Varahamihira: the Brihat Jataka, the Brihat Samhita and the Panchasiddhantika · Chapter 4 of 22 · Part Two · The Brihat Jataka

#Animals, plants, conception and birth

Brihat Jataka, chapters III–V

These three chapters apply astrology to matters that later books mostly dropped. They are interesting as history, and this chapter describes them as such. Some of their rules concern illness, death in pregnancy and deformity; these are summarised, not repeated as predictions.

#Chapter III: animals, birds and trees

Varahamihira begins with the idea that a chart can show what kind of being is born — human, animal, bird or plant:

• If the malefics are strong and the benefics weak at a birth, and a neuter planet is in an angle or aspects the ascendant, the creature is not human; likewise if the ascendant is a non-human sign (III.1–2).
• The body of a four-footed animal is mapped onto the signs as the human body is in chapter I: Aries the head, Taurus the face and neck, Gemini the forelegs and shoulders, Cancer the back, Leo the chest, Virgo the sides, Libra the belly, Scorpio the hindquarters, Sagittarius the hind legs, Capricorn the genitals, Aquarius the buttocks, Pisces the tail (III.3).
• The animal's colour comes from the planet in or aspecting the ascendant; the stripes on its back from the planets in the 7th (III.4).
• Birds: when a "bird drekkana" or a navamsa of Mercury rises with strong planets, the birth is a bird — a land bird with Saturn, a water bird with the Moon (III.5).
• Trees: when the ascendant, the Moon, Jupiter and the Sun are all weak, the birth is a tree (III.6). The lord of the rising navamsa gives its kind: the Sun a tree strong within, Saturn an ugly tree, the Moon a milky tree, Mars a thorny tree, Jupiter a fruit tree, Mercury a fruitless tree, Venus a flowering tree (III.7). A benefic lord in a malefic sign gives a fine tree on poor ground, and the reverse (III.8).

This chapter shows how completely Varahamihira's world was ordered by correspondences: the same zodiac maps the human body, the animal body, colours, and kinds of tree.

#Chapter IV: conception

The fourth chapter applies astrology to conception and pregnancy. Its rules reflect the medicine and society of the sixth century; this course does not use them on anyone.

• Monthly cycles are attributed to Mars and the Moon (IV.1).
• Conception is favoured when the Sun, Moon, Venus and Mars are in their own navamsas, or Jupiter is in the ascendant, 5th or 9th; Varahamihira adds that "to persons devoid of virility, the above yoga will be as useless as the rays of the Moon to the blind" (IV.3) — astrology, he says, cannot overcome physical fact.
• In a chart for the time of conception, the Sun and Venus represent the father and mother by day, Saturn and the Moon by night (IV.5).
• Several verses (IV.6–9) give configurations said to endanger the mother; others (IV.10) safe delivery; others the sex of the child (IV.11–14) and twins or multiple births (IV.15); others physical defects (IV.17–20). These belong to history.
• The development of the embryo (IV.16): in the first month it is formed; in the second it becomes flesh; in the third the limbs form; in the fourth the bones; in the fifth the skin; in the sixth the hair begins to grow; in the seventh "intelligence is infused". This is the embryology of the time, shared with Ayurveda.
• A rule predicts the time of birth from the Moon's dvadashamsa in the conception chart (IV.21), and another repeats old claims of pregnancies lasting three or even twelve years (IV.22) — a sign of how far some of this material is from observation.

#Chapter V: the circumstances of birth

The fifth chapter reads, from the birth chart, the circumstances of the birth itself — a favourite skill of the old astrologers, since it could be checked on the spot:

• Whether the father was present: if the Moon does not aspect the ascendant, he was not; with the Sun in the 8th or 9th, he was away, abroad or at home according to the sign (V.1–2).
• Twins, the umbilical cord round the body (V.4–5).
• The place of birth: in a boat, on the bank of water, in a prison, in a ditch, in a pleasant spot, in a fire-temple, in a king's palace — from the ascendant and the planets aspecting it (V.8–12).
• The house: rebuilt, partly burnt, newly built, wooden — from the strongest planet (V.19); the direction of the delivery room and of the bed (V.20–21); the lamp — its oil from the Moon, its wick from the ascendant, whether fixed or movable from the Sun's sign; the entrance from the strongest planet in an angle (V.18).
• The number of midwives: the planets between the ascendant and the Moon, inside or outside the room according to the hemisphere (V.22).
• The body of the child: its build from the lord of the rising navamsa or the strongest planet; its colour from the Moon's navamsa lord; marks and moles from the planets in the signs that map the body (V.23–26).

Some verses of chapter V describe a child abandoned by its mother, or born out of wedlock (V.6, 14–15). These, too, are history.

#Why these chapters matter

These chapters show three things about Varahamihira's astrology:

1. It aimed to describe every detail of a moment — even the lamp and the midwives — from the sky.
2. Many of its claims were checkable at the time (the place of birth, the number of midwives), which is how a reputation was made or lost.
3. It reflects the medicine and social world of sixth-century India: we read it to understand that world, not to predict in ours.

#Summary

• Chapter III: charts for animals, birds and trees; the animal body on the signs; colours and kinds from the planets.
• Chapter IV: conception and pregnancy, with the embryology of the time (IV.16) and the remark that astrology cannot overcome physical fact (IV.3); its predictions of danger are history.
• Chapter V: the circumstances of birth — father's presence, place, house, lamp, midwives, the child's body — read from the chart.

#Exercises

1. How does Varahamihira map a four-footed animal's body onto the signs?
2. What kind of tree is shown by Jupiter as the lord of the rising navamsa? By Mars?
3. What does Varahamihira say about the conception yoga for persons "devoid of virility"?
4. Give three circumstances of birth that chapter V claims to read from the chart.
5. Why does this course treat these chapters as history?

Answers: 1. Aries the head, Taurus face and neck, Gemini forelegs, Cancer back, Leo chest, Virgo sides, Libra belly, Scorpio hindquarters, Sagittarius hind legs, Capricorn genitals, Aquarius buttocks, Pisces tail (III.3). 2. A fruit tree; a thorny tree (III.7). 3. That it is as useless as moonlight to the blind (IV.3). 4. Any three of: the father's presence, the place of birth, the house, the lamp, the direction of the room, the number of midwives, the child's body. 5. Because they reflect sixth-century medicine and society, some predict harm, and none has been shown to work.