JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIAN INTELLECTUAL
HISTORY 1 (2018) 79–132
brill.com/saih
Samarasiṃha and the Early Transmission of Tājika
Astrology
Martin Gansten
Lund University
martin.gansten@ctr.lu.se
Abstract
One of the earliest preserved Sanskrit works on Perso-Arabic (Tājika) astrology, the
thirteenth-century Karmaprakāśa of Samarasiṃha (also known as the Manuṣya
jātaka, Tājikatantrasāra or Gaṇakabhūṣaṇa), is examined with particular attention
to subgenre, distinctive content and likely Arabic-language sources. On the basis
of a comparison of the extant text of the Karmaprakāśa with excerpts attributed to
Samarasiṃha by later Tājika writers, conclusions are drawn with regard to other works,
now lost or misattributed, by the same author.
Keywords
Samarasiṃha – astrology – Indian astrology – Tājika astrology – astral sciences
1
Introduction
Very little is known of the early history of Tājika or Perso-Arabic astrology in
India. Due to the false dichotomy that still persists between the astrology of
South Asia and so-called western astrology—a term commonly but counterintuitively used to include not only ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, but also
Sasanian Persia and the Arabic-speaking world of the Islamic Golden Age—
the comparatively few historians who devote themselves to studying the development of horoscopic astrology are typically familiar with sources in Greek,
Latin and/or Arabic, but not with the vast body of relevant Sanskrit literature.
In the twentieth century, the one major exception to this rule was the late
David Pingree (1933–2005), whose outstanding contributions, particularly in
© MARTIN GANSTEN, 2019 | doi:10.1163/25425552-12340005
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the prevailing Cc-By license at the time of
publication.
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the realm of data collection, provide a solid ground for future scholarship.
Even Pingree, however, published only some fifteen pages on Tājika astrology,1
of which a mere three pages concern its earliest phase. Prior to Pingree, the
only western scholar to have written on Tājika was Albrecht Weber, in a single
article dating from the mid-nineteenth century and based on limited data.2
Broadly speaking, Tājika is a Sanskritized version of Arabic-language astrology, sharing a Hellenistic core with pre-Islamic Indian jyotiṣa but comprising
a number of additional doctrines which either had never reached India before
or else had not survived there. The Arabic tradition itself was, in fact, an amalgam of astrological teachings and procedures borrowed from cultural areas
that had preserved and developed the Hellenistic heritage in slightly different
forms—notably Persia, but also Byzantium, Syria, and indeed India. Even after
being translated into Sanskrit and to some extent adapted to Indian conditions, this new type of astrology differed sharply enough from the established
one to form a separate school rather than merging with it. Most noticeably,
Tājika throughout its history has been, and remains today, largely synonymous
with the casting of anniversary horoscopes, a prognostic technique known as
varṣaphala or ‘results of the year’—often referred to in the European literature
as annual revolutions or, more recently, as ‘solar returns’—and not previously
known in India. On the interpretation of actual nativities or birth horoscopes,
by contrast, Tājika literature as a whole has little to say, so that Pingree’s repeated designation of the tradition as a genethlialogical one must be considered
somewhat misleading.3
The name Tājika (or Tājaka), generally understood to mean ‘Persian’, is derived from the Persian tāzīg meaning ‘Arab’, based in its turn on the Arabic
tribal name Ṭayyiʾ. Synonyms used in Tājika works include Yavana (properly ‘Greek’, ultimately derived from Ἰά[ϝ]ονες, but used in this period of
any foreign culture from the northwest), Turuṣka (‘Turkish’), and Tārtīyika/
Tārtīyaka, possibly meaning ‘Tataric’ in the generalized sense of ‘Muslim’.
Although the area did not succumb to Muslim rule until the early fourteenth
century, Sanskrit literature as well as inscriptions provide evidence for frequent
contacts between Indians and Tājikas along the west coast of India (presentday Gujarat) in the period 700 to 1300 ce—including military engagements,
1 Pingree 1981a: 97–100; 1997: 79–90. There are also entries for individual Tājika authors in the
five published volumes of Pingree’s Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit (cess, 1970–94),
corrections to a few of which are found in Gansten 2017.
2 Weber 1853: 236–287.
3 Pingree 1981a: 97; 1997: 79 f., 85 (‘one of the most common systems of genethlialogy in use in
the sub-continent’), 87. It is not clear how many systems of genethlialogy Pingree considered
to exist in India.
