Skyscript Astrology Forum

It is the word

????
sai??
that interests me.

If it is a part of BPHS then it is not found anywhere in this sanskrit version.
Which is a bit unusual for an author not to write that word again.

Here is the sanskrit wiki site:
https://sa.wikisource.org/wiki/????????

and the search shows texts like mahabharata,ramayana and puranas and other religious texts mentioning this word but not astrological texts.

https://sa.wikisource.org/w/index.php?t ... f1bzaaiehw

writing to Mr Sharma would be a good idea.The wikipedia article already mentions the interpolations in the Venkateshwara press edition. I think this could well be an interpolation.

Pier wrote:Dear Martin I only wish that with your fresh mind and eye for accurate translation you'd spare a couple week ends to finish translating BPHS I and many others would appreciate it no end !!!!

Thanks for the compliment. The first problem, though, would be establishing which text to translate...

pankajdubey wrote:It is the word

????
sai??
that interests me.

If it is a part of BPHS then it is not found anywhere in this sanskrit version.
Which is a bit unusual for an author not to write that word again.

It's really two words conjoined by sandhi: s? e??, both feminine demonstrative pronouns. The phrase means something like 'this, then'. Very likely there are other instances in the BPHS, though perhaps in the masculine or neuter gender (sa e?a, so 'yam, tad etat, etc); it's not an unusual construction.

Martin Gansten wrote:

Pier wrote:Dear Martin I only wish that with your fresh mind and eye for accurate translation you'd spare a couple week ends to finish translating BPHS I and many others would appreciate it no end !!!!

Thanks for the compliment. The first problem, though, would be establishing which text to translate...

I deeply appreciate the care you put in staying close to the texts in the fragments you just translated. This is an essential quality for such a rich and allusive material as BPHS.

Of course, which texts to do, thats a tricky choice. In his preface page 10 and 11 Ranjan Santhanam lists the texts he had access to. Not that it is inclusive. He worked mostly from the Sanskrit version by Sitaram Jha and some Hindi versions.

I'll try have some feedback from Chandrashekhar Sharma on what text he used. He has a website in Nagpur.

We know that there is a 16th century BPHS tucked in a university somewhere I dont even know the country, rumoured to be quite a bit shorter than the 97 chapters Santhanam did, that only teachers have access to. That would be a good thing to look at as it might be closer to the source. It seems that you teach, Martin in a university, so perhaps you could have access.

Remember KN Rao's saying, the present translations are mangled. Astrologers are working with faulty assumptions. Actually, astrologers who claim to be doing Parasara actually do not even apply 10% of what Parasara is saying. Not only for techniques, Vargas, but also for many yogas. I followed the work of Ernst Wilhelm who translated many parts of BPHS and unearthed many choice morcels. This is a worthy endeavour. Now, you hate me Martin )))
Take it easy
Pierre

Pier wrote:I followed the work of Ernst Wilhelm who translated many parts of BPHS and unearthed many choice morcels. This is a worthy endeavour. Now, you hate me Martin )))

Not at all. But I'm afraid I'm a sort of anti-Ernst: what I most appreciate about Indian astrology these days is its use of a sidereal zodiac, while the actual techniques I use on a daily basis are ones that would be more familiar to medieval Perso-Arabic astrologers. There's a bit of Indian astrology in that great synthesis, but also many elements that were unknown in India until the advent of T?jika astrology (13th century?). In fact, I'm currently hard at work translating the encyclopaedic T?jika work H?yanaratna by Balabhadra (who also wrote the Hor?ratna of which Santhanam published a partial translation).

How can you be 'anti-Ernst'?

Man is a scholar.

[quote="Martin Gansten" In fact, I'm currently hard at work translating the encyclopaedic T?jika work H?yanaratna by Balabhadra (who also wrote the Hor?ratna of which Santhanam published a partial translation).[/quote]

Thats great, I m sure you can do a great job on Hayanaratna !

Concerning Ernst W. he made his choices, tropical and others. with tropical I now stand corrected it was not his best idea. Some of his translations were good, some debatable.

Saturnhead wrote:How can you be 'anti-Ernst'?

Man is a scholar.

