Skyscript Astrology Forum

tri-bhaga bala - 1 - 1/3rd of anything...

for a day birth determine the length of the day from sunrise to sunset and divide by 3.
first 3rd - mercury gets full strength
2nd 3rd - sun gets full strength
3rd 3rd - saturn gets full strengh - perhaps this explains saturn setting in a day chart as quite favourable too.. not sure..

for a night birth determine the length of the night from sunset to sunrise.

1st 3rd - moon gets full strength
2nd 3rd - venus gets full strength
3rd 3rd - mars gets full strength...

what is interesting to me is how these associations of sun and saturn in the day chart and moon, venus and mars in the night charts conform with hellenistic astrology.. what is different is how mercury is included in the day strength plan, whereas in hellenistic it swings both ways - depending on whether it rises before or after the sun... jupiter is included in the day chart as a planet of strength in hellenistic astrology but not here in indian astrology... but the night chart strengths are exactly as hellenistic astrology lays them out - moon, venus and mars are strong in the night charts... what is also interesting is how they divide the length of day or night to arrive at this position as opposed to hellenistic astrology which doesn't offer this more nuanced viewpoint..

thoughts?

What text or texts describe these calculations?

Martin Gansten wrote:What text or texts describe these calculations?

Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra
Chapter 29:Evaluation Of Strengths
'12. Tribagh Bala: One Rupa is obtained by Buddha (if birth is) in the first one third part of day time, by Surya in the second one third part of the day and by Shani in the last third part of the day. Similarly, Chandra, Shukra, and Mangal get full Bala (of one Rupa) in the first, second, and last one third parts of the night. Guru gets this Bala at all times. '

Additionally:
See also pages 40-41 of BV Raman's Graha and Bhava Balas, UBS Publishers and Distributors Ltd. New Delhi, 13th edition, 6th reprint 1996.

~AJ

martin

i am the one asking questions!! we can't have everyone asking questions around here!!

i got it out of charaks book - elements of vedic astrology volume 1.. but i suppose charak got it out of one of the sources aj mentions... thanks aj!

i find the whole idea rather fascinating and i am curious how they came to these realizations on all this... of course, i will never know, but it is a ongoing source of curiousity for me.. i suspect most astrologers are working with astro software that generates different results from formulas on shadbala, but unless one designs the software, i suspect the astrologers might not know much about any of this... i suppose this is a comment on the use of astrology programs in astrologers environment of today as well.... how are astrologers suppose to understand how these ideas have been arrived at?

thanks james

james_m wrote:i am the one asking questions!! we can't have everyone asking questions around here!!

Right, of course. So sorry.

The reason I asked, of course, is that we can't really know whether this (or any) idea in Indian astrology has Greek roots until we trace it to the earliest source texts and identify any changes that may have been made, intentionally or not, along the way. Perhaps the original version did have Jupiter rather than Mercury among the diurnal planets?

martin

that would be a heck of a mistranslation subbing out jupiter for mercury! anything is possible and i am never going to ask a scholar again for a ride on their bicycle in case i get taken to the wrong place and end up on well, maybe jupiter...

james_m wrote:that would be a heck of a mistranslation subbing out jupiter for mercury!

It would be more likely to be a copying error than a mistranslation, but I assure you that such things happen. Unless you work closely with premodern texts, it is easy to underestimate how difficult, or even impossible, it can be to find out what an author originally said: the capacity for errors in transmission is enormous, and nowhere more so than in India, where the combination of climate and the highly perishable materials used for manuscripts necessitates frequent re-copying. It's like a game of Chinese whispers. And the earlier in the process a mistake occurs, the less likely it is to be spotted and corrected.

thanks martin

supposition, but i think you are likely right about this... but it is the error that gets embedded in mainstream authors like charak with people like me reading it and questioning it..

james_m wrote:thanks martin
supposition, but i think you are likely right about this... but it is the error that gets embedded in mainstream authors like charak with people like me reading it and questioning it..

Martin Gansten wrote:trace it to the earliest source texts and identify any changes that may have been made, intentionally or not, along the way. Perhaps the original version did have Jupiter rather than Mercury among the diurnal planets?

Tribagha Bala that James refers to and alerted his ‘spidey senses’ to the similarity to Sect, is one part of Kaala Bala (time strength) calculations within Shadbala and is solid at least from the 11th century.

I recall that we bashed through the topic of sect in Indian astrology a long time ago somewhere here on Skyscript.

Shadbala or six fold strength calculations are mostly taken from SriPati Paddhati traditionally written by SriPati in the 11th century and of course ended up in many other medieval texts including BPHS. Tribagha Bala then is at least that old. I will mention that Tribagha Bala is not found in the earlier Brihat Jataka (6th century) by Varahamira.

James: Another Kaala Bala that you might be interested in is Nathonnatta Bala. This should be in Charak’s book as well though maybe under a slightly different name. Nathonnatta Bala, besides being in BPHS is in SriPati Paddhati Chapter III and found in Brihat Jataka Chapter 2 (6th century). I’m taking the description from SriPati Paddhati and Brihat Jataka though it is a slightly more complex calculation in BPHS. See the quotes below.

Nathonnatta Bala is quite different from the Hellenistic Sect assignments of the planets and a bit of a contrast to Tribagha Bala. Instead for day births being the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn it is the Sun, Jupiter and Venus.

For night births instead of the Moon, Venus and Mars as assigned in Hellenistic astrology it is the Moon Saturn and Mars.

Where the Hellenistic sect system has a natural malefic and natural benefic paired with the Luminaries here the benefics are teamed with the Sun (a malefic) and malefics teamed with the Moon (usually a benefic). Mercury, probably due to being a neutral, is always at full strength in Nathonnatta Bala.

For all we know, these Kaala Bala calculations could be odd artifacts of Hellensitic Sect or could be entirely indigenous. Though similar, Tribagha Bala and Nathonnatta Bala have distinct differences and at least to me seem unrelated to the Hellenistic use of Sect.

Sect in Hellenistic astrology is a major theory of how planets operate but these Kaala Bala computations are very minor considerations in the rather vast amount of calculation needed to determine the Shadbala for 7 planets!

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. With tables calculating the vargas wasn’t too bad, even then one never did all 16 except when first learning. There are important considerations that Shadbala as presented in the scriptures leaves out anyhow. Without a guru how could you know this from only reading the Shastras?

The only Sect doctrine in Indian texts that I know of is from the 5th or 6th century work the Yavanajataka, chapter 1 verse 83. It says... 'Saturn, Jupiter, and the Sun are strong in the day-time, Mars, Venus, and the Moon at night; Mercury is strong either by day or at night.’
[This is just a text translation I have, not even sure where I got it. I assume it's copied off of Pingree's work which I don’t have.]

This is identical to the Hellenistic Sect doctrine. Sect is not mentioned again in the text, (though I haven't reread all of it).

My long winded explanation comes down to this, Sect was just not a concept that took off in Indian astrology along with the Hellenistic doctrine of lots which is curious don’t you think? Especially in light of the clear exchange of ideas between the cultures in those early centuries. Lots came back later in the Tajika traditions with the Moguls in the 16th century but never spilled into the Parashari tradition.

The very minor role of any correlated principles found in traditional Indian texts related to Hellenistic Sect like Shadbala attests that Sect was not considered important in Indian astrology.

Martin pointed out some time ago in the previous conversation on Sect that there is not even an equivalent word for it in Sanskrit.

Quotes…
11th Century
SriPati Paddhati Chapter 3, sloka 9: Mars, the Moon and Saturn have strength by night, Jupiter the Sun and Venus have potency by day. Mercury is strong at all times…

6th Century
Brihat Jataka Chapter 2, sloka 21: The Moon, Mars, and Saturn possess Kaalabala, i.e., become (temporarily) powerful during the night. Mercury is always powerful whether during the day or during the night. The Sun, Jupiter and Venus are powerful during the day.

aj

thanks kindly for your informative post... regarding Nathonnatta Bala, it is not discussed in charaks book, but is in another book i have by s.k. duggal and neerja taneja, appropriately called 'shadlbala'..basically this strength is based on mars, saturn, or moon having maximum strength at midnight, while sun, venus or jupiter have maximum strength at noon local time... as one can see saturn and venus have been switched out from the hellenistic system for each other.. charak didn't mention it and i am not sure how the indian astrology software accounts for it... i imagine for most births midnight or high noon would be an approximate midpoint to the night or day length, so if one factors the other shadbala concept mentioned earlier where the night or day length is split into 3 parts (tri-bhaga bala) one can come up some a real sense of confusion over the relevance of it all...

i am sure these systems aren't meant to clash here, but it seems like that is exactly what they do do!

james_m wrote:regarding Nathonnatta Bala, it is not discussed in charaks book,

Are you sure it's not in Charak? This is part of the modern shadbala calculations in almost everyone's texts that describe it either based on BPHS or SriPati. Could be spelled nathonatha bala or maybe even named after the technical term for the difference between midnight and the apparent birth time which is called Unnata. 'Unnata Bala' ?
Like I mentioned before, BPHS has a more complicated version of this calculation than SriPati.

james_m wrote:i am sure these systems aren't meant to clash here, but it seems like that is exactly what they do do!

The two calculations do seem to clash, there is not a clear logic between them. 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.

Just a marginal note regarding orthography, etc.: नतोन???नत natonnata is made up of the two words नत nata 'bowed' + उन???नत unnata 'raised'. In astronomy they mean upper medidian distance and lower meridian distance, respectively. The practice of romanizing the dental stop त as tha (with an h) is peculiarly South Indian: it does not, in this case, mark an aspiration (as in anthill) or a fricative (as in truth), only the position of the tip of the tongue against the teeth (different from the typical English alveolar t).

So spellings like nathonnatha signal a South Indian author. For historical reasons, English-language literature on Indian astrology has been (and perhaps still is) dominated by South Indians.