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but predominantly trade connections.4 The Indians most actively engaged in
such exchanges would have been Jains, who dominated the areas of finance
and coinage in the region, as well as members of Hindu mercantile or Baniyā
communities. The Jains in particular often became, by extension, intermediaries between Perso-Arabic and Sanskritic traditions of knowledge.5
The fluidity seen in designations of ethno-linguistic groups also has a bearing on the question of the language in which the non-Indian source texts of
Tājika were composed—a problem which Pingree, by his own admission, left
unresolved.6 The question was at least partially answered some years after his
demise by the identification of Sahl ibn Bishr (former half of the ninth century) as one of the most important sources of Tājika doctrine.7 Ethnically a
Persian Jew, Sahl wrote in Arabic, as did the Persian ʿUmar ibn al-Farrukhān
aṭ-Ṭabarī (fl. 762 to after 812) and the ‘philosopher of the Arabs’, Yaʿqūb ibn
Isḥāq al-Kindī (d. after 862)—both of whom were later identified as probable contributing sources, alongside Sahl, for the Tājika work Praśnatantra.8
Although the latter is customarily attributed to the sixteenth-century Brahman
author Nīlakaṇṭha Daivajña of Varanasi,9 closer examination of the extant text
and of its early seventeenth-century commentary by Viśvanātha Daivajña has
shown it to be little more than a collage (possibly but not necessarily put together by Nīlakaṇṭha), the central part of which was apparently a much earlier
Sanskrit epitome of Arabic writings by the authors just named. The name of
4
5
6
7
8
See Pingree 1981b.
See Plofker 2010.
See Pingree 1997: 79 f.
See Gansten and Wikander 2011.
An anonymous reviewer of the present article expressed surprise at the idea of an Indian author reading and translating directly from Arabic, something the reviewer felt would indicate
an ‘unusually capable polyglot’ because normally ‘Arabic texts make their way to the Sanskrit
scientists via Persian or even via conversational renderings in Urdu’. Setting aside the question of how apt the designation ‘Urdu’ might be in the historical context discussed here,
there seems to me little reason to suppose that a presumed native speaker of an Apabhraṃśa
such as Old Gujarati would require markedly greater linguistic skills to master Arabic than
Persian. It is also a historical fact that Arabic was the predominant language of Muslim
scholarship during the period under consideration. Persian did indeed become the official language of the Delhi Sultanate and, later, the Mughal Empire, as well as a South
Asian lingua franca; but the Sanskrit authors in question were still living under the Hindu
rule of the Vāghelās. As remarked by Pingree (1997: 80), the fact of a few Sanskrit renderings
of Arabic terminology conforming to Persian pronunciation may simply indicate ‘that the
Indians learned how to read Arabic texts from speakers of Persian’.
9 The beginnings of this attribution are unknown, but it is conspicuous by its absence from
the writings of Balabhadra, who studied under Nīlakaṇṭha’s younger brother Rāma and who
quotes copiously from Nīlakaṇṭha’s Saṃjñātantra and Varṣatantra in his 1649 Hāyanaratna;
cf. section 5 below. It was, however, accepted by Pingree (1970–94 A3: 180, 1981a: 113).
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the epitomist—mentioned by Viśvanātha in passing, as a matter of common
knowledge—was Samarasiṃha.10
The dependence of Tājika doctrine on these ninth-century Arabic-language
writers gives us an approximate terminus post quem for the beginning of the
Indian tradition. A provisional terminus ante quem is indicated by the estimated dates of the two earliest preserved Sanskrit works in the field. The
Trailokyaprakāśa of the Jain scholar Hemaprabhasūri is claimed on uncertain
grounds to have been authored around 1248, which could make it the very
first; but the oldest dated manuscript of this text was copied more than two
centuries later.11 Of the author himself nothing definite is known except that
his guru, named several times in the text, was one Devendrasūri. The suffix
sūri in this context probably indicates leadership of a lineage (gaccha) within
the Śvetāmbara sect; the benedictory invocation being addressed to the Jina
Pārśvanātha could possibly suggest this to be the now defunct Upakeśagaccha,
which was unique in tracing its origin to Pārśvanātha.12
The other potentially earliest preserved work on Tājika—dated by Pingree
to any time between 1060 and 1365, with a possible date of 1274 based on a
report of a single manuscript copied in 1293—was authored by Samarasiṃha,
who traces his ancestry through the Prāgvāṭa clan (anvaya).13 This is a mixed
Jain and Hindu kinship group, known today as Porwad or Porwal and generally considered to form part of the non-Brahman Baniyā or merchant caste.
