Bhutanese elders carry out
the annual divination using readings from astrological books. The divination
shows the family and its members the potential obstacles they face in that year
with regard to business, travel, health and other affairs of life. Remedial
measures also also prescribed after the divination and they include recitation
of prayers, performing of rituals, freeing of animals/fishes from
slaughterhouse, changing of name, hoisting of prayer flags, and even changing
of parents for astrological purposes.
In order to prepare lomo,
the astrologer has to carry out a lot of calculations to check the following
conditions.
1. The five life forces
Srog (སྲོག་)
or the life essence, which resides in the heart related to the vitality and
stability of one’s life.
Lue (ལུས་)
or ones body related to physical health.
Wangthang (དབང་ཐང་)
or esteem, power and charima, which influences one’s wealth, possessions, and
fulfilment of life goals.
Lungta (རླུང་རྟ་)
or windhorse which is related to one’s fortune, luck and reputation, and one’s
capacity to avoid bad circumstances.
Lah (བླ་)
or vital force which is linked to one’s psychological and emotional stability.
2. Parkha (སྤར་ཁ་)
of the eight trigrams to check which direction is favorable or not in course of
one’s engagement and which times are of high risk and disadvantages based on
one’s birth sign.
3. Log-men (ལོག་མིན་)
or the divination feature to check whether you fall under namgo or sago.
If namgo,
then it is important to avoid climbing, high places, etc. for that year and if sago,
then one should avoid digging foundation, going under ground and so forth for
that year.
Divination also checks the
mewa energy of birth and that of the current year and check their
compatibility. If they are the same, it is said to be not good.
4. Lokag (ལོ་སྐག་)
or the year misfortune is to check the whether you fall under some misfortunate
period due to one’s birth mark and the configuration of stars. If your birth sign
and the current year sign are the same, which happens after every 12 years then
it is called lokag,
and the period is deemed to be inauspicious and negative for the person.
When the current year sign
is the 7th or opposite of the birth sign, it is called dun-zur and also considered bad.
If the current year is same
element as the birth element, then this too is not-so-good.
5. Shishey signs are
identified by counting four up and four down from current year sign. If this
year the sign is monkey, shi shey sign would be rat and dragon. If one’s birth
sign is any of the two, the year is not good for one.
6. The Seven Obstacles
Each of these eventualities
affects the entire current year.
• If the current year sign
is the same as one’s birth year sign
• If the current year sign
is the opposite of one’s birth year sign
• If the current year sign
is the animal sign adjacent to one’s birth year sign and the same element as
your birth year element.
• If the current year sign
is the same as one of three destroyers
If the wife and husband
have same descending parkha for the current year which shows bad.
If the current year animal
sign is the sign for the year one’s father or grandfather died
If descending parkha is the
same as birth parkha.
The following four are
obstacles of mewa energy
Descending mewa is the same as the mewa of the current year
Descending mewa is the same as the mewa of the current year
Descending mewa is the same as the birth Mewa.
Descending mewa is the second black one.
The element of the descending mewa is the same as the element of the enemy of the birth mewa.
These and other
astrological and divination factors are considered in drafting the annual
divination for a person to guide the people in living safe, happy and healthy
lives.
Phub Dorji Wang is a
freelance writer on Bhutanese religion and culture and frequently write on
facebook to educate Bhutanese public. Edited by Dr. Karma Phuntsho.
Note: This article was
hoisted at the data base of University of Virgina by Dr. Karma Phuentsho. http://bhutan.virginia.edu/subjects/8260/text-node/49276/nojs
