Skyscript Astrology Forum

pankajdubey wrote:sam?na also means similar .
If you can give the name of the book and sloka maybe I can check what the hindi translators wrote about it.

Thanks, Pankaj. (Yes, 'equal' and 'similar' are related meanings.) It's a bit complex, though: the verse in question is from a text which seems now to be lost, and even the title is in doubt. It is quoted by Balabhadra in the first chapter of his 1629 work H?yanaratna, which I'm not sure has been translated into Hindi (or any other language). Here it is all the same, along with my translation -- let's see if the Devanagari script goes through:

???????? ????????? ?????????????? ????????? ? ?????????? ?????????????? ?????? ?????? ????? ?

vi?amoday? m?g?dy?? ?a? ?hrasvatvena k?lam?nasya /
kark?dy?? ?a? d?rghatv?t samoday? ajatule sam?ne //

'The six [signs] beginning with Capricorn rise crookedly because [their] measure of time is short; the six beginning with Cancer rise evenly because [theirs] is long; Aries and Libra are middling.'

Martin Gansten wrote:

pankajdubey wrote:sam?na also means similar .
If you can give the name of the book and sloka maybe I can check what the hindi translators wrote about it.

Thanks, Pankaj. (Yes, 'equal' and 'similar' are related meanings.) It's a bit complex, though: the verse in question is from a text which seems now to be lost, and even the title is in doubt. It is quoted by Balabhadra in the first chapter of his 1629 work H?yanaratna, which I'm not sure has been translated into Hindi (or any other language). Here it is all the same, along with my translation -- let's see if the Devanagari script goes through:

???????? ????????? ?????????????? ????????? ? ?????????? ?????????????? ?????? ?????? ????? ?

vi?amoday? m?g?dy?? ?a? ?hrasvatvena k?lam?nasya /
kark?dy?? ?a? d?rghatv?t samoday? ajatule sam?ne //

'The six [signs] beginning with Capricorn rise crookedly because [their] measure of time is short; the six beginning with Cancer rise evenly because [theirs] is long; Aries and Libra are middling.'

ajatule sam?ne: why are these two word in masculine locative singular- does it deal with their respective positions in the group ?

other than that, thinking like an Indian could be difficult-

http://elisafreschi.com/2014/08/14/815/

Pankaj

Sanskrit commentary on Hayaratna:my sanskrit is limited to reading Bhagavad Geeta but this is what I could figure out.
rising times of various signs quoted:

Capricorn 283
Aquarius 203
Pisces 158
--------------------
Aries 158
Taurus 203
Gemini 283

Cancer 363
Leo 395
Virgo 398
-------------
Libra 398
Scorpio 395
Sagittarius 363

As you see there is a symmetry round Aries and Libra in their respective groups.

Looks like Paul's sanskrit was the closest to original commentary

Pankaj

pankajdubey wrote:ajatule sam?ne: why are these two word in masculine locative singular- does it deal with their respective positions in the group ?

No, that's actually the feminine nominative dual (because Aries and Libra are two signs and tul?, the final member of the compound, is feminine).

The text you've found (at DLI?) isn't a commentary but the actual text (m?lam?tra) of the H?yanaratna. As you can see, it shows that the rising times of Aries and Pisces are identical, and similarly of Virgo and Libra. It doesn't explain why Aries and Libra are called 'middling', 'equal' or 'similar', though.

Martin Gansten wrote:

pankajdubey wrote:ajatule sam?ne: why are these two word in masculine locative singular- does it deal with their respective positions in the group ?

No, that's actually the feminine nominative dual (because Aries and Libra are two signs and tul?, the final member of the compound, is feminine).

The text you've found (at DLI?) isn't a commentary but the actual text (m?lam?tra) of the H?yanaratna. As you can see, it shows that the rising times of Aries and Pisces are identical, and similarly of Virgo and Libra. It doesn't explain why Aries and Libra are called 'middling', 'equal' or 'similar', though.

The DLI text end with iti followed by the explanation, so I thought it was a commentary on the original.

Pankaj

A couple of observations about the ethics of the zodiac...

The upright signs approximate the solar half of the zodiac (Cap being the exception) and the lunar half the other side. The signs of the lights seem to be more "upright" than the signs of Saturn. This is only true in the northern hemisphere.

Mathematically it is possible for the signs adjacent Libra/Virgo (Leo/Scorpio) to have greater ascension than Libra/Virgo. I'm not sure how Scorpio can be considered more truthful (except for it being one of the mute signs) than Libra on the face of it, but in this world many things are upside down. Down under, however, the reverse.

I've been following this thread with interest, as I'm trying to get my head round the implications of rising times and their relationship to antiscia/contrantiscia. Pankadjubey clearly set out the relationships:

Capricorn 283
Aquarius 203
Pisces 158
--------------------
Aries 158
Taurus 203
Gemini 283

Cancer 363
Leo 395
Virgo 398
-------------
Libra 398
Scorpio 395
Sagittarius 363

Can anyone point me at a post or an article on the net to help me understand why the summer solstice > winter solstice signs should be longer and straighter, and the the winter > summer ones more oblique and shorter (in time)? i can't manage to visualise why the peaks of fast and slow rising (and of obliquity and straightness) should be at the equinoxes. I can see that this is true with an astronomy program, but can't work out why. We can also, I think, see things in terms of an acceleration from autumn equinox to spring and a deceleration from spring to autumn.

