Skyscript Astrology Forum

Is anyone aware of translations of these pre-Hellenistic (Yavanajakata) Hindu astronomy astrology books?

Hello SG
Although shastra can mean "text / treatise", it also more broadly means "set of rules /science". Jyotish shastra is thus usually used as a synonym for "Indian / Vedic astrology / astronomy".
The same is true of jyotish vedanga, which means "the limb of the veda (vedanga) concerning light (jyotis)", i.e. the science of astronomy / astrology, supposedly Vedic but more convincingly (in my view) mostly Greek with scattered elements from the veda and other things of possibly pre-vedic origin (notably ashtakavarga point system, and some south Indian techniques).
I think there are various texts using these names jyotish vedanga or jyotish shastra, but the names themselves are general, not specific.
You could try Wikipedia.
Graham
(various ways of spelling sastra etc according to system of transliteration)

Graham Fox wrote:The same is true of jyotish vedanga, which means "the limb of the veda (vedanga) concerning light (jyotis)", i.e. the science of astronomy / astrology, supposedly Vedic but more convincingly (in my view) mostly Greek[...]

No, there is an actual text known as Ved??gajyoti?a or Jyoti?aved??ga -- or rather, two texts or recensions (?gvedic and Yajurvedic), the older belonging probably to the 5th century BCE. They are mainly calendaric in nature.

Vedic astronomy (Vedaang jyotisha): A prehistoric puzzle by Prabhakar Vyankatesh Holay (Nagpur 1989) supposedly contains an English translation, though I have not seen it:
http://libibm.iucaa.ernet.in/wslxRSLT.php?A1=15042#REC2

I have this translation of the Surya Siddhanta at home
http://www.bagchee.com/books.php?id=2173
I believe that 'siddhanta' also means 'treatise'. With roots of before the 5th century much of after that century is mixed with it.

A famous astronomer, Varahamihira compiled several texts. Many scholars actually don't believe that 'Vedic' astrology is really Vedic but rather Greek/Persian. The astronomy of the Vedic era is rather crude and is called Vedanga Jyotisha. I agree with these scholars. Since Yavanajataka is derived from the word 'Yavana' which means 'Greek' this also will have Hellenistic roots.

Here's an article I like a lot. It is about Varahamihira and his Persian roots and the Greek/Persian roots of 'Vedic' but more correct Indian astronomy/astrology. http://www.iranchamber.com/personalitie ... mihira.php

Furthermore that 'magical' year 3102BC of the Indians and in which the Kaliyuga is said to have begun was probably calculated in 'retrospective' some 3600 years later in the time of Aryabhata and Dionysius. http://cura.free.fr/xx/17sepp1.html
This year is also said to be the date when the Brihat Parasara Hora Shastra (BPHS) was said to be written down by the mythical figure Parasara. Somewhere I read that this text rather stems from about a millennium ago. The BPHS is a classical astrological work and means to the Indians what the Tetrabiblos means to the Western astrologers. There seems to be several versions of it and there is a version on the internet.

That 3600 year period can be related to the effect called 'trepidation'. When precession was discovered other scholars believed that, rather than a continuing cycle of backwards precession of the equinoxes, the equinoxes went back and forth, trepidation. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1972JHA.....3...27P
Here's an article in French and it doesn't seem to be complete but there's an illustration that clarifies a bit on the theory. http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi- ... etype=.pdf

In the Indian/Persian astrology the ayanamsha was said to be based upon the star Revati. More about the origin of the several ayanamshas
http://www.astro.com/swisseph/swisseph. ... c204425063

There is much more to tell on this fascinating field of astronomy but I hope this already can be of some help.

there exists a pre-hellenistic (100/200 ad) indian astrology based on the lunar (nakshatra) zodiac -- apparently the full list of 27 nakshatras is in the jyotisavedanga which has been dated to circa 1300 bce -- this is before the Trojan War and the Exodus

this is what i am interested in

i did locate a translation by a Prof TS Kuppanna Sastry in U Chicago library -- and am contemplated a visit to the sout'side to check it out

SGFoxe wrote:the jyotisavedanga which has been dated to circa 1300 bce

By whom?

Another more recent translation + commentary of the Jyotishvendanga (the specific text referred to by Martin) seems to exist and can be ordered for 20 euros:

http://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/IDJ836/

The text allegedly contains "clues" which leads this translator/commentator to propose a date of 3600 BC (any better offers??):

"'Vedanga Jyotisham', the most ancient, systematic and authentic treatise available on the subject was sermonized by the sage Lagadha in a very rational form and crowned as the Vedanga.
Several clues are inherent in this classic, which make us believe that this work was handed down by the sage about 3500 years ago, somewhere in the Kashmir State of India, then known as 'Sharada Desha' i.e., the inhabitance of Goddess Saraswati."

Graham

On http://www.jstor.org/stable/620756?&Sea ... howArticle I found a book review on the history of astrology in India. Unfortunately this website requires membership or being in a university library as I do.
I quoted a passage.

VALERIE J. ROEBUCK: The circle of stars. an introduction to Indian astrology. 178 pp. Shaftesbury, Dorset and Rockport, Mass.: Element Books Ltd., 1992.

"The book informs us first of the origins, which are not old as one might have expected. The Vedas provide hardly more than evidence of the worship of stars as deities while the much later jyotisavedanga, an auxiliary branch of Vedic learning, was concerned primarily with fixing times for the great Vedic sacrifices. It was in fact only Greek influence which led to the establishment of natal astrology, but with the Indian system of lunar mansions incorporate"

I tend to be rather careful when I hear about texts dated 3600 BC. Writing (in pictographs) may just have been invented then. All I know was that before Greek influences, the astrology practiced by the Indians was a simple one using the nakshatra's at most for determining general '(un)lucky' days, and no natal astrology. The astronomy too was a crude one with a luni-solar calendar in a 5 year 'yuga', so even more crude than the rather precise Metonic cycle.

Originally there where 28 nakshatras of unequal divisions with the same number of yogataras/junction stars at unequal distance. The change to an exact division of nakshatras in 27 parts of 13?20' each (dividing a 360? circle by 27 is easier) was probably done around the 6th century and laid down in the Surya Siddhanta. http://www.telesmi.com/1911/YAK_ZYM/ZOD ... rom_d.html (scroll to the middle of the text)