Customer Reviews

The 27 CELESTIAL PORTALS

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My sincere and humble thanks to Mr Prashant Trivedi for a most absorbing and deeply occult work. This book is an oasis in a veritable desert of information on the lunar mansions or nakshatras (their sanskrit name), an area of Astrology which has always fascinated me.

I found this work to be of unusually high calibre in terms of its erudition, originality and sheer informativeness. It is packed with excellent insights which require many, many hours to digest. All due credit to the author, that he has managed to imbue his masterpiece with some of that ubiquitous spark that distinguishes the classics.

The book carries excellent presentation on each nakshatra or lunar mansion, with their attributes and qualities laid out in a very organised, detailed and easy to read fashion. It is evident that utmost care and scrutiny has gone into it. Mr Trivedi's ability to marry logic, complexity and lucidity enable these often contradictory attributes to be fairly elucidated. The meanings of some of the nakshatras differ from other contemporary works, but none of those authors have tried to back up their views with the same intelligence and careful dissection as Mr Trivedi has achieved.

He evinces an understanding of Jyotish that is steeped in a very advanced and broad understanding of Vedic and metaphysical subjects in general. I found this to be not only a work on Astrology and Cosmology but a commentary on life, death, universal politics, spiritual enlightenment, civilizations - ancient and modern, history, mythology, mystery, psychology, day to day existence, culture and refinement.

What I liked was Mr Trivedi's treatment of profound topics in an unpretentious manner. He applies a no nonsense approach when advising on the pitfalls and disadvantages of more challenging nakshatras in our present climate, but balances this with appropriate remedial measures and suitable courses of action.

The coup d'etat are the highly pleasing colour illustrations which really do convey the essence of each nakshatra in a vivid and exciting way. A great asset to students and professionals of all systems of Astrology. Not for the fainthearted, this is a serious work for dedicated scholars.

In my opinion it raises the standard for other Jyotish works to emulate, and justifiably so, because the diminished quality of Vedic Astrology books by Indian authors is notorious and there are virtually no advanced works by Western authors to set any kind of precedent.

I am deeply impressed and looking forward to Mr Trivedi's future writings.

This book takes a very different look at the nakshatras, one that is far more extensive but less balanced than interpretations found in the more popular books by Hart de Fuow and Dennis Harness.

In many ways, this book is more accurate. Trivedi calls a spade a spade. If he feels a nakshatra almost always manifests negatively (Ashlesha and Purva Bhadrapada, for example) he unapologetically tells it that way, and doesn't really try to provide a more positive assessment. This makes the book less useful for those who must counsel people born under those signs, or those who are born under those stars themselves.

The book heavily emphasizes caste, professions, esoteric meaning, auspicious and inauspicious activities. On the one hand, this can be frustrating for the novice who is solely interested in the meaning of each nakshatra, and how each planet manifests in each of the padas (no Vedic book currently on the market has really done an in-depth exploration of how every planet manifests in every sign or pada).

On the other hand, this book is meant to be used on multiple levels. When Trivedi writes in the afterword that the esoteric sections are "signboards pointing toward unknown levels which nakshatras encode", he wasn't kidding. Applications for the esoteric side of each nakshatra could fill a second book. Essentially, the esoteric sections of each chapter amount to a collection of good hints, and there is a rather impressionistic feel to much of his writing in general. There is also the sense that the author's choice of material is intended to cover all the bases - the reader will need to do some work to figure out underlying connections on their own.

Despite these weaknesses, the book gets five stars because it is a seminal work. Its probably a good idea to read this book and re-read it, and then read it a third time. More ideas become clear each time you take another look due to the impressionistic nature of the writing. A novice who reads this book and takes an extensive set of notes may absorb more information about the nakshatras than many of the folks who have written exams for Jyotish certification courses.

If astrology were a religion, this would be its Bible.

A finely crafted work which finally lifts the viel off the
27 constellations used in Hindu ( Vedic) astrology.

There is no astrologer from any background who would
not want to incorporate the 27 constellations
in their work after reading this book.

The highly intricate hand-drawn images for the 27 constellations
are excellent and enlightening in ways which
go beyond the common symbology used for the 12 signs.

All in all the best astrology book I have laid my hands on!

this is the best book i have found on nakshatras of the several out there. prash trivedi and veno(illustrator and editor) have provided great inspired intuitive insight into the 27 mansions and how they apply to character and action. the lavish color illustrations are truly magnificent and exploratory and the text can be read over and over. i refer to the book every day regarding position of moon and other planets and what they are doing (to us, to each other). for jyotish interpretation, not tropical. most excellent.

The 27 Celestial Portals by Prash Trivedi is an extensive treaty on the Nakshatras, or, the Constellations. Its content is so comprehensive and illuminating that one can easily spend months to read, absorb, digest, and apply the learned information to natal as well as mundane astrology. Almost every sentence is enlightening and could be a predictive gem; for instance, in the Mula Nakshatra chapter, Trivedi states that "Most prominent generals and military leaders have important planets placed in Mula." I decided to test this theory and just look up the chart of a famous general that I have heard of - retired General Wesley Clark. Sure enough, both his Sun and Mercury are placed in Mula!

To really understand the true meaning and functioning of these ancient cosmic transmitters known as Nakshatras, one has to start from the beginning, including deciphering of the name, symbol, ruling deity, and nature and functioning. All of which have been generously included and clearly explained in 23 sections that also contain necessary information such as mode of functioning, caste, gender, body parts and humor, direction, padas (this might be the only book in English that has detailed information on Nakshatra padas), professions, places, guna (essence) and tattwa (element), gana (type), auspicious and inauspicious activities, esoteric, etc.

In addition to the exhaustive material presented, the book incorporates stunning color illustrations of each Nakshatra by the talented Veno. These color images combine every aspect of the Nakshatras into a "picture that's worth a thousand words."

The writing style is clear and contemporary, without using much archaic expressions and complicated presentation as many Indian authors tend to do. The typeset is very pleasant and easy to read, which has been greatly augmented by the double spacing and crisp printing albeit font size is not exceptionally large.

Minor suggestions (which do not detract from the book's five-star quality) include incorporating a subject index, glossary (different astrologers could give different meaning for certain terms), and perhaps redeeming qualities (if any) of adverse Nakshatras.

The bottom line is this book is a must-have if you really want to know about Nakshatras. Though the book is more comprehensible to the advanced Jyotisha, beginning students can also find gems throughout the book. And we owe a great deal to the author for generously revealing these treasured ancient secrets to us.

This book is excellent, I was very surprised and did not expect it to be that great. However, it is very thorough and has changed my style of chart interpretation.

I also highly recommend Prash's Lunar Nodes book

Highly valuable and important for any serious astrologer, or for anyone interested in Vedic mythology. Prash Trivedi is a very subtle and observant astrologer, and each Nakshatra becomes its "own universe" in this book, and is given thorough, searching attention and detailed treatment. I use this book for every reading and refer to it frequently.

I purchased this book based on the review by Linda Lee, and I am somewhat disappointed. Of course, I am new to Vedic astrology, and my familiarity with Sanskrit terms is rather limited; i.e., please consider this review as an amateurish one rather than a scholarly one.

This brings up my first disappointment with almost all the books on Vedic astrology that I have looked at, and that is they lack a section or appendix that we (the beginners) may use as a reference for finding definitions of all these terms. These texts are peppered with these terms which sometimes may be defined or described somewhere in the book once, but are rather tedious to find again if you forget them and you need to look them up again while reading some other chapter.

Another major shortcoming of this book is that it provides a lot of general and interesting information on the intricacies and nature of various constellations and even gets into page-long elaborations on their esoteric aspects as well as other topics such as their relationships with vowels and alphabets, celesial lineage, caste, deity, lunar months and day, etc. (with no explanation on how to use such information.) Such information may be useful for some readers, and perhaps belong in there for the sake of completeness. However, hardly any information on matters far more practical and useful, such as the implications of positioning of various planets in these constellations, are provided in this book. Yet, this is what I was most interested in, and in fact the author opens the Introduction to the book with the following statement,"In Vedic system of Astrology... the 27 constellations and not the 12 star-sign form the core of understanding celestial influences on our planet..." But, unfortunately, he then chooses to provide hardlly any information on what these influences actually are on each planet in this 450+ page book. This is my biggest disappointment with this book.

Another area which I hope would be addressed in future editions is a lack of tables and more examples--I could not find a single table in the entire text of this book. Perhaps, a fold-out summary table containing keywords and primary themes of these 27 constellations would be very useful as a quick reference. I am now making my own table for this purpose, but I have a hard time keeping my loose hand-written table attached with the book. Moreover, very few examples are provided, and even those are very limited and sketchy with no charts. Perhaps the best analogy I can provide is that I feel I am sitting at a table to eat for the first time some good-smelling and mouth-watering food piled up on the table, but I am blind-folded and I am not given any spoons, plates, or napkins. In such a situation one my reach out adventurously and grab some bite, but you are not sure if you got the main course, some side dish, or just the food left for your dog. You can imagine how frustrating this experience may become.

Another area of improvement for this book may be using fewer loose and vague terms, which again I find to be my problem with most of astrology books. Terms such as 'well-positioned,' 'such natives,' 'heavily afflicted,' and so on are simply fuzzy, irritating, and can be misleading. Does 'such natives' refer to ascendent, sun, moon, or what, especially when elsewhere in the text terms such as 'with this nakshatra rising' is used? what is meant by 'affliction to this nakshatra?' How is a nakshatra (constellation) afflicted when their energies are supposedly beyond the reach of the solar system and are just supposed to be relayed or filtered through solar system planets in a one-way channel to reach us?

In short, this book is more useful for those who are well-versed in Vedic astrology and its terminology, and perhaps have more practical experience than I have so that they can integrate this information into their existing knowledge base. Otherwise, this might be a nice read, but not very usable or practical.

I am a beginning Jyotish student, however have read quite a few books on the subject and find this to be one of the best. The descriptions of the types here are spot on if you know how to use the Nakshatras in interpretation. As mentioned below I start by finding where the moon nakshatra is in a persons chart and this gives surprisingly accurate information regarding the person. There is quite of esoteric information for the beginner or one new to Indian culture, however if you want to learn Jyotish you WILL have to get into the mythology of the culture, its philosophies, and other sciences as it is so interwoven that you will miss the point if you don't.

I order this book at Amazon and I receive it really fast in comparaison of the date that it was supposed to arrive at my home.
And the book really respond to my expectation. So thank you for all.