The Study of Jyotisha · Chapter 48 of 54 · Part Ten · History

#Greek contact and Varahamihira

#The arrival of horoscopy

At the end of the Vedic period (Chapter 47), Indian astronomy had the nakshatras, the lunar calendar and the ritual year. In the first centuries of the common era, something new appears in Indian texts: the twelve signs, the seven planets with their rulerships and meanings, the houses counted from the rising sign, the planetary week — and the horoscope, a chart of the sky at birth read for a person's life.

These are the defining features of Hellenistic astrology, the astrology developed in the Greek-speaking world, especially in Alexandria in Egypt, between about the 2nd century BCE and the 2nd century CE, from Babylonian, Egyptian and Greek sources. The Indian texts themselves record that it came from the Yavanas — the Sanskrit word for Greeks (from "Ionians"), later used for western foreigners generally.

#The Yavanajataka

The key text is the Yavanajataka, "the horoscopy of the Greeks". According to its own statements, as studied by David Pingree:

• in 149/150 CE a scholar called Yavaneshvara ("lord of the Greeks") translated a Greek astrological text from Alexandria into Sanskrit prose;
• in 269/270 CE Sphujidhvaja put it into Sanskrit verse, in 79 chapters, and it is this version that survives.

A later work, the Vriddhayavanajataka of Minaraja (early 4th century), continued the tradition. The Indian scholar K. S. Shukla has disputed parts of Pingree's reading of the dates; the broad picture — a Greek text translated in the 2nd century and versified in the 3rd — is widely accepted.

The Indian tradition did not hide this debt. The lists of the "eighteen founders" of Jyotisha include Yavana (Chapter 50), and a verse widely attributed to Garga says that although the Yavanas are foreigners, "this science is well established among them", and so they deserve honour like sages.

#Greek words in the Brihat Jataka

The clearest evidence of the Greek origin of horoscopy is in Varahamihira's own vocabulary. In the Brihat Jataka:

• the signs have a set of Greek names: Kriya (Greek krios, ram), Tavuri (tauros, bull), Jituma (didymoi, twins), Kulira, Leya (leon, lion), Pathona (parthenos, virgin), Juka (zygon, yoke), Kaurpi (skorpios), Taukshika (toxotes, archer), Akokera (aigokeros, goat-horned), Hridroga (hydrochoos, water-pourer) and Antyabha (Brihat Jataka I.8; Chapter 7);
• the houses and their groups have Greek names: kendra (kentron, centre or angle), panaphara (epanaphora), apoklima (apoklima), trikona (trigonon), dyuna (dysis, setting), jamitra (diametron), meshurana (mesouranema, mid-heaven), hibuka (hypogeion, below the earth) (Brihat Jataka I.16–19; Chapter 9). Aiyar's note simply says: "Panapara and Apoklima are Greek terms" (note to I.18);
• even the word hora itself. Varahamihira reports that "according to some, the word hora is a corruption of the word ahoratra" (day and night) "the first and last syllables being dropped" (Brihat Jataka I.3). Historians generally derive it instead from the Greek hora, "hour" — a remarkable case of a borrowed word being given a Sanskrit explanation.

#What India did with it

Indian astrologers did not simply copy. They combined the Hellenistic system with their own:

• the nakshatras were kept and woven into the horoscope (Chapters 4, 13) — something with no equivalent in Greek astrology;
• the sidereal zodiac was kept, fixed to the stars;
• new divisions were developed — the navamsa became central (Chapter 12);
• the dasha systems (Chapter 22), especially those based on the nakshatras, are an Indian development;
• Rahu and Ketu became full members of the planetary system.

And in astronomy, Indian astronomers built their own mathematical tradition (Chapter 49), which soon went beyond what they had received.

#The five siddhantas

By the 5th and 6th centuries, several astronomical systems (siddhantas) were in use. Varahamihira summarised five of them in his Panchasiddhantika ("five siddhantas"), whose epoch is the year 427 of the Shaka era, that is 505 CE:

As Thibaut's introduction explains, Varahamihira ranked them: the Saura the most accurate, the Romaka and Paulisha about equally good, and the Paitamaha and Vasishtha far behind (Panchasiddhantika I). Two of the five, by their names, came from the West.

