Origins of Indian Horoscopic Astrology

Introduction

India has the longest surviving tradition of horoscopic astrology going back at-least two millennia, which is thought to be largely based on Hellenistic astrology transmitted to India in around the second century CE and adapted into the Yavanajātaka (3rd century CE), which shaped all the subsequent astrological traditions of the subcontinent.

While there’s no denying that there has been some borrowing of ideas and doctrines from other cultures, evidence from Vedic texts points not only to an earlier origin of Horoscopic astrology, but also a possible westward transmission of this knowledge to Mesopotamia following the conquests of Northwestern India by the Persians in 514 BCE and later with Alexander the Great’s invasion of India in 327 BCE, which subsequently became the foundation of the system of horoscopic astrology that emerged in Hellenistic Egypt in the first century BCE.

Antiquity of the Vedic tradition

The vast corpus of Vedic literature, consisting of the Saṃhitā, Brāhmaṇa and Āraṇyaka of all the four Vedas (Ṛk, Yajus, Sāma and Atharva), contains astronomical information which helps us in determining the historical epoch to which their traditions and beliefs belong. The list of nakṣatras in the Brāhmaṇas begins from Kṛttikā most certainly because the vernal equinox occurred in it, which was valid for 2720–1760 BCE.

Thuban (alpha draconis) was the fixed polestar Dhruva between 3200 and 2800 BCE, placed at the tail end of the constellation Draco (Śiśumāra) according to the Taittiriya Āraṇyaka (2.19). The Taittiriya Brāhmaṇa (1.5.2.7) divides the twenty-seven nakṣatras into two categories — thirteen and a half nakṣatras ending with Viśākhā (situated in the northern hemisphere) called the Deva-nakṣatras, and the remaining ending with Bharaṇi in the southern hemisphere called Yama-nakṣatras, assignable to 2300 BCE. All of these references point to a high age of 3rd-4th millennium BCE of ancient Indian astronomy.

Tradition tells us that Jyotiṣa was originally promulgated by the eighteen sages Brahmā, Vasiṣṭha, Atri, Manu, Paulastya, Lomaśa, Marīci, Aṃgirā, Vyāsa, Nārada, Śaunaka, Bhṛgu, Cyavana, Yavana, Garga, Kaśyapa and Parāśara. Of their works the Saṃhitā of Parāśara and Garga and the calendrical text of Lagadha (belonging to the lineage of Brahmā/Pitāmaha) have traditionally held the greatest importance, the former two dealing with topics like planetary motion, comets, eclipses, rainfall, omens etc. treated by Varāhamihira in his Bṛhat Saṃhitā (he states at the very start of the text [1.2] that he is summarising detailed treatises expounded by the first sages). The beginning of Parāśara’s textual tradition can be assigned to 1400 BCE, and that of Garga (or Vṛddha-garga) to 1300 BCE. Parāśara’s comet list contains 26 comets and gives the interval of years between their appearances, with the first and last comet appearance spanning a period of 1300 years, from which we can trace its origins to around 2700 BCE. This proves that the recension of Parāśara’s Saṃhitā (also called Parāśara Tantra by Varāhamihira in Bṛhat Saṃhitā 7.8) was preceded by centuries of oral tradition. Similarly according to the Mahāsalila chapter of the Garga Saṃhitā (forming the most ancient layer of the text) the vernal equinox was marked by Kṛttikā, the summer solstice by Magha and winter solstice by the Śraviṣṭhā (Dhaniṣṭha) nakṣatra, which goes back to a more ancient period of around 1800–2300 BCE. He also informs us about the existence of treatises by other authorities which should have included the likes of Parāśara (who precedes him by a century) and Atri (who is one of Garga’s sources on portents according to Bṛhat Saṃhitā 45.1). The teachings of many other sages could therefore be antecedent to both Parāśara and Vṛddha-garga.

Astrology, along with astronomy, seems to have been popular from the most ancient times too, for consulting astrologers for wisdom and insights is mentioned in the Yajurveda (where they are called nakṣatradarśa — “star-gazer” and gaṇaka — “arithmetician”), and astrology (nakṣatravidyā — “star-knowledge”) along with the knowledge of portents (daiva) are listed among the various fields of knowledge in the Chāndogyopaniṣad (6th-8th century BCE).

Later texts like the Arthaśāstra (300 BCE) talk about the king having to hire and pay fixed annual wages to fortune-tellers (kārtāntika), those making auspicious elections (mauhūrtika) and indicators of omens (naimittika), each perhaps specialising in the three branches of jyotiṣa — jātaka (natal astrology), gaṇita (astronomy) and apara (other topics like omens, portents etc.) respectively; the head priest (purohita) too was required to be learned in the Vedāṅgas and skilful in reading portents (Arthaśāstra 1.9.9).

Natal astrology based on the birth nakṣatra is referenced in Vedic texts. In the Atharvaveda we find a verse that prays for the long life and protection of a native born under the Jyeṣṭha and Mūla nakṣatras (popular as the inauspicious gaṇḍamūla asterisms). Kauśika Sūtra (600 BCE), a ritual treatise of the Atharvaveda, prescribes a ritual for birth under one such asterism (Mūla). The characteristics of a native born under each of the twenty-seven nakṣatras are detailed in the Samhitās of both Parāśara and Vṛddha-garga, and is therefore included by Varāhamihira in the Bṛhat Saṃhitā (under nakṣatrajātaka — “nativity of asterisms”). Many sections of the Vedas and texts from the late Vedic period indicate an awareness of the nature of planets and their significations, the concept of a twelvefold zodiac and its subdivisions, planetary aspects, the reckoning of the ascendant and a notion of counting places, all of which points to the practice of some form of horoscopic astrology in an earlier period, as will be discussed later.

The origins of Vedic astronomy and astrology can thus be traced to the 3rd-4th millennium BCE, from which jyotiṣa emerged as an auxiliary discipline of Vedas (Vedāṅga) in around the middle of the second millennium BCE, dealing with astronomy, astrology and calendrics. (Pingree, however, places the beginning of Vedic astronomy at 1000 BCE, which is too late considering that the origin of Parāśara’s jyotiṣa is easily at-least a few centuries older, and that of Vṛddha-garga is no later than 1150 BCE.)

The Twelvefold Zodiac

The best known system of dividing the ecliptic from ancient India is that of the twenty-seven nakṣatras, which originated as a means to study the movement of the Moon, Sun and planets across a fixed backdrop of the stars in the night sky. The tradition of reckoning the nakṣatras as twenty-seven equal divisions of the ecliptic seems to originate in the Vedic Saṃhitās where Soma (the Moon) is said to be married to asterisms and spends equal time with each of them. The Maitrāyaṇīya Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad (also known as the Maitri Upaniṣad) divides the circle of the zodiac into two equal halves along the initial point of Magha and the middle point of the Śraviṣṭhā nakṣatra (assignable to 1800 BCE), implying the use of twenty-seven equal nakṣatras -

सूर्यो योनिः कालस्य तस्यैतद्रूपं यन् निमेषादिकालात्सम्भृतं द्वादशात्मकं वत्सरमेतस्याग्नेयमर्धमर्धं वारुणं मघाद्यं श्रविष्ठार्धमाग्नेयं क्रमेणोत्क्रमेण सार्पाद्यं श्रविष्ठार्धान्तं सौम्यम् तत्रैकैकमात्मनो नवांशकं सचारकविधम् सौक्ष्म्यत्वादेतत्प्रमाणमनेनैव प्रमीयते हि कालः

“… Sun is the birth place of Time. The form of Time is the year, consisting of twelve (months), made up of nimeṣa and other measures. Of the year one half is āgneya and the other half vāruṇa. The āgneya half begins with the asterism of Magha, and ends with the half of Śraviṣṭhā; this being Sun’s southern travel. That which is saumya, in the reverse order, is from āśleṣā, to the half-end of Śraviṣṭhā; this is the northern course. And then, there is (the month), one by one, belonging to the year, each consisting of nine-amśa (quarter) of asterisms, each determined by the Sun moving (with the asterisms). Because Time is too subtle (for sensory perception) this progress of the Sun is its evidence (or proof), and by it alone is Time cognized…”

- Maitrāyaṇīya Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad 6.14

The nakṣatras as twenty-seven equal divisions of the ecliptic identified with a specific star or constellation are found both in Lagadha’s Vedāṅgajyotiṣa and the Parāśara Tantra, where six seasons are measured through the motion the sun across equal segments of the zodiac, each measuring four and a half nakṣatra.

There are references to the celestial wheel being divided into twelve parts in the Ṛgveda, as a possible reference to both the wheel of time (a year of twelve months), as well as to a twelve-fold division of the ecliptic -

द्वादशारं नहि तज्जराय वर्वर्ति चक्रं परि द्यामृतस्य।

आ पुत्रा अग्ने मिथुनासो अत्र सप्त शतानि विंशतिश्च तस्थुः ॥1.164.11॥

“The twelve-spoked wheel of the true (Sun) revolves round the heavens, and never (tends) to decay : seven hundred and twenty children in pairs, Agni, abide in it.”

द्वादश प्रधयश्चक्रमेकं त्रीणि नभ्यानि क उ तच्चिकेत।

तस्मिन्त्साकं त्रिशता न शङ्कवोऽर्पिताः षष्टिर्न चलाचलास: ॥1.164.48॥

“The fellies are twelve; the wheel is one; three are the axle; but who knows it?

Within it are collected 360 (spokes), which are, as it were, both moveable and immovable.”

The twelve fellies of the wheel can be taken as the twelve months of a civil year with thirty days each, consisting of a total of 360 days, or 720 days and nights. The three axles could be the three different interpretations of the wheel, which is explained in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (SB) of the Śukla Yajurveda. The first interpretation is as a circle divided into 360 equal parts (SB 10:5:4:4) -

“But, indeed, that Fire-altar also is the sun: — the regions are its enclosing-stones, and there are three hundred and sixty of these, because three hundred and sixty regions encircle the sun on all sides;”

The second is as a circle of the 27 equal naksatras, and the 27 equal subdivisions (upanakṣatra) of each (SB 10:5:4:5) -

“But, indeed, that Fire-altar also is the Nakṣatras: — for there are twenty-seven of these Nakṣatras, and twenty-seven secondary stars accompany each Nakṣatra, — this makes seven hundred and twenty, and thirty-six in addition thereto.”