Despite the high social standing that Samarasiṃha claims for his family, it thus
appears that, contrary to the assertions of later Tājika authors, he was not a
10
11
12
13
For details, see Gansten 2014 and sections 5–6 below.
Pingree 1981a: 112, stating only that Hemaprabhasūri ‘is generally alleged’ to have written
the Trailokyaprakāśa in 1248. H. D. Velankar (1944: 165) likewise states that the work was
‘composed in Saṁ. 1305’ (≈ 1248 ce), with R. S. Sharma in his edition of the text (1946: xvi)
vaguely suggesting that Velankar’s dating was based ‘perhaps on the authority of some
manuscript’.
The Ūkeśagacchacaritra by Kakkasūri, apparently written in the fourteenth century but
extant only in a single modern manuscript discovered by John Cort in 2008 (see Cort
2008; Qvarnström 2018), relates (vv. 354–385) an incident where the Jain guru Jambunāga,
founder of a sublineage within the Upakeśagaccha, successfully matches his skills in annual prognostication (varṣaphala) against that of Brahman astrologers. I am indebted to
Olle Qvarnström and Sven Ekelin for bringing this passage to my attention.
Pingree 1997: 81, qualifying the deceptively plain statement in Pingree 1981a: 97 that
‘[t]he earliest author on tājika in Sanskrit was Samarasiṃha of the Prāgvāṭakula, who
wrote his Gaṇakabhūṣaṇa or Tājikatantrasāra or Karmaprakāśikā in Gujarāt in 1274’. We
can, however, be certain that Samarasiṃha wrote at least some works, probably including
the one discussed here, before the composition of Tejaḥsiṃha’s Daivajñālaṃkṛti, which is
securely dated to 1337 (see section 3.5 below for details).
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Brahman.14 About two generations after his presumed floruit, another Prāgvāṭa
author on Tājika, Tejaḥsiṃha, even refers to himself as ‘the son of a Śūdra’, asking that readers not disregard his work on that account.15
Regardless of whose work was earlier, Samarasiṃha appears from the later
literature to have been incomparably more influential. In fact, Samarasiṃha
may have been the bottleneck through which most if not all of later Tājika
tradition can be traced: his distinctive misreadings of Arabic source texts
are copied over and over by later authors and never challenged;16 his definitions and examples are continually cited, alluded to, and imitated; and his authority is acknowledged both explicitly and implicitly. Balabhadra, in rather
grander phrasing than I have used here, repeatedly refers to Samarasiṃha as
‘anointed to the rank of a sage (ṛṣi) among Tājika authors’17—an expression
suggesting that he regards the later tradition as an exegesis of and elaboration on Samarasiṃha’s statements, just as the religio-philosophical systems
of Mīmāṃsā and Vedānta constitute exegeses of the words of the Vedic ṛṣis.
Similarly, in a gloss at the very beginning of the Tājikanīlakaṇṭhī, Viśvanātha as
a matter of course identifies Samarasiṃha as the authority on which that work
rests, with the words: ‘Why? Because Samarasiṃha has said so.’18 On several
later points of debate, he remarks: ‘There is no agreement [on this matter], as
Samarasiṃha has said nothing [about it].’19 A careful study of Samarasiṃha
and his literary output is thus a priority in the historiography of astrology in
India. I propose in this article to make a beginning, in two stages: first, by a detailed analysis of the only work by Samarasiṃha preserved in what is believed
to be its entirety; and second, by examining fragments from and information
about other writings attributed to Samarasiṃha by later Tājika authors.
14
15
16
17
18
19
Cf. note 140. The identification of Samarasiṃha as a Brahman was mistakenly endorsed,
on the authority of Balabhadra (1649), in Gansten 2012a.
For more details on Tejaḥsiṃha, see section 3.5 below and Gansten 2017: 118–123. It has
been suggested to me that Tejaḥsiṃha’s self-designation śūdra- should properly read
kṣudra- ‘lowly’, as the Prāgvāṭa community would be better regarded as Vaiśyas than
Śūdras. Even if manuscript evidence could be found to support this conjecture, however,
it would still corroborate the non-Brahman status of the Prāgvāṭas.
