aj / martin

the concept aj refers to is called nata-unnata bala in charaks book..
sun, jupiter and venus get full strength at noon local time

monn, mars and saturn get full strength at midnight local time.

mercury gets full strength always..

this is different from tri-bhaga bala mentioned in my first post, in that now the only consistency is sun for a day birth and moon and mars for the night birth..... tri bhaga bala puts mercury and saturn with the potential for full strength noon-day, whereas here we have saturn given full strength in the midnight position.. meanwhile with nata-unnata bala - mercury is given full strength regardless..

is this a flaw in shadbala? or is this a mixed message in shadbala?

thanks for both of your ongoing comments here... cheers james

To be honest, even when I did exclusively Indian astrology (which was a long time ago), I never bothered with ṣa???bala. Mixing different kinds of strength (even when they are not incompatible) doesn't make sense to me. So I never looked into it deeply, but it seems likely to me that there may have been errors in early transmission as well as new ideas added over time, not necessarily compatible with earlier ones.

james_m wrote: is this a flaw in shadbala? or is this a mixed message in shadbala?

See my prior posts...

The progression over time from the Brihat Jataka to SriPati and hence to BPHS the shadbala calculations grew more complex it would seem, just based on the texts. On the face of it feels like separate schools of thought being thrown together here.

To build on that thought the transmission was garbled and Shadbala grew in scope over time. With Shadbala, the editor or compilers of SriPati Paddhati (and hence BPHS) took a 'throw in the kitchen sink' approach to this concept. Brihat Jataka from around the 5th century, some think even earlier, has little of the material found in SriPati Paddhati on Shadbala. In fact, I think the term shadbala doesn't even occur in Brihat Jataka. English translations that is. Don't quote me, it's been a long time since I read that shastra. Shadbala is a medieval development in the form its come down to the present day IMO because it's only mentioned in those texts that originate with or after SriPati Paddhati (11th century). e.g. Jataka Parijata (by Vaidyanath) 14th century, (PhalaDeepika by Manteswara) 13th century AD.

It’s really only in the modern period with the advent of computers that full Shadbala calculations are commonplace. Take it from me, doing the calculations by hand is more than tedious and was rarely if ever done by the practicing astrologer except in the first lessons by the guru.
...There are important considerations that Shadbala as presented in the scriptures leaves out anyhow.

Shadbala for the practicing astrologer can present misleading information on a Graha's (planets) true strength in the horoscope if not taken in context with other factors that shadbala leaves out. This is a topic in itself. It is important to keep in mind with the ancient Indian texts on Jyotish assume you have a teacher (guru) to fill in intentional gaps or errors in transmission. No doubt Shadbala has redundant concepts embedded within it when taken in its entirety. On the other hand Shadbala has calculations with great merit such as sthanna bala (positional strength), drigbala (aspectual strength), digbala (directional strength) and graha yuddha (planetary war) and a few others so we must be careful not to throw the 'baby out with the bath water' however muddy it is.

thanks aj

that is a very good historical overview on shadbala which i appreciate.. keeping it all in perspective is the challenge of anyone, but in particular a student to indian astrology.. it would be an interesting exercise to consider a chart from the point of view of shadbala and providing an example where the data from shadbala was or wasn't relevant.. that would be interesting to see..

intersection of hellenistic and indian astrology??
It seems to be many. For example, the succession of planetary periods, the way it was described by Indian astrologers from Sphujidhvaja to Minaraja, Varahamihira and so on, seems to be described also by Valens in Book II, chapter on the Propitious and Impropitious Periods (page 41, Mark T Riley edition).
The same succession of planetary chronocrators, the way it is described by ancient indian astrologers, can also be understood the way hellenistic astrologers described the succession of decennials. Even the dasha (sanskrit for ten) term, seems to translate the word decennia. Were they at the beginnings, ten years periods? Hard to say, but not impossible.

दशा daś?? with a long final ?? is a different word than दश daśa 'ten'. The former is used even in non-astrological contexts to designate a 'state or condition of life, period of life (youth, manhood, &c.), condition, circumstances' (Monier-Williams). Planetary periods are also known by other terms, such as दाय d??ya, पाक p??ka, etc.

Martin Gansten wrote:दशा daś?? with a long final ?? is a different word than दश daśa 'ten'. The former is used even in non-astrological contexts to designate a 'state or condition of life, period of life (youth, manhood, &c.), condition, circumstances' (Monier-Williams). Planetary periods are also known by other terms, such as दाय d??ya, पाक p??ka, etc.

It is very instructive for me to have this discussion. The two terms have no the same root? And I am curious if the term "dashA" actually existed in Sanskrit before the astrological texts.

Good questions. No, the roots are almost certainly different. Daśa is a cognate of Latin decem, Greek deka, English ten, etc. The root of daś?? (or possibly roots, as there is another word daś?? with the seemingly unrelated meaning 'fringe, hem') is/are more obscure.

The relative dating of Sanskrit texts is often very uncertain, and we don't even know in what century horoscopic astrology was introduced, but for daś?? in the non-astrological sense of condition/period of life, the Böhtlingk-Roth dictionary lists the Amarakośa, the R??m??yaṇa, all the major story collections (like Hitopadeśa) and plays of K??lid??sa, the Bh??gavata, etc., as sources. Even if we want to date all those sources to centuries after the introduction of astrology, it seems somewhat unlikely that a technical astrological term should have acquired such generalized meaning and widespread acceptance so quickly.

It would be worth to find out. I think the term dashA is derived from dasha and that the term's origin in Sanskrit is astrological, as a translation of the term decennia. That means, it is probably not older than the 2nd century CE. I also assume that decennials were the most common astrological predictive technique in the hellenistic world.

That is what is known as a folk etymology (the words sound similar, so they must be related). Do you also propose to explain दशा daś?? 'hem, fringe' as derived from decennia? (This reminds me of the time when I heard a popular swami explain that the Latin word curriculum was derived from the Sanskrit gurukulam.)

Monier-Williams tentatively suggests the root daṃś 'to bite' as an explanation for both 'fringe' and 'period', which seems somewhat speculative but not impossible (cf. English bit = small piece).

To my knowledge there is nothing to suggest that decennials were as common as you assume, nor, more crucially, that they were transmitted to India. If we are looking for one most common predictive technique in Hellenistic astrology, based on the available textual evidence, it would probably have to be annual profections.

We sure have a hard way to understanding each other. I assume दशा daś?? 'condition, circumstance, period of life' is derived from daśa 'ten' not from decennia. But yes, the term दशा daś?? translates the hellenistic astrological term 'decennia.' And also that the term दशा daś?? have not existed in Sanskrit with other significations before it existed as an astrological term.

About your last observation, we have to take in consideration the fact that many astrological texts are lost, and from those still existent, we can assume there were more complex texts in those ancient times, than those that survived. Also, if Valens have known about decennials in the 2nd century, the technique was probably existent at least one century before him.

The fact that decennials were transmited to India resides in the fact that their specific succesion of planetary lords is described both by Hellenistic astrologer (Vettius Valens, Firmicus Maternus) and Indian astrologers (at least Sphujidhvaja, but probably also Minaraja, Varahamihira, Kalyanavarman and others, if we are ready to extend the understanding of what is already written in those texts).

I also wouldn't take much stake on the annual profections when we see from various ancient annals (Suetonius for example) how complex were the predictions elaborated by astrologers in those times.

Radu Canahai wrote:We sure have a hard way to understanding each other. I assume दशा daś?? 'condition, circumstance, period of life' is derived from daśa 'ten' not from decennia.

No, I understood you perfectly, but perhaps I expressed myself too concisely. You want daś?? 'period' to be derived from daśa 'ten' as a calque of decennia.

But yes, the term दशा daś?? translates the hellenistic astrological term 'decennia.' And also that the term दशा daś?? have not existed in Sanskrit with other significations before it existed as an astrological term.

A bold supposition based on an argument from silence, if that. If any of the Sanskrit sources using daś?? in the general sense of period, such as the R??m??yaṇa passages, should be pre-horoscopic, then the assumption is clearly wrong. And the balance of probability lies that way, as the youngest parts of the R??m??yaṇa appear to be no later than the 3rd century CE. The earliest datable Sanskrit text on horoscopic astrology is Mīnar??ja's, from the 4th.

But even disregarding that, decennia is a Latin word, not Greek, so in order to make the hypothesis at all credible you would need to find a Greek-language source that used a name meaning 'tens' for the technique.

About your last observation, we have to take in consideration the fact that many astrological texts are lost, and from those still existent, we can assume there were more complex texts in those ancient times, than those that survived.

I don't think we can assume that they were more complex, but more to the point, we don't know if they included decennia, or, if so, what importance was given to that technique.

The fact that decennials were transmited to India resides in the fact that their specific succesion of planetary lords is described both by Hellenistic astrologer (Vettius Valens, Firmicus Maternus) and Indian astrologers (at least Sphujidhvaja, but probably also Minaraja, Varahamihira, Kalyanavarman and others, if we are ready to extend the understanding of what is written in those texts).

Yes, the idea of starting with an aphetic point and proceeding in zodiacal order almost certainly derives from Greek astrology. That doesn't mean that the original system involved ten-year periods (the Indian versions don't), nor that it bore a name meaning 'tens' on which a calque daś?? was based. And there seems to be no reason why such a calque should get a long final ?? (rendering it feminine); Sanskrit numerals are typically neuter.