa), who was a student of Late
C S Patel. Shri Patel had Bhrighu Nadi, this nadi we had released free in the manuscript section for download but had
to withdraw its link after a Bhrighu student from Delhi influenced us dramatically not to give it away. Yet after a
year we have gotten it translated in the magazine via the auspicious pen of Shri Chandrashekhar Sharma. - SA
Publisher
After Santhanam left, the angust shastri told me that he would not live to be a
sixty year old man and that he would die of an ailment of stomach when he was
3
away from his family . I did not know how to react and how seriously to take this
prediction.
I remembered angusta shastris prediction in 1997 when the news of
Santhanams death reached me. He was the one astrologer who would have given
to young astrologers immense material for research on nadi astrology if he had
lived. Was the curse associated with nadi or Bhrigu astrology true, I asked myself?
3 Note this - SA