See section 3.1 below.
Hāyanaratna 1.6: tājikakartṛṣu ṛṣisthānābhiṣiktena samarasiṃhena; 2.1: ṛṣisthānābhiṣikta
samarasiṃhavirodhāt; 4.2: ṛṣisthānābhiṣiktasamarasiṃhavākye. Text and section numbers of the Hāyanaratna here and below refer to my forthcoming edition.
Ad Saṃjñātantra 1.2: kutaḥ samarasiṃhenoktatvāt.
Ad Saṃjñātantra 2.55, 58–60; 3.24: saṃmatir nāsti samarasiṃhenānuktatvāt.
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The Karmaprakāśa: Scope and Outlook
The only work of Samarasiṃha’s discussed in modern scholarship—which is to
say, almost exclusively, by Pingree—is that provisionally dated to 1274, known
under at least four different titles as the Manuṣyajātaka, Karmaprakāśa (or
prakāśikā), Tājikatantrasāra or Gaṇakabhūṣaṇa. Although titles of Sanskrit
works are often fluid, we may note the unusual absence of eponyms from
this list.20 The designation in most common use seems to be Manuṣyajātaka,
although Pingree preferred Tājikatantrasāra. This text is currently available to
me in five manuscripts, three of them incomplete, and two printed editions,
of which one is little more than a reprint of the other. The editions include the
late commentary of Nārāyaṇa[bhaṭṭa] Sāmudrika, the Daivajñasaṃtoṣaṇī or
Karmaprakāśikāvṛtti,21 which is further available to me in two separate manuscripts lacking Samarasiṃha’s original text. The colophons found in several
of these text witnesses use the titles Tājikatantrasāra, Manuṣyajātaka and
Karmaprakāśa synonymously, confirming that these refer to the same work.
A close reading of the introductory and concluding sections of this work reveals several suggestive points. The text opens with the following three stanzas:
Bowing to Vāc, Gaṇapati, the foremost among the planets, that witness
of actions whose attributes are imperceptible, and my teacher, I light a
small lamp [called] Light on Actions from the Great Lamp [Illuminating]
the Tājika Teaching composed by Śrī Khindika.22
20
21
22
Comparable instances include Vāmana’s Vāmanatājika, also known as Tājikasāroddhāra
and Varṣatantra, and Keśava’s Tājikapaddhati, also known as Varṣapaddhati, Varṣaphala
paddhati, Keśavapaddhati and Tājikakeśavī, both probably dating to the fifteenth century.
The absence of a simple eponym such as *Samarasiṃhatājika for the present work may
conceivably be due to the existence of a previous composition already known under such
a title, and may in turn have contributed to the authorship of this later work falling into
partial oblivion; cf. section 6 below.
Pingree (1970–94 A3: 166b, 1981a: 97) gives the author’s floruit as ca. 1725. I am not aware of
the existence of any earlier commentary on the Karmaprakāśa.
natvā giraṃ gaṇapatiṃ grahavargamukhyaṃ
taṃ karmasākṣiṇam alakṣyaguṇaṃ guruṃ ca |
śrīkhindikoktagurutājikatantradīpāt
karmaprakāśam aṇudīpakam uddharāmi ||
This and other verses quoted below from the Karmaprakāśa refer to the 1886–87 edition
unless otherwise stated. The orthography has been tacitly normalized, and variant readings are given only when they substantially affect the meaning. For grahavargamukhyaṃ,
Pingree (1997: 80) reads gṛhakarmamukhyaṃ, which is almost certainly a corruption (possibly present in the 1866 Meraṭha edition referred to in Pingree 1981a: 97, which I have not
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Extracting the best from that ocean of astrology which is the entire
doctrine established by Śrī Garga and other sages and celebrated by Satya
and other [Brahmans], made into the Tājika doctrine by Romaka and
other ancient Yavanas, and bowing to the lotus feet of my teacher, I shall
explain that which is always astounding to embodied beings, the flavours
of food and so forth.23
Homage to that powerful something which all learned men call action
(karman) [and which] spiritual men [call] unfathomable [but] certain
and of most manifest result; homage, moreover, to those great ones who
23
seen), and translates that phrase surprisingly as ‘the foremost householder (Agni)’. The
Daivajñasaṃtoṣaṇī confirms the reading used here, glossing: grahavargamukhyaṃ
sūryaṃ natvā. Perhaps misunderstanding this, Pingree further equates ‘that witness
of acts’ with Sūrya. In reading alakṣyaguṇaṃ with guruṃ, Pingree—unlike myself—
does follow the commentator; but the identification of ‘the teacher whose qualities
cannot be qualified’ with the deity Bṛhaspati is his own. Pingree’s translation thus gives
this stanza a Vedic slant not present in the original. In the present context, it seems to me
more likely that Samarasiṃha is saluting a human teacher (possibly even a Persian; cf.
