A Critique of Dennis M. Harness’ Pluto: A Neo-Vedic View — Part V

Before We Integrate, We Must Assimilate the Forgotten Foundations of Jyotisha

Professor Harness is not alone in this confusion, it reflects a broader misunderstanding in the current astrological landscape.

As we bring this critique toward its conclusion, there remains one final and essential point that has been largely ignored, not just by Dennis Harness, but by many modern practitioners who speak of “integrating” outer planets into Jyotisha:

We have not yet truly worked with Jyotisha itself.

Not fully.

Not properly.

Not with the seriousness and metaphysical depth that the discipline demands.

To speak of expanding the system when we have not even stabilized the foundational pillars of what we already possess is premature at best, and delusional at worst.

1. The Ayanāṁśa Dilemma: When Our Cosmic Coordinates Are Unclear

Ayanāṁśa, the angular difference between the tropical and sidereal zodiacs, is not a trivial technicality. It is the cornerstone of chart construction. Every calculation, every divisional chart, every lagna, every bhāva cusp depends on it.

And yet, to this day, Jyotishis do not agree on which ayanāṁśa to use.

• Lahiri? Raman? Krishnamurti?

• Chitrapaksha vs. True Mūla vs. Pushya Paksha?
  

The discrepancy of even one degree can entirely shift the lagna, change the rāśi of planets, or render dashā results inconsistent.

If we are still navigating the most basic question of “Where are we in space?”, then on what basis can we confidently entertain the addition of new celestial entities?

When our cosmic coordinates themselves are contested, integration becomes a distraction from a much more pressing need: clarification.

2. Unworked Chapters: Parāśara Is Still Waiting to Be Understood

There are entire chapters in Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra that have not been properly explored—either because they are corrupted, mistranslated, ignored, or simply not yet understood.

• Many skip the sections on Upagrahas, though they are mathematically precise and richly symbolic.

• Others gloss over Chesta Bala, Jāgṛatādi Avasthās, and the deeper subtleties of Graha Dṛṣṭi, Argalā, and Rāśi Aspects.

• Entire paradigms like the Lajjitādi Avasthās, rediscovered through the work of serious researchers like Ernst Wilhelm, still remain absent from mainstream Jyotish education.

  
  

What does this tell us?

That the body of Jyotisha is vast, incomplete, and demanding of much deeper attention. It is not a puzzle to be made more complicated—it is a living tradition to be refined from within.

3. Combustion, Retrogression, Graha Yuddha: Still Misunderstood

There is no consensus on what happens when a planet goes combust (astha). Is it simply weak? Or is it purified? What if it’s in its own sign or exaltation?

Retrograde planets (vakrī), are they stronger because they are closer? Or weaker due to deviation from normal motion?

Graha Yuddha, planetary war, is often mechanically reduced to proximity in degrees, with little grasp of directional influence, psychological dominance, or contextual power.

These are not esoteric details. They are core principles that affect every reading, every chart, every life. And yet, they are often taught mechanically, with no real philosophical or psycho-spiritual unpacking.

How can a system that hasn’t even metabolized its own grammar entertain new alphabets?

4. The Misuse of Dignities: Exaltation and Debilitation Are Not Simple Binaries

Ask ten astrologers why Mercury is exalted in Virgo, or why Saturn is debilitated in Aries, and you’ll hear ten different, and often shallow, answers. Rahu and Ketu is a whole another Pandora's Box.

The dignities (uccha, nīcha) are not just about external strength, they are deep indicators of how a Graha performs its dharma under certain psycho-cosmological conditions.

Yet today, exaltation is equated with “good,” and debilitation with “bad.” A simplification, often used as a technique in and of itself.

The nuance of exaltation as hyper-functionality, and debilitation as radical displacement or fragmentation, has been all but lost in the rush to simplify Jyotisha into fortune-telling.

This reveals the larger issue: we’ve made Jyotisha simplistic, not simple.And because it is simplistic, people seek outer planets to "add more layers"—when in truth, the layers were already there. We just didn’t study them.

5. Jyotisha-Ayurveda-Sāṁkhya: The Incomplete Trinity

Jyotisha did not arise in isolation. It is part of a triadic unity, with Sāṁkhya as the ontological base, Jyotisha as the mapping of time and karma, and Āyurveda as the application to the body and mind.

But where are the courses, the books, the teachings that actually integrate these properly?

• How many Jyotishis understand the doṣas in light of planetary configurations?

• How many Ayurvedic practitioners calculate chandrabala before prescribing rasāyana therapies?

• How many Sāṁkhya students can read a birth chart?
  

Until this integration is done seriously, our picture of Jyotisha is fragmented. And in a fragmented field, the last thing we need is more fragments like Pluto, jammed in from a foreign cosmology.

We do not need new planets, we need deeper pattern recognition across the three systems that already belong together.

6. Inner Work Before Outer Expansion

The entire project of astrology is about seeing clearly, pratyakṣa, inner vision, refinement of attention.

So how can we claim to "see" Pluto clearly when we cannot yet see Venus in combustion, or Rahu in Sagittarius, or Jupiter in Mṛgaśīrṣā nakṣatra?

This is not an argument for exclusion—it is an argument for inner ripeness.For maturity. For austerity. For pause.

A painter does not seek more colors when he has not yet mastered contrast. A musician does not seek new instruments before learning svara and tāla. Likewise, an astrologer must not seek new Grahas before integrating the ones he already has.

Let us earn the right to speak of integration by first becoming the instruments of assimilation.

Honoring the Depth We Already Carry

In the rush to be "open-minded," we have become unstructured. In the name of innovation, we bypass initiation and the fundamentals. But Jyotisha does not unfold through novelty, it unfolds through stillness, repetition, contemplation, and direct yogic insight.

So let us close with a simple reminder:

The inclusion of outer planets into Jyotisha is not the sign of progress. The refusal to study Jyotisha in depth is the real regression.

Before we import Pluto, let us meet Saturn. Before we assign new mythologies, let us read the ones already written. Before we seek celestial novelty, let us refine terrestrial attention.

There is no shortcut to wisdom. And Jyotisha, above all else, is the long path of clarity.