Also, if I understand right, there is a slight variation of rising times because of the precession (at a different rate than the VP) of the aphelion/perihelion axis, so the peak of rising times (and of straightness/obliquity?) will not in fact fall exactly on the equinoxes, but will vary slightly over time in a zodiacal direction, but this seems to be generally ignored in astrological discussions (e.g. Robert Hand's paper "On the Invariance of the Tropical Zodiac", and Deborah's "The Classical Basis of Antiscia". Presumably this shift would engender a slight difference even at the equator.

Many thanks for any help.
Graham

Graham F wrote:Can anyone point me at a post or an article on the net to help me understand why the summer solstice > winter solstice signs should be longer and straighter, and the the winter > summer ones more oblique and shorter (in time)? i can't manage to visualise why the peaks of fast and slow rising (and of obliquity and straightness) should be at the equinoxes. I can see that this is true with an astronomy program, but can't work out why.

I can't point you to an article, but I can try to explain why this is, as I understand it in terms of observational astronomy.

Risings and settings are a function of the rotation of the celestial sphere, marked by the celestial equator, around the earth/point of observation. This rotation takes place at a constant speed, which is why we can express degrees of right ascension as time (15? = 1 hour).

Because of the different inclinations of the 12 signs (or, rather, the 6 pairs of tropical signs) to the equator, if we note the points on the equator rising with the beginning of each sign (for any given geographical latitude), the resulting 12 points will be spaced apart by different numbers of degrees. (Each such point will mark the oblique ascension of the beginning of a sign.) A sign located between two equatorial points 15? apart will rise in one hour; if they are 45? apart, it will take three hours. And the more 'upright' a sign is with regard to the local horizon, the further apart these points will be. So it's a function of (a) the angle between the horizon and equator and (b) the angle between the ecliptic and the equator.

Also, if I understand right, there is a slight variation of rising times because of the precession (at a different rate than the VP) of the aphelion/perihelion axis, so the peak of rising times (and of straightness/obliquity?) will not in fact fall exactly on the equinoxes, but will vary slightly over time in a zodiacal direction, but this seems to be generally ignored in astrological discussions (e.g. Robert Hand's paper "On the Invariance of the Tropical Zodiac", and Deborah's "The Classical Basis of Antiscia". Presumably this shift would engender a slight difference even at the equator.

I'm afraid this is beyond my ken as well.

Thanks you Martin, I think I should be able to make sense of it from there, with a bit of thought.
Graham

Capricorn 283
Aquarius 203
Pisces 158
--------------------
Aries 158
Taurus 203
Gemini 283

Cancer 363
Leo 395
Virgo 398
-------------
Libra 398
Scorpio 395
Sagittarius 363

I'm with Graham, in the sense that I can't understand why the rising times peak (high/low) in the equinoxs. Is there any mention on the text for which time of the year this table was calculated?

I think that the signs have different rising times during the year, as well as during the course of a single day as well. Or are those values obtained for when the sun is on those signs?


Jo?o Ventura

Yes, I've been sitting here for the last few minutes wondering just that (why the high/low peaks are at the equinoxes). I can see that latitude and ecliptic obliquity would cause calculable variations, but I'd have thought the mean values would be at the equinoxes and the extreme ones at the solstices, but it's the reverse.
But unlike Joao, I think the rising times should be the same throughout the year at a given location, it's just that they will rise at different times of day or night. And each sign only rises once in a single day, so no variation there.
Graham

The thing to think about is that the angle of the ecliptic with the equator is not perpindicular, or, more to the point, it isn't perpindicular to our latitude.

Think of a line drawn from the sun when it rises, when it culminates and when it sets. This line drawn through the sky is the diurnal arc which will be parallel to the equator. The ecliptic, however, does not run along this same diurnal arc you just drew in the sky. Instead, the ecliptic is going to be at an angle to this arc, the diurnal arc is parallel to the equator and we know the eclipitc is angled to the equator hence its angled to the diurnal arc too. I realise we all know this on paper but it's important to keep it in mind.

Here's an image which shows the position of the sun at varying points of the day. Running through each sun is a faint line which depicts where the ecliptic was at at that time of the day. As I say, we probably all know this, but it helps to see it.
So when the earth rotates it's not rotating along the same line as the ecliptic.

Here's a short animation I just made to depict Aries and Libra as they rise. The thick red line can be imagined as an arc of 30 degrees of longitude which represents the tropical sign as it rises. Each frame of the animation elapses 15 minutes of clock time. Keep in mind that the earth rotates at a constant speed.

(I didn't embed these as the animation may get annoying)

Aries:
http://i.imgur.com/2soSh04.gif

Libra:
http://i.imgur.com/7crxzAz.gif

Notice that the rotation of the earth, as said above, is not along the same lines as the ecliptic, the rotation is not parallel to the ecliptic.

So here's what it looks like when I add in part of the diurnal arc in blue. It is along the blue line that we can imagine the earth to be spinning. So the longer the blue line the longer it will take the earth to allow a full sign to cross the horizon and rise.

Aries: Libra:
Hopefully what should be obvious is that it's not so much the tilt of the ecliptic at the time that the sign is rising, it is the diurnal arc along which the ecliptic will rise at that time.

Clearly we see that Aries is much more slanted than Libra. And as a result, it is much shorter than Libra - the longer the line the longer it takes to rise as the earth rotates at a constant speed. Hence it takes Aries much quicker to rise than Libra, and also why we call Aries a crooked sign and Libra a straight one.

All these images were taken using Stellarium software, with me adding in the blue and red lines myself, and they were all taken at the latitude of London England. The further extreme the latitude, the more extreme will be the result.

Hope this helps.