note 8) with whom he has studied Arabic astrological texts than the guru as a transcendent or metaphysical principle. A more literal translation of the last phrase would be ‘I
extract (uddhṛ) a small lamp […] from the Great Lamp’. The same verb recurs twice in the
concluding verses of the work and, like the synonymous udas of the following stanza,
emphasizes Samarasiṃha’s understanding of his role as an epitomist of Tājika tradition.
śrīgargādimunipraṇītam akhilaṃ satyādibhiḥ kīrtitaṃ
śāstraṃ tājakaśāstram ādyayavanair yad romakādyaiḥ kṛtam |
taddhorājaladher udasya paramaṃ natvā padābjaṃ guror
vakṣye bhogarasāditas tanubhṛtāṃ nityaṃ camatkārikam ||
For tājakaśāstram, MS N and the editions read jātakaśāstram (a common metathesis),
while Pingree 1997: 80 reads jātakasāram, probably a mistaken emendation of the latter variant. mss A and K2 lack the verse, and the Daivajñasaṃtoṣaṇī offers no guidance.
Pingree’s reading would give the meaning: ‘the entire doctrine […] the essence of which
is nativities and which was authored by Romaka and other ancient Yavanas’. My translation of the latter phrase again differs from that of Pingree, who interprets ādyayavanair
[…] romakādyaiḥ as ‘by the ancient Greeks (Yavanas) and Romans’. Romakādyaiḥ being
a bahuvrīhi compound, the phrase by this understanding of the two terms would in
fact give the unlikely meaning ‘by the Roman(s) and other ancient Greeks’ (cf. Gaṇeśa
Daivajña’s reworking of this stanza, note 119). Pingree further translates bhogarasāditas as
‘for the enjoyment and savoring’, but the suffix tas does not express purpose, nor is rasa
an action noun. Prediction (or ‘postdiction’) of the details of meals, including the flavours
of the dishes served, is in fact a recurring feature of both Arabic and Tājika astrological
works, though not one found in the extant text of the Karmaprakāśa; cf. the discussion in
section 4 below. The 1886–87 edition reads moga for bhoga, wrongly emended to moda in
the 1915–16 edition.
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have set down the canons in which expert astrologers behold it as clearly
as people [behold] their image in a spotless mirror!24
The first conclusion that can be drawn from this introduction is that
Karmaprakāśa or Light on Actions is the original title of Samarasiṃha’s work.
We may note, indeed, the repeated emphasis on karman in these verses, which
also serve as a maṅgalācaraṇa or benedictory invocation. In addition to his
choice of title, Samarasiṃha pays homage to an abstract ‘witness of actions’
(karmasākṣin)—a rather unusual phrase in such a context, and one that strikes
a personal note in comparison with the more standard salutations addressed
to the goddess of speech, the remover of obstacles, the planetary deities (represented here by the foremost celestial body, the sun), and the guru. The ineffable force of karman and its power to mould men’s destinies is again the
subject of the third verse. Although a belief in karman is a central tenet of
all the major Indic religions, the paramount significance accorded it here may
suggest a Jain influence on the author of the Karmaprakāśa—not surprisingly,
given the probable time and place of its composition.25 The absence of any
reference to Jain tīrthaṃkaras, however, makes it unlikely that Samarasiṃha
himself identified as a Jain.