The third is as a civil year of 360 days and nights (SB 10:5:4:10) -

“But, indeed, that Fire-altar also is the Year, — the nights are its enclosing-stones, and there are three hundred and sixty of these, because there are three hundred and sixty nights in the year; and the days are its Yagushmatî bricks, for there are three hundred and sixty of these, and three hundred and sixty days in the year;”

Therefore the wheel is conceptualised in essentially two ways — temporally (as the year) and spatially (as a zodiac). The circle of the zodiac is divided into equal parts corresponding to the measure of the Sun’s motion in various divisions of the year — 12 parts for each of the 12 months, 360 parts for each day, 720 parts for each day and night and so on. These smaller partitions of the zodiac are made using various subdivisions of the 27 equal nakṣatras, e.g. 27 equal sub portions (upanakṣatra) makes a total 729 divisions, a good approximation for 720. We see the use of aṁśa (¼) i.e. quarter part of a nakṣatra in the previously quoted section of the Maitri Upaniṣad [6.14], which divides the ecliptic into 108 equal parts. It can also be argued that because the original list of 27 nakṣatras contain only 24 distinct names, each representing the 24 half months of the year and hence 24 equal divisions of the ecliptic. Further, a day is divided into 60 nāḍikās in Lagadha’s Vedāṅgajyotiṣa, this means that the degree (representing the Sun’s motion in one day) can further be divided into 60 parts (i.e. minutes). Thus we see that the ecliptic has various smaller subdivisions (24, 108, 360, 720 and so on) corresponding to equal partitions of the nakṣatras. The twelfth division of the ecliptic can be conceptualised as a grouping or sum (rāśi) of these nakṣatra segments — each of the 24 nakṣatras as the rāśi’s half (hora), aṁśa/quarters as the ninth part (navāṁśa), upanakṣatras as the sixtieth part (ṣaṣṭiāṁśa) etc. This is how a zodiac sign as a rāśi is described in Yavanajātaka [1.44] :

“They call (a sign) a “collection” (rāśi) in order to distinguish the activities of these corresponding (parts); this is immeasurable like the waters of the sea because of doubts as to the variety of their mutual interrelationships.”

Since the nakṣatras and their subdivisions are sidereal by definition, so too are the twelve rāśis.

The year on the other hand was measured tropically, beginning with the winter solstice and divided into two ayana (halves), three cāturmāsya (four month periods), six ṛtu (seasons) and twelve solar months. Parāśara Tantra contains a passage describing the six seasons equalized in time and space to each be of 4½ nakṣatra span, starting with the śiśira ṛtu at the beginning of śraviṣṭha (which was the point of winter solstice for his time) -

तस्य श्रविष्टाद्यात् पौष्णान्तम् चरतः शिशिरः । वसन्तः पौष्णार्धातु रोहिण्यान्तम् । सौम्यात् सर्पार्धम् ग्रीष्मः । प्रावृट् सर्पार्धात् हस्तान्तम् । चित्राद्यात् ऐन्द्रार्धं शरत् । मन्त ज्येष्टार्थात् वैष्णवान्तम् इति ।।

“Śiśira (cold season) is when he (Sun) transits from beginning of Dhaniṣṭhā till middle of Revati. Vasanta (spring) is from middle of Revatī till end of Rohiņi. Grīşma (summer) is from beginning of Mṛgaśirā till middle of Āśleṣā. Varṣā (rainy season) is from middle of Aśleṣā to end of Hastā. Śarat season is from Citra to middle of Jyeṣṭhā. Hemanta (dewy season) is from middle of Jyeṣṭhā to end of Śravana.”

This seasonal measurement across four and a half nakṣatras was adopted by Lagadha in his Vedāṅga-jyotiṣa [Rg-VJ 9]. In the Taittirīya Saṃhitā [4.4.11.1] each of the six seasons are associated with the two Vedic solar months (Tapa and Tapasya with Śiśira, Madhu and Mādhava with Vasanta, and so on), and each solar month is associated with a solar deity (Āditya) in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa [11.6.3.8].

In the Maitri Upaniṣad [6.14] we find that the winter solstice is placed in the middle of the asterism Śraviṣṭhā (śraviṣṭhārdha), but some 400–500 years later Parāśara (~1350 BCE) shifts it to the beginning to Śraviṣṭhā (śraviṣṭhādi) to account for the effects of precession. Another verse quoted by Bhattotpala attributed to Parāśara describes the effects of the Sun not reaching the Śravaṇa nakṣatra on winter solstice instead of Śraviṣṭhā, valid for 400–300 BCE.

Thus we have evidence that the point of the winter solstice was understood to be drifting backwards with time, and beginning of the year and the seasons were being updated accordingly.

The beginning of the Vedic tropical year was marked by the sun’s position in the Dhaniṣṭha nakṣatra on the winter solstice day, and the counting of the nakṣatras began from Kṛttikā since the vernal equinox was located in it. The following statements by Vṛddha-garga explain this tradition for his times :

तेषां च सर्वेषां नक्षत्राणां कर्मसु कृत्तिकाः प्रथममाचक्षते । श्रविष्ठा तु सङ्ख्यायाः पूर्वा लग्नानाम् ।

“The first of all those nakṣatras in sacrificial actions is Krittika. Śraviṣṭhā is the first of the count of the ascendants (lagnas).”

Kṛttikā was chosen as the first nakṣatra for sacrificial purposes due to its attribution to the spring equinox, and therefore all the oldest Vedic texts begin the list of nakṣatras with it. The count of the sidereal ascendants (lagnas) in a five year yuga begins with Dhaniṣṭha, the rising nakṣatra at sunrise on the winter solstice at the beginning of the year (also found in Lagadha’s Vedāṅgajyotiṣa — R-VJ 19). Both the nakṣatras (Kṛttikā, Dhaniṣṭha) were hence useful for marking the cardinal points of the year for timing various rituals. However, due to the effects of precession, they were not thought to be suitable to mark the fixed zero point of the sidereal zodiac. Instead a more appropriate choice for a fixed beginning of the nakṣatras is found in a version of the Puruṣa Sūkta, a prayer to the cosmic being (Puruṣa), in the Śukla Yajurveda [Vājasaneyisaṃhitā 31.22]. Here the nakṣatras are said to be the form (rūpa) of the macrocosmic man with the Aśvins as his open mouth, as a reference to the beginning of nakṣatras -

अहोरात्रे पार्श्वे । नक्षत्राणि रूपमश्विनौ व्यात्तम् ।

“each side of thee are Day and Night.

The constellations are thy form: the Aśvins are thine open jaws.”

Since the Aśvins are associated with the break of dawn, and are seen as uniting the day with night, and the earth with the sky, it makes sense to associate them with the fixed ascendant of the cosmic being, and to begin counting the signs and constellations from them i.e. the Aśvinī nakṣatra.

Another reference to the Aśvins being the first is found in Yāska’s Nirukta [12.1] (~700 BCE) -

अथातो द्युस्थानाः देवताः । तासामश्विनौ प्रथमागामिनौ भवतः ।

“Next in order are the deities whose dwell in the sky.

Among them the Aśvins are the first to arrive.”

Following this tradition, the Yavanajātaka places Aśvini at the beginning of zodiac, which is called the body of kāla (time) made up of the nakṣatras and the twelve rāśis starting from Aries [79.56–57,59] -

प्रजाः सिसृक्षुः किल विश्वधाता प्रजापतिः प्राग्व्रतमाचचार ।

स द्वादशाङ्गप्रभवं स्वदेहम् सृष्ट्वा आदितः वै भगणं ससर्ज ॥56॥

तेभ्यः स मेषादिगणान् प्रजज्ञे तेभ्यः च तद्भेदविकल्पतः अन्यान् ।

अतः भवर्गस्य विभुः प्रणेता प्रजाभवाभावविधीश्वरत्वम् ॥57॥

तपोभिरुगैर्विदुरश्विनौ तु प्रजापतेः शास्त्रमिदं यतोऽर्कः।

अतोऽश्वयुग्मं विदधौ विधाता शीर्षादि कालर्क्षशरीरचक्रे ॥59॥

“56. The creator of all things, Prajāpati, desiring to create people, carried out his previous vow; he created the constellations from his own body, beginning with the head — his body which is the source of parts which are like all things.

57. From these he produced the group which begins with Aries; and from these (zodiacal signs) are there distinction and differentiation between those (material objects). Hence the lord (īśvara​) who knows the origin (bhavā) and the existence (bhāva) of people, knew the rule of the zodiacal signs (i.e., astrology).

59. By terrible feats of asceticism the two Aśvins learned this science from Prajāpati, and the Sun learned it from them; hence the Creator placed the pair of horses (Aśvinī) at the beginning of his head in the circle of signs which is the body of Kāla.”

The cosmic man is therefore referred to as the kālapuruṣa in astrological texts [Bṛhat Saṃhitā 2.4] or simply as kāla [Yavanajātaka 1.14, Vṛddhayavanajātaka 1.4]. Various body parts of the creator [Prajāpati] in the form of the kāla(puruṣa) starting from the head till the feet are allotted to the signs beginning from Aries and Aśvinī nakṣatra.

The 360 spokes of the celestial wheel are therefore called both movable and immovable in Ṛgveda 1.164.48 as a description of the movable nature of the tropical year and the fixed nature of the sidereal zodiac respectively.

The Yavanajātaka [1.34–37] specifies various subdivisions of a zodiac sign like the horā, drekāṇa, saptāṁśa, navāṁśa, dvādaśāṁśa and triṁśāṁśa which are described as being useful for the purpose of genethlialogy (making predictions, determining longevity etc.). In addition to them there are descriptions of the saura (sixty solar portions), cūḍāpada (72nd part of a navamsa) and liptika (60th part of a degree), which have to be divided on a separate zodiac (bhamaṇḍala) [Yavanajātaka 1.43] -

सौराः सचूडापदलिप्तिकाख्या भाज्यास्तदान्येन भमण्डलेन ।​

“The sauras, cūḍāpadas, and liptikas are to be distributed through another zodiacal circle;”

The cūḍāpadas and liptikas are mentioned in one curious verse that appears in Mīnarāja’s Vṛddhayavanajātaka​ [1.24] (300–325 CE) -

चूडापदं द्विस्वरसप्तलिप्तमाद्यं पुराणा गृहलिप्तिकानाम् ।

“The first cūḍāpada of the liptikas of the zodiac signs of the ancients is (located at) 772 liptas.”

A lipta is one sixtieth of a degree, hence 772 liptas correspond to a measure of 12°52’, which could be the position of the vernal equinox for the beginning of an ancient epoch known to the Yavanas. Ancient Greek astronomers like Hipparchus (second century BCE) followed an era that began with the first year of the reign of the Babylonian king Nabonassar on February 26, 747 BCE, a system that was adopted from Chaldean astronomers. The zero point of the sidereal ecliptic according to Hipparchus’s star catalogue coincided with the vernal equinox (i.e. tropical zero point) for the year 540 CE and the rate of precession was determined by him to be 1° for every 100 years. Using his model of precession, the equinoctial point for the beginning of Nabonassar era [747 BCE] would be at 12°51’40” of Aries, nearly equal to the value found in the Vṛddhayavanajātaka verse. This implies that the Yavana authors were aware of Hipparchus’s model of precession and used it to determine the position of the vernal equinox to mark the first cūḍāpada on a separate zodiacal circle. These tropical subdivisions (cūḍāpada, liptika, saura) should have existed for the purpose of tracking the months and the seasons (the measure of one cūḍāpada roughly corresponds to the motion of the Sun in 45 minutes, close to the measure of a muhūrta of 48 minutes), while the other sidereal ones (horā, drekāṇa, saptāṁśa, navāṁśa etc.) for horoscopy. It’s also worth noting that the cūḍāpadas are never used in astrological texts (except for once in the quoted Vṛddhayavanajātaka verse), and the sixtieth portions (ṣaṣṭyāṁśaka) used by Parāśara and later authors like Vaidyanātha (Jātaka Pārijāta 1.38–43) and Mantreśvara (Phaladīpikā 3.5) are quite different. By asking for the tropical and sidereal divisions to be made on two different zodiacs, the Yavanajātaka subscribes to the view of the Ṛgveda regarding the two-fold interpretation of the celestial wheel — the fixed sidereal circle of signs with its subdivisions and the tropical one for timekeeping (calendrics, measuring seasons etc.), the only difference being that the latter begins with the vernal equinox in the Yavanajātaka instead of the winter solstice.

The use of this twelvefold sidereal zodiac continued after the arrival of hellenistic astrology to India sometime around the start of the common era, albeit with new Sanskrit names and symbolism for each of the twelve signs derived from the their Greek counterparts. Evidence with respect to the use of the twelvefold sidereal zodiac from this period is found in two early Sanskrit astronomical sources — the Romakasiddhānta and the last chapter of the Yavanajātaka.

Romakasiddhānta (“astronomical theory of the Romans”) is one of the five ancient treatises on astronomy summarised by Varāhamihira in his Pañcasiddhāntikā, containing several elements of ancient Greek astronomy (the Hipparchan solar year, metonic cycle etc.). K. Chandra Hari identifies the original epoch of the text as the Sunday sunset at Yavanapura (Alexandria) on 19 March 52 CE, which was recast by Lāṭadeva​ (a student of Aryabhatta, fl. c. 499 CE) to the sunset at Alexandria on Monday, 21st March, 505 CE in a later recension used by Varāhamihira in the Pañcasiddhāntikā [1.8]. The text’s algorithms for the calculations of the mean positions of Sun, Moon and Rāhu should give zero degree longitude for the original epoch. The values obtained are, however, nearly 2.5° west of the vernal equinox. But when using the Babylonian sidereal zodiac, Sun, Moon and Rāhu very nearly coincide the sidereal zero point, which in 52 CE was 2.5 degree west of the vernal point. Hence it is likely that the original Romakasiddhānta was based on the sidereal zodiac that prevailed in Alexandria in the pre-Ptolemaic period. To quote the conclusion of his paper -

“On the basis of the computational features of Romakasiddhānta available in Pañcasiddhāntikā, the original epoch of Romakasiddhānta is identified as Sunday sunset at Yavanapura on 19 March 52 AD. Longitudes of luminaries and Rāhu for the above epoch (357°28’) suggest that the original Romakasiddhānta was based on the Babylonian sidereal zodiac and zero point having a three-degree norm for the vernal equinox. True sun of the epoch suggests an ayanāmśa of 2.5 degree to be added and therefore the vernal point coincided Romaka zero point in 233 AD.”

The ayanāmśa derived by Chandra Hari is indeed very close to the other Babylonian ayanāmśas of Fagan-Bradley (221 CE) and Huber (229 CE), each lying within less than ten arc-minutes of the other. The last chapter of the Yavanajātaka (called Horāvidhi — “rules for calculating horoscope”) is an exposition on mathematical astronomy dealing with the synodic motion of planets and luni-solar astronomy based on a novel astronomical cycle (yuga) of 165 years. The astronomical configuration of the conjunction of Sun and Moon at the beginning of the very first yuga is described in the following verse from the chapter [79.4] -

तदाद्यतिथ्यादि युगादि सौरं मेषादिभागस्थितयो रवीन्द्वोः ।

मेषोदये प्रागृतुचैत्रशुक्ले प्रवृत्तिते मानगतिक्रमेण ॥

“That solar yuga begins on the first tithi in the Śukla pakṣa of Caitra in the first season (spring), when the Sun and the Moon in their courses are in conjunction in the first degree of Aries and when Aries is in the ascendant (i.e., at dawn).”

The beginning of the yuga of the Yavanajātaka can be fixed to the sunrise of 21st March, 22 CE at Ujjain, India, when the longitude of the Sun and Moon conjunction should lie in the first degree of Aries.

The various ayanāmśas and the longitudes of the Sun/Moon found for this epoch are listed in table 1. The tropical ayanāmśa can be ruled out since the longitude of the conjunction falls in Pisces instead of Aries. Among the remaining choices, only the Fagan-Bradley and Huber ayanāmśa fall in the first degree of Aries, followed by the Chandra Hari ayanāmśa which is less than one arc-minute out of range. This again points to the use of the Babylonian sidereal zodiac among the earliest western authors (Yavanas) who brought hellenistic astral sciences to India.

Therefore, we find that two ancient Sanskrit texts are in agreement over their choice of the Babylonian sidereal zodiac. The transmission of western ideas found in both texts should have taken place independently, by the Romakas (Romans) in the mid-first century CE, and the Yavanas (Indo-greeks) possibly about a century earlier, predating the Roman conquest of Alexandria in 30 BCE. Quoting from Harry Falk’s paper on the yuga of Sphujidhvaja -

“The beginning of the yuga of the Yavanajātaka was corrected from AD 126, emended by Pingree to AD 136, to AD 22. This new starting point is important since it gives us a date when people from the West (yavana) spread their astronomical knowledge in South Asia. Since their yuga lasts for 165 years the starting point in AD 22 could not have been defined through experiences of a single human life-time. There must have been generations before, watching the stars and noting remarkable constellations.”

The Babylonians in the fifth century BCE defined a sidereal zodiac with twelve equal signs in such a way that the two first magnitude stars Aldebaran and Antares fell exactly at the midpoint (15°) of their respective sign (Taurus and Scorpio). Starting from 300 BCE, this sidereal zodiac was transmitted to Greece, Egypt, Rome, and since it is present in Sanskrit texts, to India. We do however find earlier evidence for the use of these two stars as the central axis of the zodiac in the Taittiriya Saṃhitā 4.4.10, which names two Rohiṇīs — Rohiṇī as Aldebaran and Rohiṇī as Antares — which were thought to be equivalent because of their position at diametrical ends of the zodiac and their association with the two equinoxes in around 3200 BCE (Rohiṇī was accorded a special status among the nakṣatras as the Moon’s favourite wife [Mahābhārata 9.34.38–70] because of its connection to the spring equinox). The use of this pair of stars as the fiducial axis for fixing the zodiac could have been transmitted westward to Babylon with the Persian conquests of northwestern India in 514 BCE.

Indian astronomers starting from the 5th-6th century CE favoured the use of Revatī naksatra (ζ piscium) to define the sidereal zodiac, fixing the zero point at 0°10′ east of Revatī (according to the 359°50′ longitude in the Sūrya Siddhānta [8.1–9]) or at Revatī itself (0° longitude in the Paitāmahasiddhanta). It’s possible that this association of the sidereal zero point with Revatī is rooted in an older tradition found in the Taittiriya Brāhmaṇa 1.5.4.2 -

प्रजापतिः पशूनसृजत । ते नक्षत्रं नक्षत्रमुपातिष्ठन्त । ते समावन्त एवाभवन् । ते रेवतीमुपातिष्ठन्त । ते रेवत्यां प्राभवन् । तस्माद्रेवत्यां पशूनां कुर्वीत । यत्किं चार्वाचीन सोमात् । प्रैव भवन्ति । सलिलं वा इदमन्तरासीत् । यदतरन् । तत्तारकाणां तारकत्वम् ।

“Prajāpati created the cattle. They went from nakṣatra to nakṣatra. They became possessed of the years. They went to Revatī. They were born in Revatī. From that (rituals) of the cattle should be performed in Revatī. Whatever should be below the Moon. Water was situated in this place. Those (stars) swam (across it). That is the quality of the stars.”

This passage can be interpreted in an astronomical context, with the cattle representing the planets and their grazing being symbolic of the planets moving from one nakṣatra to the next (which could be why the Sanskrit word for planetary transits is gocara, which also means “pasture ground for cattle”). The planets becoming possessed of the years means that their motion became cyclical with each planet having a fixed number of years or months in its orbital period, and that of being born in Revatī is that the starting point of the cycles was assumed to be at Revatī, similar to Sūrya Siddhānta’s assumption of a grand conjunction of all the planets at zero degrees of Aries in 3102 BCE. The region below the Moon is said to have been occupied in the past by water (Salila) which is the primordial medium out of which all creation including the celestial bodies emerged, referenced to in the ṚgVeda [10.129.3, 72.6] and the Vṛddhagarga-saṃhitā. This is further proof for the creationist nature of this passage (all the planets emerge from the primordial waters at the end of sidereal Pisces in Revatī). Additionally, planetary rituals (navagraha rites etc.) are prescribed to be done when the Moon is in Revatī.

The vernal point coincided with the zero point of the Revatī sidereal zodiac for 562/63 CE, but in 499 CE according to ancient Indian astronomers like Aryabhatta and Maṇindha (4th/5th century CE). Therefore most of the astronomical texts (Sūrya Siddhanta, Pañcasiddhāntikā etc.) and the purāṇas, composed or consolidated around 500 CE, take the vernal equinox at the beginning of Aries. In the Yavanajātaka [79.30] too we find that the solstices are at the beginning of Capricorn and Cancer and the equinoxes at the beginning of Aries and Libra. This is because the second yuga cycle in 187–352 CE was current during the times of Sphujidhvaja (Yavanajātaka 79.15), and the zero year of the Babylonian zodiac (~220 CE) alluded in his text falls in this period, which should be the year in or around when he wrote his text. It’s a matter of coincidence that the tropical and sidereal zodiacs were aligned during the times of both the siddhantic astronomers like Varāhamihira (~530 CE) and of Sphujidhvaja (~220 CE), owing to the different ayanāmśas they used.

Planetary Astrology

The Sanskrit word Graha (“seizer”) generally used to refer to the planets first appears in the Atharvaveda [11.7.18, 19.9.7], due to their ability to seize (occult) the stars and the luminaries, and thereby influence human consciousness and fate. Parāśara states that the planets originated out of the creator Prajāpati (“the lord of creatures”) and therefore have a part of his quality of controlling people.

Indirect allusions to the five visible planets appear in the Ṛgveda [1.105.10] as the five bulls in heaven, and among the thirty-three daughters of Prajāpati (twenty-seven nakṣatras, five planets and the sun) in the Yajurveda (Taittiriya Saṃhitā 2.3.5.1). The first mention of the names of the five visible planets together with the sun, moon, and Rāhu (the nodes), known collectively as the Navagraha (“nine celestial deities”), is found in the Graheṣṭi-Brāhmaṇa (“supplication to the Grahas”), which is among the few surviving chapters of the Kāṭhaka Brāhmaṇa of the Kṛṣṇa​ Yajurveda.

The chapter begins with an introduction to the mythology and significance of the ritual, with the injunctions to be followed regarding the various offerings to be made to each of the nine grahas for obtaining specific qualities represented by them, which are possibly linked to their astrological significations -

देवाश्च वा असुराश्च समावदेव यज्ञेऽकुर्वत यदेव देवा अकुर्वत तदसुरा अकुर्वत ते देवा एतानि ग्रहहवींष्यपश्यँस्तै रिन्द्रमयाजयँस्तदसुरा नान्ववायँस्ततो देवा अभवन् परासुरा अभवन् य एवं विद्वानेतानि ग्रहहवींषि यजते भ्रातृव्यस्यानन्ववायाय भवत्यात्मना परास्य भ्रातृव्यो भवत्यादित्याय घृते चरुं निर्वपेत् तेजस्तेन परिक्रीणाति शौक्रं चरुं ब्रह्मवर्चसं तेन परिक्रीणाति बृहस्पतये नैवारं पयसि चरुं वाक्पत्यं तेन परिक्रीणाति बोधाय नवकपालं बुद्धिं तेन परिक्रीणाति भौमायैककपालं यशस्तेन परिक्रीणाति सौराय पललमिश्रं घृते चरुं सुरभिं तेन परिक्रीणाति चन्द्रमसे पञ्चदशकपालमायुस्तेन परिक्रीणाति राहवे चरुमभयं तेन परिक्रीणाति केतवे चरुमनपरोधं तेन परिक्रीणात्येतान्येव सर्वाणि भवति य एवं विद्वानेतया यजेत । आज्येनोपहोमाञ्जुहोत्याशिषामवरुद्ध्या एतया यजेत यः कामयेत तेजस्वी भ्राजस्वी वाक्पतिर्बुद्धिमान् यशस्वी सुरभिरायुषमानभय्यनपरोधी स्यामित्येकचक्रमुदयाद् भ्राजमानमित्यष्टादश याज्यानुवाक्या भवन्ति सरूपत्वायाऽग्निर्हिरण्यं सोमो हिरण्यमित्याज्यभागौ प्रेद्धो अग्न इमो अग्न इति संयाज्ये उच्चैर्यजत्येषा वै वाचामुत्तमा योच्चैरुत्तमः समानानां भवत्यादित्यस्तेजस्वीत्युपहोमाञ्जुहोति सर्वस्याप्त्यै सर्वस्यावरुद्ध्यै य एवं विद्वानेतया यजेत ॥

“The Devas and Asuras did equally in the yajña, whatever the Devas did the Asuras did. These sacrificial offerings for the Grahas were rightly understood by them, those devas. Indra performed that sacrifice, but the Asuras could not get on its tracks. Thereupon the Devas became established and the Asuras perished. The learned man who knowing thus offers these oblations to the Grahas for defeating his adversary, establishes himself and his rival comes to naught.

One should offer the oblation mixed in ghee (clarified butter) for Āditya (the Sun), through it he acquires authority. Through oblations for Śukra (Venus) he gains splendour. Oblations for Bṛhaspati (Jupiter) consist of wild rice in milk; through it he obtains mastery of speech. Oblations for Budha (Mercury) are distributed into nine dishes; through it he gains intelligence. Oblations for Bhauma (Mars) are contained in one cup; through it he gains fame. Oblations for Saura (Saturn) consist of powdered sesame seed mixed with ghee; through it he acquires cattle. Oblations for the Moon are contained in fifteen cups; through it he gains longevity. Through the oblations for Rāhu he acquires fearlessness. Through the oblations for Ketu he gains freedom from obstacles. All these (results) happen for the wise man who performs the sacrifice with this oblation.

With the help of butter the supplementary sacrifice is done for the obtainment of blessings through these oblations. “I am powerful, lustrous, master of speech, intelligent, famous, possessing cattle, long lived, fearless and free” — whoever should desire thus, with supremacy and to shine with prosperity, eighteen sacrificial verses are to be recited with fire burning with the resemblance of gold.”

The next section of the text provides two mantras for each of the nine grahas, which give us more clues about the astrological interpretation of each. This is followed by a concluding section summarising the qualities of each graha as follows -

आदित्यस्तेजस्वी तेजो अस्मिन् यज्ञे यजमाने दधातु ॥1॥

“Āditya (the Sun) is majestic, may in this rite he give the sacrificer authority.”

The Sun is said to be majestic and possessing authority, similar to how it is associated with kings [Yavanajātaka — YJ 4.28] and figures of authority like the father [Bṛhajjātaka — BrJ 4.5]. The Sun is similarly given a royal status in texts like the Ṣaḍviṃśa-brāhmaṇa [3.12.3] and Adbhuta-brāhmaṇa [6.12.3] of the Sāmaveda, where he is called sarvagrahādhipati (king of all Grahas).

शुक्रो भ्राजस्वी भ्राजो अस्मिन् यज्ञे यजमाने दधातु ॥2॥

“Śukra (Venus) is shining, may in this rite he give the sacrificer brilliance.”

Venus, owing to its brightness, is described as shining and possessing brilliance (one of the names for Venus given by Varāhamihira is Sita in Bṛhajjātaka​ 2.3, which means “bright”). This could have something to do with the quality of beauty and attraction, often associated with the planet. Venus has been linked to wealth and prosperity in the first ritual mantra -

श्वेतः शुक्रो वृषभश्चर्षणीनामूर्वाततन्थ त्वासुतिं करिष्ठः ।

स नो रयिं मे गृहेषु दधात्वा नो वीरो वर्धतां द्योतमानः ॥

“Śukra is white, the bull of men, producing and increasing the yield. May that shining one bestow wealth in our homes and make the brave prosper.”

Similarly in the Yavanajātaka Venus is considered the lord of heaps of jewels, oxen, of treasures and of wealthy men [4.31], and has been generally associated with making a native wealthy and prosperous when dignified [7.5,7].

बृहस्पतिर्वाक्पतिः वाचो अस्मिन् यज्ञे यजमाने दधातु ॥3॥

“Bṛhaspati (Jupiter) is the lord of speech, may in this rite he give the sacrificer speech.”

Jupiter is called Vākpati meaning the lord of Vāc (the sacred speech of Vedic ritual), which is included among the names of Jupiter by Varāhamihira (Bṛhajjātaka 2.3, also in Bṛhatsaṃhitā 4.23, 8.15). Vāc is deified in various contexts, such as in the Maitrāyaṇīya Saṃhitā of the Kṛṣṇa Yajurveda she is identified with Sarasvatī (“vāg vai sarasvatī” : 1.10.5) who is said to bestow the poetic word and vision, poetic imagination (dhī), poetic metres (chhanda) and good thinking (mati). Since poetic composition was the most effective means of worship in the Vedic times, both Sarasvatī and Bṛhaspati were closely associated with religious activities. Vāc is also associated with thought and thinking process (“mano vai cittaṃ vāk cittiḥ” : Maitrāyaṇīya Saṃhitā 1.4.14, where citti is knowledge and wisdom) and is called fortunate (subhagā) and full of food (vājinīvatī) in Maitrāyaṇīya Saṃhitā 4.12.6. Therefore in the Yavanajātaka [4.30] Jupiter is said to be the lord of auspiciousness, Brāhmaṇas (priests), gods, sacrifices and heaps of grain. Similarly the key signification Varāhamihira assigns to Jupiter is knowledge (Bṛhajjātaka 4.1). Vācaspati is also a name for the Puṣya naksatra, which according to the Taittirīya Brāhmaṇa [3.1.1.5] is where Bṛhaspati was born. One of the two ritual matras for Jupiter also calls him the priest of the devas -

ब्रह्माधिकः प्रथमो जातवेदा बृहस्पतिर्भारतो देवतानाम् ।

अस्मिन् यज्ञे बर्हिषि मोदमानो हिरण्यवाशीरिषिरः स्वर्षाः ॥

“Omniscient like Agni, Bṛhaspati is the foremost priest of the gods. In this sacrifice he sits upon the Darbha grass being merry with a golden speech loved by all.”

Vṛddha-garga calls Jupiter the purohita (priest) and Venus the sāmvatsarika (astrologer) to the devās (gods), which is why Jupiter and Venus are designated as advisors in the Yavanajātaka [1:116]. The time taken by Jupiter to cross two nakṣatras is roughly equal to the length of the nakṣatra year of 319 days (324 tithis), which is approximately the time take by the Moon to cover twelve cycles across the 27 nakṣatras (27x12=324). It’s possible that in a more ancient period the nakṣatra year was given greater importance, and the position of Jupiter among the nakṣatras was used to track it, only to later be superseded by the lunar synodic year of 360 tithis. This should have given birth to the mythology of Bṛhaspati’s wife Tāra (“star”, the nakṣatras) who was abducted by Soma (the Moon) to give birth to Budha (Mercury), being symbolic of the lunar synodic year (based on the Moon’s position among the nakṣatras) being in phase with the synodic cycles of Mercury (see the next discussion).

बुधो बुद्धिमान् बुद्धिमस्मिन् यज्ञे यजमाने दधातु ॥4॥

“Budha (Mercury) is intelligent, may in this rite he give the sacrificer intelligence.”

Mercury is associated with intelligence and wit (buddhi), which we also find in the Yavanajātaka [1.122] where his intellect is called full and pure [1.131]. The myth of Mercury being the son of Soma (Moon) is alluded to in the ritual mantra -

बुधः सौम्यो अमृतत्वं बभूवामृतं देवानामायुः प्रजासु ।

अस्मिन् यज्ञे सोमशिशुर्युवा नः शं नो भव पयसाप्यायमानः ॥

“Budha, the son of Soma, is immortality; he became ambrosia for the descendants of devas among beings. In this sacrifice may the youthful son of Soma bless us with happiness and make us full with milk.”

Budha is hence called Saumāyana (son of Soma) in the Pañcaviṃśa brāhmaṇa [XXIV.18.6] of the Sāmaveda. This mythology could be symbolic of the astronomical relation of the two, since three synodic cycles Mercury, of 116 days (118 tithis) each, are roughly equal to twelve synodic cycles of the Moon i.e. the length of a lunar year of 354 days (360 tithis).

अर्को यशस्वी यशो अस्मिन् यज्ञे यजमाने दधातु ॥5॥

“Arka (Mars) is famous, may in this rite he give the sacrificer fame.”

Mars is thought to be famous, which could be on account of his honourable deeds as stated in the ritual mantra -

चित्रो हन्ता रोहिदश्वः प्रजानामस्मिन् यज्ञे हविषासान एतु ।

स नो वक्रीरमयं कृणोतु विश्वेत्स वामादधते त्वोतः ॥

“May the bright killer of creatures, having red horses, seated in this sacrifice by offering of clarified butter come to us. May Vakri (Mars) enliven us, doer of honourable deeds, protector of all mankind.”

Therefore in the Yavanajātaka [1.116–117,4.32] Mars has been designated as the army chief and the lord of the warrior class, armies, kings, the injured and the slain, fire, weapons, blood and the wounded. The other verse for Mars is as follows -

अग्निर्मूर्धा दिवः ककुत्पतिः पृथिव्या अयम् । अपां रेतांसि जिन्वति ॥

“Agni, the head (of the gods), the summit of heaven — he the lord of the earth — gladdens the seed of the waters.”

Mars has been called a leader in the Yavanajātaka [1.116]; one’s status and authority is seen from the tenth house which is probably what this verse is alluding to through “the summit of heaven” in an astrological context. The tenth house where Mars gains the maximum directional strength (Yavanajātaka 1.88) and the tenth sign (Capricorn) of the Kālapurusa is where it exalts.

सौरः सुरभिः सुरभिमस्मिन् यज्ञे यजमाने दधातु ॥6॥

“Saura (Saturn) is the cattle, may in this rite he give the sacrificer cattle.”

Saturn, due to its association with a person’s livelihood [Phaladīpikā 15.16], is called Surabhi, the cow, and is prayed to grant the native abundant cattle and livestock since cattle rearing was the primary occupation in the Vedic period (Saturn also rules the tenth and eleventh houses of the Kālapurusa denoting profession and income respectively). The first ritual mantra for Saturn highlights its malefic nature -

शनैश्चरन् मा वधीरस्मे वीरान् मा नो गृहान् पशून् मा न आयुः ।

मा नो यूनो भविता नो रथेन मा नः शिशून् गर्भान् मा नः किंचन ॥

“May Śanaiścara (the one that moves slow) not kill my brave warriors and not harm my home, cattle and longevity. May he not bind us with chariots, may he not harm our children, born or unborn, may not any of this happen to us.”

Saturn is named Saura (“son of the sun”) which is linked to the legend of its creation from the extraordinary heat of the Sun. This myth could be rooted in the fact that the pseudo-solsticial year and the synodic period of Saturn are both 378 days — 18 days are added to the civil year of 360 days every third year to obtain 378 days in order to establish a correspondence with the 366 day sidereal solar year of the Vedāṅgajyotiṣa (6 x 3 = 18). The sidereal solar year of 366 days also lies in the exact middle of the 378 days of Saturn and 354 days of the lunar year (12 days on either side of 366th day).

चन्द्रमा आयुष्मानायुरस्मिन् यज्ञे यजमाने दधातु ॥7॥

“Candramā (Moon) is long-lived, may in this rite he give the sacrificer longevity.”

The Moon is associated with longevity (āyu). Another early text linking the Moon to longevity is the Atharvaveda [6.110.2] which contains a prayer for the long life of a native born when the Moon is in the Jyeṣṭhā and Mūla nakṣatras. Later texts too consider the placement of the Moon as an important factor in determining longevity, especially during early childhood [Yavanajātaka 38.1, Bṛhajjātaka 6.6, Phaladīpikā 13.12–14]. The first ritual mantra again links the Moon to longevity and happiness -

मक्षू धाता मातरिश्वा वचोभिश्चन्द्रो अमृताद् वर्धते जायमानः ।

आयुः प्रजाममृतं सौभगत्वं प्र चन्द्रमास्तिरते दीर्घमायुः ॥

“The swift supporter of the sacrificial fire through his words, the Moon from ambrosia is born and grows, bestowing longevity, happiness and immortality to mankind.”

Moon forms the conceptual basis for reincarnation in Vedic scriptures, its repeated waxing and waning being symbolic of the cycles of death and rebirth (the birth from ambrosia could be because of the Moon being eternally reborn). The following statement by Vṛddha-garga talks about the moon’s placement and reincarnation -

सोमसंयोगतो ह्यत्र कालश्रेष्ठोऽतिसंयतः जन्मजं सुखदुःखं हि नृणामायुर्व्ययागमौ ॥3.12॥

“Here through the conjunction of the Moon (with the nakṣatras) the best time is ordained, along with the happiness and misery of human rebirth, and also the longevity, gains and losses of men.”

Here the Moon’s nakṣatra is linked to not just the native’s longevity, but to their overall happiness and misery, gains and losses, which underscores, as in the later tradition, the importance of the Moon in the overall assessment of a nativity.

राहुरभयमभयमस्मिन् यज्ञे यजमाने दधातु ॥8॥

“Rāhu is fearless, may in this rite he give the sacrificer fearlessness.”

Rāhu is called fearless, which could be because of the courageous act of blocking out the Sun, who is seen as the king. The malefic nature of Rāhu is implied from its ritual mantra -

उग्रं तमो विश्वरूपं महान्तं स्वर्भानुरजरं महस्वत् ।

महद्भयात्तमसो मृत्युपाशाद्विमुञ्चन् राहुरभयं कृणोतु ॥

“The great Svarbhānu is cruel, full of darkness (tama), of various forms, imperishable and mighty. Releasing one from the great fear, from the darkness, from the snares of death, may Rāhu make us fearless.”

Though Rāhu (as the two lunar nodes) does not find any mention in the Yavanajātaka, Varahamihira in the Bṛhajjātaka [23.12] gives the results for specific combinations involving Rāhu -

उदयत्युडुपे सुरास्यगे सपिशाचोऽशुभयोस्त्रिकोणयोः ।

सोपप्लवमण्डले रवावुदयस्थे नयनापवर्जितः ॥

“In (the condition that) the Moon is in the ascendant while having gone into the mouth of the snake (Rāhu) and the malefics are in the trines (the native is afflicted) with evil spirits; in the (case of) the Sun being in the ascendant and in the path of Rāhu (the native is) without eyesight.”

Since Varāhamihira based his treatise largely on works of older authorities, it’s possible that the use of both the nodes collectively as Rāhu was present in the earlier astrological tradition. Moreover, Rāhu is mentioned twice in the Vṛddhayavanajātaka [2.10–11] as the lord of the southwestern direction and as representing the geographical region known as Mahābarbara (country of the barbarians), though both seem to have been borrowed from older Vedic texts like the Atharvaveda-pariśiṣṭa [51.1.3–4,52.11.5,12.1] rather than from the Hellenistic tradition, where the nodes are not discussed very frequently by the earlier authors and occur rarely in horoscopes and chart examples.

केतुरनपरोध्यनपरोधमस्मिन् यज्ञे यजमाने दधातु ॥9॥

“Ketu is the remover of obstacles, may in this rite

he give the sacrificer freedom from obstacles.”

Ketu, the comet, has been called the remover of hinderances and obstacles. Ketu is not found in the Yavanajātaka or the Vṛddhayavanajātaka, and is only mentioned once by Varāhamihira in the Bṛhajjātaka [2.3] and that too as a comet and not as the descending lunar node (he uses Rāhu to refer to both the nodes collectively, which seems to have been the common practice before the south node was named Ketu). He gives interesting discussion in the Bṛhat Saṃhitā at the beginning of the chapter on the motion of Rāhu (Rāhucāra 5.1–7) -

“1–3. Some say that Rāhu, the asura, though his head was cut, dies not but lives in the shape of a planet having tasted of ambrosia. That he has a disc like the sun and moon and as that disc is black it is invisible when in the sky except on the occasion of eclipses in virtue of a boon from Brahmā. Others say that he resembles a serpent in shape with his head severed from his tail; a few that he is bodiless, that he is mere darkness and that he is the son of Siṃhikā.

4. Now, if he has a body or be simply a head with a regular motion in the ecliptic, how comes it that he eclipses the sun and moon when they are 180° from him?

5. If his motion be not subject to fixed laws, how comes it that his exact place is ascertained; how comes it that he never eclipses by the part of his body between his head and tail?

6. If being of the shape of a serpent he eclipses with his head or with his tail, how comes it that he does not hide one half of the heavens lying between his head and tail?

7. If, as some say, there be two Rāhus, when the moon is eclipsed by one of them at rising or setting how comes it we see the sun in the opposite point uneclipsed by the other Rāhu of equal motion?”

Here he discusses the various conceptualisations of the nodes by different ancient authors, some of who believed that Rāhu has the form of a serpent with the head severed from its tail, and that there are in fact two Rāhus of equal motion at opposite points (each of which may have been associated with the severed head and tail of the snake). He, however, objects by saying that if Rāhu does indeed have a body as described, how is it that he never eclipses by the part of his body which he assumes should be lying along the ecliptic, covering half of it. It’s clear that he was thinking along the lines of the Vedic serpentine imagery associated with eclipses due to the wandering motion of the Moon on either side of the ecliptic (with eclipses occurring whenever the Moon is full and on the ecliptic) which is identical to a serpent winding along the ecliptic, instead of a serpent with its body placed diametrically across the circle of the ecliptic as the ancient authors he quotes may have visualised. Or even if he was aware of this concept, he found the notion of two nodes absurd as he believed that in such a case both the Sun and Moon should be getting eclipsed simultaneously (in the case of a lunar eclipse). Therefore he stuck to using Rāhu as a singular entity instead of considering the south and north nodes individually, limiting its astrological influence to natives born during eclipses (see the verse in previous discussion for Rāhu). The first astrological text that uses the two nodes distinctly and the south node as Ketu is the Bṛhatpārāśarahorāśāstra (600–800 CE), which, as its name suggests, is an expansion of a pre-existing treatise called the Pārāśara Horā (the word Bṛhat, meaning vast or great, is generally used in the sense of a larger recension of an older text when used in the title). It’s possible that this earlier text was using two Rāhus as the two lunar nodes, which could be why techniques like the viṃśottari nakṣatra daśā, which use the two nodes as separate grahas, were ignored by Varāhamihira while writing the Bṛhajjātaka (despite stating Parāśara’s text as a source for other chapters e.g. 12.2, 7.1). Later when the Pārāśara Horā was expanded the term Ketu had started being used for the south node. This could be due to the likeness of a serpent’s tail to that of a comet, and also for the purpose of incorporating the Navagraha into a uniform astrological framework, which would have be impossible with Ketu as a comet due to their multiple numbers. The co-relation of the beheaded body to Ketu is found in the Padma Purāṇa​ [4.10.19–20] (400–750 CE) in the myth of the churning of the ocean -

पीयूषभत्तणंराहर्यावत्कुर्याद्‌ द्विजोत्तम चंद्रसूर्योचोक्तवंतौरात्तसोऽसौषटलागतः ।

ततःक्रद्धोजगस्रायोजघानस्वणपात्रतः शिरस्तस्यपपातो्व्यांकेतुर्नाम्नाबभूवह ॥

“When Rāhu ate up (i.e. drank) the nectar, the Moon and the Sun said: “This is a demon, who has come here deceitfully.” Then the lord of the world was angry, and struck him with the golden pot. His head dropped on the ground, and he came to be known as Ketu.”

Depictions of Ketu are absent in artistic representations of the planetary deities on temple lintels etc. until after 600 CE, which is when it starts being associated with the south node in astrological literature.

The notion of a planet’s malefic and benefic nature can already be inferred from the Graheṣṭi prose and mantras found in the Kāṭhaka Brāhmaṇa, where Jupiter, Venus, Sun, Moon and Mercury are generally beneficent, Mars (called a killer) is somewhat malefic, while Saturn and Rahu are downright malefic. Astrological texts of the common era follow more or less the same categorisation, except for the Sun which is a malefic, Mercury as a conditional benefic depending on its association with other planets [Yavanajātaka 1.109], and the Moon as a malefic when waning and benefic when waxing [Vṛddhayavanajātaka 2.12]. The Graheṣṭi rite follows a specific ordering of the planets in the both the prose and mantra section which is as follows -

Sun, <Venus, Jupiter>, <Mercury>, <Mars, Saturn>, Moon, Rahu, Ketu.

The five visible planets are found together in a sequence with the malefics, neutral (Mercury) and benefics grouped together. Babylonian astrological literature and horoscopes of the Seleucid period (312–64 BCE) enumerate the five planets in a sequence with a similar grouping of the benefics and malefics, which is :

<Jupiter, Venus>, <Mercury>, <Saturn, Mars>

Benefic …..…..… Neutral …..…..… Malefic

Since the astrological arrangement of the planets in Babylonian horoscopes only starts to appear from 250 BCE, the schema of identifying planets as benefics and malefics probably originated in the Vedic tradition and was transmitted westward sometime after Alexander’s invasion of northwestern India in 326 BCE and the subsequent rise of the Seleucid empire which held friendly diplomatic relations with the bordering Mauryan empire in India. It’s interesting to note that the Kaṭha Yajurveda school (to which the Graheṣṭi rites are affiliated) was prominent in the northwest part of the Indian subcontinent in that era, due to which the greeks referred to the local inhabitants of the areas they conquered as Καθαιοι (“Kaṭhaĩoi”).

This classification of planets as malefic or benefic could have been based on their brightness, colour and motion. Vṛddha-garga lists a total of 108 grahas, including the Sun, Moon, five visible planets, Rāhu and a hundred Ketus (comets) with the raśmi (ray) count as a measure of their visible brightness in the sky in the following prose from the Mahāsalila chapter of his Saṃhitā -

वेदोक्तनां ग्रहायणाम् अष्टशतं संख्यायते, तत्र एकशतं केतूनां पठ्यते , सौमार्कौ पञ्च च ताराग्रहाः तस्मादष्ट-शता- संख्यायते,तत्र पञ्च ताराग्रहाणि अभिनिदिक्ष्यामः,शुक्रस्तु ̧ एषां प्रथमम् अथ अस्य स्युः शुक्लवर्णरश्मयः षोडश, पुत्रोऽङ्गिरसो वृहद्धान्यो द्वादशरश्मिः वृहस्पतिः, प्रजातः ताम्रवर्णो नवरश्मिः अग्निप्रभवो वक्रगतिः अङ्गारक इति, सूर्यपुत्रः पञ्चरश्मिः कृष्णवर्णः शनैश्चरति इति शनैश्चरो ॥ अथातः पञ्चमं बुधमनुव्याख्यास्यामः सोमपुत्रः सप्तरश्मिः बुधो बोधनो बुद्धिबोधाय अथ अपर आगन्तुः मृत्युपुत्रो महातमसात्मको राहुः उग्र तपः तप्तवान्, च​न्द्रादित्यौ ग्रसिष्यसि, न त्वेतौ जरयिष्यसि, स च एवं षण्मास्ये पर्वणि युगपद् उपतिष्ठति ।

“The count of the grahas spoken in the Vedas is one hundred and eight; there is a mention of one hundred Ketus, the Sun and the Moon, (Rāhu), and five visible planets — from that one hundred and eight is counted. There we are characterising the five visible planets — Venus (Śukra) is the first of these, he has sixteen white coloured rays; Jupiter (Bṛhaspati) the bountiful son of Aṅgirasa has twelve rays; Mars (aṅgāraka) is of a coppery red colour, born from fire, with nine rays and follows a winding course; Saturn (Śanaiścara) is the son of the sun, dark coloured and has five rays. Then we explain the fifth one i.e. Mercury (Budha) who is the son of the Moon (Soma), has seven rays, is intelligent and is an indicator for the awakening of one’s intellect. Following them arrives Rāhu, the son of death, consisting of great darkness, having performed fierce austerity — ‘you will devour these, the Sun and the Moon, and will never age’, and thus he approaches them together on a full or new Moon every six months.”

The five planets are described in the order of their creation — Venus, Jupiter, Mars, Saturn and Mercury. Venus and Jupiter are the two brightest planets with the most number of rays and could therefore have been seen as benefics; Mars has fewer rays, a coppery red colour and travels in a convoluted path which could be why it was seen as a malefic. Saturn has the least number of rays, is dark coloured, is the slowest (Śanaiścara — “moving slowly”) and hence is the most malefic. Mercury is of a lesser brightness than Mars but is fast moving, which is why it could have been classified as neutral. Like the Yajurveda text, here also the planets follow an ordering wherein the benefics (Jupiter and Venus) are grouped together, followed by the two malefics (Saturn and Mars), and lastly the neutral Mercury. This pairing of the benefics (Jupiter and Venus), and the malefics (Saturn and Mars) is found in late Babylonian zodiacal omens dating to sometime after 400 BCE, which could be another instance of Vedic ideas borrowed by the Babylonian astral tradition. Vṛddha-garga’s text in the Grahaprakṛti (“nature of planets”) section of the balyupahāra (“offerings and oblations”) chapter follows the given sequence -

Moon, Sun, <Jupiter, Mercury, Venus>, <Saturn, Rahu, Mars, Ketu>

The original grouping is again maintained, only with Mercury included with the benefics and Rahu and Ketu with the malefics.

The Atharvaveda pariśiṣṭa [68.1.3–6] associates the planets with the three bodily humors of Ayurveda according to their fiery, malefic or mild natures in the following verses -

निमित्तज्ञानकुशलाः सर्वं तस्य तु पृच्छतः । ग्रहा भार्गवभौमार्काः पैत्तिका दीप्तितेजसः ॥

कफप्रकृतयो मध्या बृहस्पतिबुधेन्दवः । वातप्रकृतयः क्रूरा राहुकेतुशनैश्चराः ॥

तेषां तथा फलं विद्यात्संनिपाते यथाक्रमम् । एते नव ग्रहा ज्ञेया वातपित्तकफात्मकाः ॥

एषां प्रकृतितुल्यानां निषिक्तानां तु तेषु वै । संयोगेषु च जातानां तुल्य प्रकृतिता भवेत् ॥

“The grahas Venus, Mars and Sun, from their brightness and fiery energy, are of a choleric (paittikā) temperament; The mild natured (grahas) Jupiter, Mercury and Moon are phlegmatic (kapha); The cruel (grahas) Saturn, Rāhu and Ketu are of a windy temperament (vāta). Their results should be according to the order (described); these nine grahas are known to consist of vāta, pitta and kapha. (The temperaments) of these (grahas) infused (into them) according to their natures, is indeed in those (vāta, pitta and kapha). The nature of natives (born) in the conjunctions (of grahas) should be similar (to those conjunct planets).”

The nature of the planets are interpreted in a different way in the context of Ayurveda and bodily humours, though the underlying principle of brightness, colour etc. for the categorisation seem to have been the same as in the Yajurveda and Vṛddha-garga-saṃhitā (the word krūra used for Saturn, Rāhu and Mars continued is commonly used to refer to malefics in astrological texts e.g. Yavanajātaka 1.109). These verses appear in the chapter dealing with dream interpretation (svapnādhyaya), which in its beginning verses is said to have been taught by Kroṣṭuki to Śaunaka, the former author belonging to the middle of first millennium BCE.

Planetary Aspects

The Vedic aspect doctrine, traditionally attributed to Parāśara, is standard across all astrological texts starting from the Yavanajātaka [1.64–65], which describes it as follows -

द्वौ पश्चिमौ षष्ठमथ द्वितीयं संस्थानराशेः परिहृत्य राशिम् ।

शेषान् खगः पश्यति सर्वकालमिष्टेषु चैषां विहिता दृगिष्टा ॥

जामित्रभे दृष्टिफलं समस्तें स्वपादहीनं चतुरस्रयोश्च ।

त्रिकोणयोर्दृष्टिफलार्द्धमाहुर्दुश्चिक्युसंज्ञे दशमे च पादम् ॥

“64. A planet always looks at the remaining signs except for the second, sixth and the two behind (i.e. twelfth and eleventh) from its sign placement; of these (the planets) in a good (placement) are endowed with a good aspect.

65. The result of the aspect in the seventh sign is full, in the caturasra (fourth and eighth) is less by a quarter; in the trikoṇa (fifth and ninth) the result of the aspect is said to be half, and in the third and the tenth is known to be a quarter.”

The additional strength given to the aspects of the external planets is absent in both the Yavanajātaka and the Vṛddhayavanajātaka, but is known to Varāhamihira in the Bṛhajjātaka [2.13] -

त्रिदशत्रिकोणचतुरस्रसप्तमान्यवलोकयन्ति चरणाभिवृद्धितः ।

रविजामरेज्यरुधिराः परे च ये क्रमशो भवन्ति किल वीक्षणे अधिकाः ॥

“(The planets) aspect the third and tenth, the trines, the caturasra (fourth and eighth), and the seventh (signs) increased the magnitude by a quarter (in the given sequence i.e. ¼, ½, ¾, 1). Saturn, Jupiter and Mars are in the given order greater in aspecting those (signs) which are (listed) in the previous (sequence).”

These “special aspects” of the external planets should have been unique to Parāśara’s astrological system, which were popularised by Varahamihira by including them in his astrological works. The term used for an aspect is vīkṣaṇa or dṛṣṭi, meaning “seeing” or “beholding”; a planet is said to be “looking” (paśyati) at another planet or sign through its dṛṣṭi (aspect). An early reference to this concept appears in the Āraṇyakāṇḍa (“forest chapter”) of the Vālmiki Rāmāyaṇa [3.46.5–6] -

तामपश्यत्ततो बालां रामपत्नीं यशस्विनीम् ।

रोहिणीं शशिना हीनां ग्रहवद्भृशदारुणः ॥

“Then the extremely cruel (Rāvaṇa) looked at the young illustrious wife of Rāma like a planet (looking at) the Rohiṇi nakṣatra devoid of the Moon.”

Here a planet is said to be looking at a nakṣatra (Rohiṇi), akin to the aspects in the Yavanajātaka and Bṛhajjātaka where planet looks at a sign instead, which is evidence for the existence of a more ancient form of the aspect doctrine. Moreover this verse is found in the older part of the Rāmāyaṇa text that pre-dates the chapters where we find some hellenistic influence, for instance the Bālakāṇḍa [1.18.9,14] (1st-2nd c. CE) which mentions the names of the zodiac signs cancer (karkaṭa) and pisces (mīna), which implies that this aspect doctrine was in place before the arrival of Hellenistic astrology to India.

This finds further support in the Mahābhārata where several verses describe the affliction of the nakṣatras by planets, or of one planet by another, like in the following verse from the Bhīṣmaparva [6.3.14] -

भाग्यं नक्षत्रमाक्रम्य सूर्यपुत्रेण पीड्यते ।

शुक्रः प्रोष्ठपदे पूर्वे समारुह्य विशां पते ।

उत्तरे तु परिक्रम्य सहितः प्रत्युदीक्षते ॥

“Venus, after entering into Pūrva Bhādrapada, O lord, is afflicted by Saturn having occupied the Uttara Phālguni nakṣatra. But after circumambulating in the Uttara Bhādrapada he looks at (Saturn) while in unison (with another planet).”

Saturn and Venus are placed in opposite nakṣatras (Uttara Phālguni in sidereal Leo/Virgo, Pūrva and Uttara Bhādrapada in sidereal Aquarius/Pisces respectively), with Venus getting afflicted by Saturn, likely due to Saturn’s seventh aspect which is taken to be malefic, while Venus too after retrograding is looking at Saturn through the same aspect without afflicting it due to its benefic nature. This is strong evidence for an aspect doctrine similar to the one we find in the later tradition being known during the composition of the Mahābhārata, whose composition is traditionally ascribed to Vyāsa, the son of Parāśara. The roots of this doctrine could go back to the earlier works of Parāśara, where we find the following passage, though in the context of Mundane astrology (Parāśara Tantra 10.2) -

कृत्तिकासु शनैश्चारी विशाखासु बृहस्पतिः । तिष्ठेद्यदा तदा घोरः प्रजानामनयो भवेत् ॥

एकं नक्षत्रमासाद्य दृश्यते युगपद्यदि । अन्योन्यभेदं जानीयात्तदा पुरनिवासिनाम् ॥

“If Saturn is stationed in Kṛttikā and Jupiter is in Viśākhā there will be a major disturbance among people. If the two planets are seen in the same nakṣatra it indicates differences among people in the cities.”

Saturn and Jupiter are placed in two opposite nakṣatras, and in the next verse they are in the same one, which is nothing but an opposition and a conjunction. Similar geometrical alignments of planets to other planets or stars could have been assigned specific results which gave birth to the concept of one planet being able to influence another place in the zodiac along with a planet placed there, which condensed into a full fledged aspect doctrine by the time of the composition of the Mahābhārata, a text whose earliest portions (including the astronomical references) date to the pre-hellenistic period.

Ascendant and the Houses

The ascendant, known as the vilagna or simply lagna, is commonly used in early jyotiṣa texts such as the Vedāṅgajyotiṣa (Ṛk recension, verse 19) where Lagadha gives the count the number of risings of the nakṣatras in a yuga -

श्रविष्ठाभ्यो गणाभ्यस्तान् प्राग्विलग्नान् विनिर्दिशेत् ।

“Using the risings of Śravistha in the yuga (viz. 1835), which are also the number of its Orient Ecliptic points (prāg-lagna), and multiplying it by the number in the group (here, of asterisms, viz. 27), we get the total number of lagnas in the yuga (viz. 1835×27=49,545).”

The verse specifies the direction of the lagna to be considered (prāglagna — “eastern ascendant”), which implies that the author may have been an aware of other ascendants such as the western ecliptic point (astalagna) or the nonagesimal (tribhonalagna), though they aren’t explicitly mentioned in his work.

The concept of the ascendant probably originated from the early Vedic practice of observing early morning nakṣatra in the eastern sky before sunrise and marking the portion of sky for its position, explained in the Taittiriya Brāhmaṇa 1.5.2.1 :

यत् पुण्यं नक्षत्रम् । तद् बट् कुर्वीत उपव्युषम् । यदा वै सूर्य उदेति । अथ नक्षत्रं नैति । यावति तत्र सूर्यो गच्छेत् । यत्र जघन्यं पश्येत् । तावति कुर्वीत यत्कारी स्यात् । पुण्याह एव कुरुते ॥

“One has to confirm a nakṣatra which he prefers for some auspicious work. He has to mark also in the sky ‘this space is for this nakṣatra’. This has to be done before sunrise, nearer to daybreak. When the sun comes up, that auspicious star will no be seen. Hence that particular space in the sky wherein the star remains still visible has to be confirmed. Or knowing this part of the sky’s marks may be done. The rite has to be completed before the time taken by the sun to cover that space.”

Vṛddha-garga uses the ascendant at many places in his text, like in the second chapter (aṅga-samuddeśa) he makes a reference to determining the nakṣatras of the ascendant (vilagna), sun and the moon.

In the chapter on muhūrta (denoting a time measure of 48 minutes, one-thirtieth part of the nychthemeron or ahorātra) he recommends finding the night muhūrta by observing the lagnarkṣa​ (rising nakṣatra), which shows that knowing the nakṣatra of the ascendant was as important as that of the sun and the moon for the purpose of timekeeping.

The Yavanajātaka [79:33] makes a similar correlation of the lagna with the muhūrta -

मुहूर्तभागैरुदयप्रसिद्धिर्ज्ञेयो गृहांशादिगणस्य सूक्ष्मा ।

“The establishment of the ascendant, which is subtle (?) as consisting of signs, degrees, and so on, is to be known by means of the muhūrtas and their parts (which have passed of the day);”

For divining misfortune and defeat for the native, certain stars called Nāḍī nakṣatras were counted from the Moon’s nakṣatra at birth. These are detailed by Parāśara as follows :

ग्रहैरुपहतं यस्य नक्षत्रमिह दृश्यते ।

विद्यात् पराभवं तस्य कर्म चास्य विपद्यते॥

चतुर्थं जन्मनक्षत्रं यस्मात् तन्मानसं भवेत् ।

साङ्घातिकं षोडशकं यदृक्षं प्रसवर्क्षतः ॥

यन्मानसार्क्षादेकोनविंशं सामुदायं स्मृतम् ।

दशमं जन्मनक्षत्रात् नक्षत्रं कर्मसंज्ञितम् ॥

वैनाशिकं तु नक्षत्रं कर्मर्क्षाद्यच्चतुर्दशम् ।

एतेष्वनुपतप्तेषु मानवो नोपतप्यते ॥

ऋक्षेषु षट्सु युगपत् संतप्तेष्वाशु नश्यति ॥

“If the natal nakṣatra of a person is observed to be affected by planets, then

he faces defeat and his work gets disturbed. Mānasa is the star from which

the birth star is the fourth. From the birth star the sixteenth is Sāṅghātika.

The nineteenth (21st ?) star from Mānasa is known as Sāmudāyaṃ. The

tenth from the birth nakṣatra is known as Karma nakṣatra. Vaināśika is

fourteenth from the Karma nakṣatra. If these stars are not afflicted, the

person does not suffer. If all the six stars get distressed simultaneously, the

person gets destroyed soon.”

He then prescribes the rites and rituals one must follow to ward off the evil effects of having these nakṣatras afflicted. Varāhamihira preserves this grouping in his Yogayātra [9.1–2], except that the Sāmudāya naksatra is the eighteenth. In the Tārācakra too the 1st, 10th, 16th, 21st, 23rd and 25th nakṣatras counted from the natal naksatra, called janma (birth), vipat (misfortune), pratyari (enmity) and nidhana (death), are considered inauspicious and are said to destroy wealth and makes one’s attempts futile, unlike the remaining positions which are considered fruitful and auspicious. It’s possible that ancient Indians were ascribing qualities to places counted not just from the Moon but also from the ascendant, which eventually gave birth to a system of houses with more specific significations concerning the various areas of a native’s life using the twelve rāśis. Interestingly, the nakṣatras have been called the “houses” (gṛha) of the gods in the Vedas [“devagṛhā vai nakṣatrāṇi” : Taittirīya brāhmaṇa 1.5.2.6], while the grahas are viewed as the sons of the gods (devaputrāḥ) moving through them [“devaputrāḥ vai grahāḥ” : Śāntikalpa 1.11.1].

Greco-Babylonian Origins of Jyotiṣa​?

Scholars like Pingree have suggested that both astrology and astronomy in the Indian tradition owe their inspiration to foreign sources. This, however, is in stark contrast to the traditional view found in ancient Sanskrit texts which attribute the subject’s origins to deities and sages. The concluding verses of the Yavanajātaka [78.60–62], a text thought to be of greek origin, describe the lineage through which the knowledge of the subject has been transmitted -

इति स्वभाषारचनातिगुप्ताद् विष्णुग्रहेशेन्दुमयावतारात् |

महर्षिमुख्यैर् अनुदृष्टतत्त्वाद् धोरार्थरत्नाकरवाक्समुद्रात् ॥

सूर्यप्रसादागततत्त्वदृष्टिर् लोकानुभावाय वचोभिर् आद्यैः ।

इदं बभाषे निरवद्यवाक्यो होरार्थशास्त्रं यवनेश्वरः प्राक् ॥

स्फुजिध्वजो नाम बभूव राजा य इन्द्रवज्राभिर् इदं चकार ।

नारायणार्केन्दुमयादिदृष्टं कृत्स्नं चतुर्भिर् मतिमां सहस्रैः ॥

“In the past the lord of the Greeks (yavaneśvara), whose vision of truth came from the grace of the Sun, whose sentences are blameless, from the ocean of words which is a jewel-mine of horoscopy, [whose meaning] was guarded (-abhigupta) by reason of being composed in its own language (svabhāṣā-), whose truth was revealed successively by the foremost of great sages, which descended from Viṣṇu, the Lord of the planets (graheśa-,i.e. the Sun), the Moon and Maya, taught this treatise of horoscopy in excellent words for the benefit of the world. There was a wise king named Sphujidhvaja who composed this entire (text), which was beheld (-dṛṣṭaṃ) by Viṣṇu, the Sun, the Moon and Maya and so on, in 4,000 indravajrā verses.”

Bhattotpala (9th century CE) quotes the following verses on Bṛhatsaṃhitā 2.14 which further elaborates on the lineage found in the previous passage :

यद्दानवेन्द्राय मयाय सूयः शास्त्रं ददौ सम्प्रणताय पूर्वम्‌ ।

विष्णोवेसिष्ठश्च महर्षिमुख्यो ज्ञानामृतं यत्परमाससाद ॥

पराशरश्चाप्यधिगम्य सोमाद्‌ गुह्य सुराणां परमाद्भुत यत्‌ ।

प्रकाशयां चक्रुरनुक्रमेण महर्द्धिमन्तो यवनेषु तत्ते ॥

“The ancient śāstra that Sūrya passed down for the bowed down Maya, lord of the dānavas, that nectar of knowledge which Vasiṣṭha, the head of the sages, learnt from Viṣnu sitting on the highest seat. Parāśara of the Suras, having attained that mysterious yet wonderful (knowledge) from Soma (the Moon), those (sages) possessing perfection revealed that (knowledge) in due order among the Yavanas.”

The sages named in this passage are Maya, Vasiṣṭha and Parāśara, who received the knowledge of jyotiṣa from the deities Sūrya, Viṣnu and Soma respectively. Maya has sometimes been identified as the Sanskrit adaptation of the Greek “Ptolemaios” derived from the name Tulamāya for the Egyptian king Ptolemy II Philadelphus found in an Indian Asoka edict dating to the third century BCE. The works of the second century astrologer Manetho, known to Indian authors as Maṇittha, addresses “King Ptolemy” in the verses of his astrological book Apotelesmatics, who was probably understood as being the same figure as King Ptolemy II of Asoka’s inscription by the Indians, since Manetho too was the name of an Egyptian priest who wrote a history of Egypt in Greek sometime during his reign. This could explain why the honorific Vṛddhayavana (“older Greek”) was used for Maya by Mīnarāja, who writes that a treatise of one hundred thousand verses was spoken to Maya by an older sage instead of Sūrya, probably due to the typical Hermetic premise of receiving revealed knowledge from the earlier sages directly. Thus the Indian astrological tradition in a way does acknowledge early greek influence, though the identity of Maya became obscure in the later tradition due to mythologising of Indian authors who called him a dānava or an Asura (a demon or anti-god; e.g. Sūryasiddhanta 1.2), and by attributing to him treatises on other subjects like architecture (Varāhamihira quotes Maya on temple construction in Bṛhatsaṃhitā 56.29, most likely from the Mayamatam, a fifth century treatise on architecture).

The two remaining sages Vasiṣṭha and Parāśara are the only authorities associated with the subject of horoscopy among the eighteen traditional progenitors of jyotiṣa. A Vasiṣṭha-siddhānta (“astronomical theory of Vasiṣṭha”) was in existence by 200 CE, which was available to Sphujidhvaja since he names Vasiṣṭha in the seventy-ninth chapter of the Yavanajātaka devoted to astronomy. Varāhamihira derived the a majority of the eighteenth chapter of his Pañcasiddhāntikā (“five astronomical treatises”) from the Vasiṣṭha-siddhānta, which is believed to be based on the Babylonian linear planetary theory, interspersed with elements of Babylonian astronomy borrowed at an earlier period of around 400 BCE by Lagadha in his Vedāṅgajyotiṣa, which includes the division of the ecliptic into twenty-seven equal arcs named after the twenty-seven nakṣatras, linear zig-zag functions to determine periodic variations in times, the 3:2 ratio of the longest to the shortest daylight, concept of tithi, and a mathematically controlled luni-solar intercalation scheme. These theories however have been challenged and refuted by latest scholarship. The twenty-seven equal nakṣatras are already found in earlier texts like the Maitrāyaṇīya Āraṇyaka Upaniṣad and the Parāśara Tantra, as previously discussed. The word tithi is explicitly used in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa 1.8.1 in the sense of date in a year, while Vṛddhagārga devotes an entire chapter to list in detail the name, the devatā (deity) and the activities that are recommended under each tithi. He also recognised that the daylight hours can vary from 12 muhūrta in winter to 18 muhūrta in summer and therefore the six time muhūrtas starting from aindra (13th) to dhanada (18th) are called sañcāri (movable), which is the basis of the linear zigzag function. The ratio of the longest to the shortest daylight taken to be 3:2 is valid for Baghdad, but it also fits well to any place on a latitude of 33 degrees north, including areas in the extreme north-west of the Indian subcontinent that had the great center of Vedic learning at Taxila, where this parameter could have originated. The long count of 3339 tithis, first appearing in the Ṛgveda, is the count of tithi in the dark fortnights making up nearly 18 (solar) years, which is the so called Saros eclipse cycle (whose discovery is attributed to the later Chaldeans) that was used for adjusting the Vedāṅgajyotiṣa calendar.

The approximation of 62 synodic and 67 sidereal months in five solar years and the 366 days in a solar year are the outcome of the this count of 3339 tithi in the dark fortnights. Hence Pingree’s theory of tithi and the other parameters of the Vedāṅgajyotiṣa being of foreign origin is unfounded. Descriptions of the paths of the motion of the five planets, the periods of their heliacal setting, and periods of their motion in terms of nakṣatras are found in the Parāśara Tantra, which could have been inherited from Vasiṣṭha (who in traditional belief was Parāśara’s grandfather). Linear theories based on such observations could have existed in a separate treatise on gaṇita (astronomy) alongside the Saṃhitā for calculating the nakṣatra placement of the planets, similar to Lagadha’s Vedāṅgajyotiṣa which provides simple linear methods to calculate the nakṣatra of the sun and the moon on any given tithi. This early treatise could then have been rewritten into the Siddhānta text in the early centuries CE with new terminology borrowed from the hellenistic tradition. Similarly, an early treatise on natal astrology by Parāśara should have existed alongside the astronomical work of Vasiṣṭha, which was rewritten using newer Greek terminology e.g. the names of rāśis etc. around the same time as Vasiṣṭha’s Siddhānta. So while Parāśara’s astrology remained the standard, Vasiṣṭha continued to be a greater authority on astronomy until the composition of the Sūrya Siddhānta (which is more accurate than the Vasiṣṭha-siddhānta according to Varāhamihira in the Pañcasiddhāntikā 1.4).

The transmission of Vedic astronomy and astrology most likely started with the Achaemenid conquest of the Indus Valley by Darius I in 514 BCE, a century after which the very first birth charts begin to appear in Mesopotamia, the earliest surviving ones dating to 410 BCE. The zodiacal coordinate system of 360 degrees of sixty minutes each, which until then was unknown in Babylonian astronomy, should have been transmitted at this stage, along with the equalised twelve-fold zodiac and the basics of planetary astrology. The fourth century Roman author Ammianus Marcellinus writes about the role of Hystaspes (fl. 550 BCE), the father of Darius I, in the development of the religion of the Magi (Zoroastrianism), who were popular as practitioners of magic and astrology in ancient times -

“Hystaspes, a very wise monarch, the father of Darius. Who while boldly penetrating into the remoter districts of upper India, came to a certain woody retreat, of which with its tranquil silence the Brahmans, men of sublime genius, were the possessors. From their teaching he learnt the principles of the motion of the world and of the stars, and the pure rites of sacrifice, as far as he could; and of what he learnt he infused some portion into the minds of the Magi, which they have handed down by tradition to later ages, each instructing his own children, and adding to it their own system of divination.”

— Ammianus Marcellinus, XXIII. 6.

The Magi should have preserved and propagated the knowledge on astrology and astronomy that Hystaspes had received from the Brahmins in India, which is evident from the several texts in the Hellenistic tradition that are attributed to Zoroaster that could have been authored by astrologers of ethnic Persian communities that had been living in Egypt since the Persian conquest prior to the Hellenistic period. They could have introduced a few of these ideas into the hellenistic tradition which were missing in the earlier Mesopotamian birth charts, like the use of an ascendant. The transmission should have continued in the Seleucid period of other concepts like the aspect doctrine, linear astronomy etc., perhaps through Babylonian and Persian intermediaries until the discovery of sea trade routes to India in the second century BCE, within a century of which the hellenised form of horoscopy was retransmitted to India.

Conclusion

We find that several of the concepts and doctrines we find in the Yavanajātaka have precedents in Vedic texts, which were transmitted westward from India starting from the middle of the first millennium BCE. After the arrival of hellenistic astrology, Indian astrologers simply incorporated the Greek terms for the pre-existing fundamental elements of horoscopy into Sanskrit, like the names and forms of the twelve signs (meṣa, vriṣa etc.) and some of their subdivisions (dṛkāṇa from the greek decans and their forms), categorisation of houses (kendra, paṇaphara, apoklima) etc. due to the convenience with their use. Some concepts derived from hellenistic tradition like sunaphe for the applying aspect and kenodromia for the void course were modified into the planetary yogas of the Moon (sunapha, kemadruma) due to the different aspect doctrine followed in the Vedic system. The absence of these greek terms in texts like the Parāśara Tantra, Vṛddha-gargasaṃhitā, Mahābhārata etc. point to their pre-hellenistic origin. The early Yavana texts were composed in the first couple of centuries CE as an assimilation of the Vedic system with Greek influences, and were drawn upon by both Sphujidhvaja for the Yavanajātaka and Mīnarāja for the Vṛddhayavanajātaka (where he states that his source is an earlier treatise authored by Maya), which might explain why they have many verses in common. Bhattotpala also writes about the existence of works by earlier Yavana authors in the Jaggacandrikā (9th century CE) -

“अन्यच्च यवनाचार्यैः पूर्वैः कृतमिति तदर्थं स्फुजिध्वजोऽप्याह । … तदेतज्ज्ञायते यथा वराहमिहिरेण पूर्वयवनाचार्यमतमेवोपन्यस्तम् अस्माभिस्तन्न दृष्टम् ।”

“Sphujidhvaja too says that other works were written for that purpose (horoscopy) by older yavana teachers… that one knows (through) this instance (where) an opinion of older Yavana authorities (has been) explained by Varāhamihira (but) has not been seen by us (in the Yavanajātaka).”

Sphujidhvaja in the Yavanajātaka uses the Babylonian zodiac, but Mīnarāja uses Hipparchus’s ayanamsa in the Vṛddhayavanajātaka, which could be due to the existence of multiple treatises by various early Yavana author for them to draw upon.

In the few centuries after the arrival of Hellenistic astrology, the earlier text of Parāśara was rewritten, and later in 3rd-5th century CE several authors like Satya, Devasvāmin, Viṣnugupta, Siddhasena, Jīvaśarman, Bādarāyaṇa and others wrote newer treatises, all of whom were quoted by Varāhamihira in the sixth century CE.

The more ancient works of Parāśara and Vasiṣṭha are now lost probably because they became obsolete after their revision in the early centuries CE and thus went out of circulation. The concepts however were largely retained and expanded in later texts, with some borrowing from the Greco-babylonian tradition. The term Vedic astrology, though coined only recently, is therefore appropriate considering how the origin of the subject can be traced to the most ancient Vedic texts going back several millennia.

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(A full pdf version of the above containing more details and all the references used for writing this paper can be downloaded from this link — https://bit.ly/44zlQ2a)