I didn't say that I was anti-Ernst but (in quotation marks, and with a smiley) that I was an anti-Ernst -- in the sense that we made opposite choices: he, to practise classical Indian astrology (or a modern variant of it, anyway) but abandoning the sidereal zodiac; I, to keep the sidereal zodiac but embrace astrological techniques not found in pre-Islamic Indian tradition.

As for Ernst Wilhelm being a scholar, I haven't read his books, but what little I've seen of his work on the web didn't strike me as very scholarly. Does he in fact have a scholarly background?

Martin Gansten wrote:

Saturnhead wrote:How can you be 'anti-Ernst'?

Man is a scholar.

I didn't say that I was anti-Ernst but (in quotation marks, and with a smiley) that I was an anti-Ernst -- in the sense that we made opposite choices: he, to practise classical Indian astrology (or a modern variant of it, anyway) but abandoning the sidereal zodiac; I, to keep the sidereal zodiac but embrace astrological techniques not found in pre-Islamic Indian tradition.

As for Ernst Wilhelm being a scholar, I haven't read his books, but what little I've seen of his work on the web didn't strike me as very scholarly. Does he in fact have a scholarly background?

You haven't read his Jaimini Sutras translation?

Took him 10 years.

It's awesome.

Saturnhead wrote:You haven't read his Jaimini Sutras translation?

No, as I said, I haven't read any of his books (and the so-called Jaimini system doesn't interest me much).

I found another book of Wilhelm's called Graha Sutras on Google Books and had a look at it; it did not in fact contain s?tras (aphorisms) but rather some ?lokas (stanzas) from the BPHS, though most of it seemed to be Wilhelm's own writing. The Sanskrit text and translations were mostly correct, though there were quite a few minor errors. All in all, it didn't seem what I would call scholarly.

Anyway, we're way off topic here. My original comment was not intended as criticism of Wilhelm, but rather to point out (as Pierre had mentioned us both together) that we do rather different things.

Hello Martin, and you all,

The editor whose remark started this whole train of thoughts (ie, Vimshottari being conditional and not applicable to all, as is currently thought) has been found on the web, through his web site.
I have written to Chandrashekhar Sharma asking what source text for Parasara he had, that contained this idea.

If he answers I will keep you informed here. But it doesnt seem that he answers a lot of queries on his site...

(In my almost 30 years practicing Jyotish I had never ever seen VImshottari the main Dasa system in India, being mentionned with a condition)

Pierre

I have the Sanskrit-Hindi version of BPHS by Khemraj. It is interesting.
It is the 2010 version in which the translator launches a scathing attack on the translator of a Kashi version version for first nitpicking on the printing mistake and then goes on to point the mistakes of Kashi version translation.

In the last paragraph, he mentions:( translation and emphasis-mine)

In this edition, a chapter of Lomash samhita in kshepak (??????)form (interpolated) has been explained properly with its real meaning, for that exposition of real meaning, I am grateful to my friend Jyotirvid Shri Pandit Chiranjilal ji....." .

The translator does not mention where this shloka is except saying it is in the purva khanda( first half).

He may be pointing to this shloka in poorva khanda,chapter 31- shloka 35-36
:

atha nak?atrada??m?ha
nak?atr?yurmah?pr?jha pur?amagre prak??itam
vi??ottar? pa?cadh? ca dvidh? ca a??ottar? mat? ?? 35??
?? ?????????????
???????????????????? ?????????? ??????????
?????????? ????? ? ?????? ? ?????????? ??? ?? ????

which he goes on to translate as:

O mahabhaga ! nakshatra based dasas- 5 types of Vimshottari ( dasha,antardasha,pratyantardasha,sookshma and prana dasha) by differentiation( original hindi word is : bheda which can have different meaning ) and two types of Ashtottari dasha ( starting from Ardra and Krittika) have been detailed...

http://spokensanskrit.de/index.php?tinp ... eginning=0

Looks the Khemraj version has realised that they may have printed a interpolation earlier and are now trying to wriggle out of it.

The beginning of the chapter is like this:

maitreya uv?ca
da??? katividh?? santi hyetanmebr?hi tattvata? ------

par??ara uv?ca ?
ath?ta? sa?pravak?y?mi da??bhed?naneka?a? ??
vi??ottar? da?? cokt? da?? tu ?o?a?ottar? ?? 2??

??????? ????
???? ???????? ????? ??????????????? ???????? ------

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