Among the other common designations of the Karmaprakāśa, the one most
often encountered is Manuṣyajātaka or Human Nativities. Although this title
is not found in the text proper but only in its colophons, the Karmaprakāśa,
unlike most later Tājika works, does fall squarely in the jātaka or genethlialogy
genre, as we shall see below—a fact emphasized by Samarasiṃha in its closing
verses.26 In 20.8–9, just before the Karmaprakāśa ends with a brief account of
Samarasiṃha’s family tree, he offers this conclusion:
24
25
26
yat karmety abhidhīyate ’khilabudhair durbodham ādhyātmikair
atyāsannaphalaṃ dhruvaṃ balavate kasmaicid asmai namaḥ |
yad vā yadvihitāgameṣu gaṇakaśreṣṭhaiḥ sphuṭaṃ dṛśyate
rūpaṃ nirmaladarpaṇeṣv iva janais tebhyo mahadbhyo namaḥ ||
Some text witnesses read kila for ’khila-; the Daivajñasaṃtoṣaṇī appears to make allowance for both variants: akhilaiḥ budhaiḥ yat karma iti abhidhīyate kila iti niścayena.
A slightly more speculative possibility, not incompatible with that of Jain influence, is
that the ‘witness of actions whose attributes are imperceptible’ refer to the Islamic conceptions of Allāh as essentially unknowable and as the judge of all human actions on the
Last Day. A deity thus conceived may have seemed relevant to Samarasiṃha particularly
if he had studied with a Muslim teacher (cf. note 22), and we may note that the phrase
occurs in immediate proximity to guruṃ.
This circumstance lends some indirect support to the reading jātakasāram in verse 1.2 (cf.
note 23), though perhaps not enough to convince.
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Born from the oyster of my words that was nourished by a drop of the
water of meaning from the large cluster of lotus flowers that is the Great
Teaching composed by Śrī Khindika, these very pearls of the results of
men’s nativities will by their merits [or: strands] become a necklace gracing the breast of connoisseurs.27
Learned men! If you seek to know the results of nativities, like a treasure to increase your fame, that fixed and unchanging [fate] should be
understood to have been extracted from the Tājika teaching.28
Aside from the somewhat unusual imagery (giving credence to the hypothesis
that the text was composed in the vicinity of the Gulf of Kutch, long known for
its pearl fishing),29 the identification of the Karmaprakāśa as a jātaka work is
27
28
29
śrīkhindikoktagurutantramahābjavṛndād
arthodabindum upajīvya maduktiśuktyā |
jātaṃ nṛjanmaphalamauktikam etad eva
labdhā guṇaiḥ sahṛdayorasi hāralīlām ||
This stanza has been imperfectly preserved in the available text witnesses, perhaps because its intricate imagery was not fully understood. The reading tantramahābja is my
emendation: the editions and two of the mss (K1, K2) read tantram ihābja; the third
MS containing the stanza (N), tantram ihābdhi. Alternative emendations would be
tantramahābhra or tantramahābda, transforming the metaphor from ‘cluster of lotus
flowers’ to ‘mass of clouds’; cf. note 29. The mss likewise read arthoḍu for arthoda; K2
and N read yuktyā for śuktyā. K1 and K2 read vāṃtaṃ ‘ejected’ for jātaṃ ‘born’, perhaps
equally acceptable, and etad etal for etad eva; all the mss read guṇaṃ for guṇaiḥ; and
the editions read labdhvā for labdhā (the latter to be understood here as the periphrastic
future). As no commentary is available for this verse, Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa’s preferred readings
are unknown.
jijñāsatha janmaphalaṃ nidhim iva yadi kīrtivṛddhaye vibudhāḥ |
tan niyatanirvikalpaṃ tājikatantroddhṛtaṃ kalpyam ||
Here, the editions read jijñāsye for jijñāsatha; MS N reads jijñāsur atra. Kalpyam is my
emendation for the kalpam of all available witnesses.
The trope of pearls forming from drops of (rain)water trapped inside an oyster is, however, itself an established one in Indian poetry. Warder (1972–2011 V: 202, 692) instances
two stanzas, taken from the Jain author Śīlāṅka and from Acalasiṃha, respectively (the
latter translation modified):
vastūpāśrayasaundaryād apūrvaguṇam āpnuyāt |
svacchaṃ mauktikatām eti śuktimadhyagataṃ jalam ||
‘Extraordinary qualities may be obtained from the beauty of recourse to a subject; pure
water becomes a pearl when inside an oyster.’ (This stanza in turn recalls Kālidāsa’s
Mālavikāgnimitra 1.6, which speaks explicitly of water from a cloud; I am indebted to
Andrew Ollett for this observation.)
janaḥ puṇyair yāyāj jaladhijalabhāvaṃ jalamucaṃ
tathāvasthaṃ cainaṃ vidadhati śubhaiