i am confused as to what the difference between vedic astrology and western astrology, someone able to give me a basic difference between the two?

Tropical (Western) astrology uses the tropical or sayana zodiac, which is seasonal and aries starts with vernal (spring equinox), vedic uses sidereal zodiac which is visible in the sky. When we say jupiter is in sagittarius, then in the sky you will see the yellow jupiter transiting the sagittarius constellation in the sky, although tropical zodiac would place it in capricorn.

The difference is created by ayanamsha or precession of equinoxes (fine print! Skip it!!).

Vedic uses the astroindicators from sun to saturn (and rahu ketu the nodes of our moon), tropical uses these and the transsaturnine planets, herschel, neptune and pluto. There are more factors that both systems use but that would be too detailed for this post.

Tropicalists rely heavily on aspects between astroindicators which essentially bypass the need for ayanamsha. Vedic too uses aspects between planets, planets and houses and between signs!


Vedic uses different planetary periods (dasas) while tropical uses directions and progressions similar to some extent conceptually to dashas, but differ significantly in details.