The Panchasiddhantika is precious because the older siddhantas are otherwise lost; it is our main window into Indian astronomy before Aryabhata (Chapter 49). Thibaut also notes that Varahamihira was unusual among Indian astronomers in thinking it worthwhile to set out the views of his predecessors at all.

#Varahamihira

#His life

Varahamihira tells us about himself at the end of the Brihat Jataka:

Varahamihira, the son of the Brahmin Adityadasa from whom he received his education, obtained the boon of knowledge from the Sun in the village of Kapittha, spent his days in the court of Ujjaini in the province of Avanti, and has written this neat work on horoscopy after a careful examination of the works of the ancient sages on the subject (Brihat Jataka XXVIII.9, Aiyar).

He lived in the 6th century CE; the Panchasiddhantika's epoch (505 CE) and the astronomical details of his works place him in its first half. Ujjain, in central India, was the great centre of Indian astronomy; its meridian became the prime meridian of Indian astronomy.

#His works

He wrote on all three branches of Jyotisha, as he himself says (Brihat Jataka XXVIII.4–6):

• astronomy: the Panchasiddhantika;
• horoscopy: the Brihat Jataka ("the great horoscopy") and a shorter Laghu Jataka; works on marriage (Vivaha Patala) and travel (Yoga Yatra);
• samhita: the Brihat Samhita (Chapter 42).

Aiyar notes that two chapters of the Brihat Jataka as usually printed (XVI, on the nakshatras, and XVII, on the Moon in the signs) are not in Varahamihira's own list of contents and were added later from his other works (note to XXVIII.1–3).

#His method

Throughout this course you have seen Varahamihira:

• report the views of many predecessors — Garga, Parashara, the Yavanas, Satyacharya, Jeevasarma, Manittha — and say where they disagree (Chapters 19, 33);
• reject what does not make sense: the Rahu myth of eclipses (Brihat Samhita 5.8–13, Chapter 42), the impossible Vajra yoga (Brihat Jataka XII.6, Chapter 20);
• admit his limits: he states some yogas "adopting the view of former writers" while doubting them, and asks the learned to correct his errors and omissions "setting aside all feelings of jealousy" (Brihat Jataka XXVIII.8).

He is the single most important figure in this course: a compiler who preserved the older traditions, a critic who tested them, and a teacher who wrote clearly. His standard — report, cite, test, and admit doubt — is the standard this course has tried to follow.

#Summary

• Horoscopic astrology — signs, planets, houses, the horoscope — developed in the Hellenistic world and reached India in the early centuries CE.
• The Yavanajataka: translated from Greek by Yavaneshvara in 149/150 CE, versified by Sphujidhvaja in 269/270 CE.
• The Brihat Jataka is full of Greek words: the sign names (I.8), kendra, panaphara, apoklima, trikona, dyuna, jamitra, meshurana, hibuka; and probably hora itself.
• India combined the imported system with the nakshatras, the sidereal zodiac, the navamsa, the dashas and the nodes.
• Varahamihira of Ujjain (6th century) summarised five siddhantas (Panchasiddhantika, epoch 505 CE), and wrote the Brihat Jataka and Brihat Samhita; his method was to report, cite, test and admit doubt.

#Exercises

1. What does "Yavana" mean, and why is it in the list of the founders of Jyotisha?
2. Give the Greek origins of three of Varahamihira's terms.
3. What does Varahamihira say about the origin of the word hora, and what do historians say?
4. Name the five siddhantas of the Panchasiddhantika and Varahamihira's ranking of them.
5. Name three things Indian astrologers added to the Hellenistic system.

Answers: 1. Greek (from "Ionian"), later Western foreigners generally; the tradition remembered and honoured the Greek origin of horoscopy. 2. For example: kendra from kentron; jamitra from diametron; meshurana from mesouranema; Kriya from krios; Juka from zygon. 3. That it comes from ahoratra with the first and last syllables dropped (I.3); historians generally derive it from the Greek hora, "hour". 4. Paitamaha, Vasishtha, Romaka, Paulisha, Saura; the Saura best, the Romaka and Paulisha next, the Paitamaha and Vasishtha far behind. 5. Any three of: the nakshatras, the sidereal zodiac, the navamsa as a central division, the dasha systems, Rahu and Ketu as planets.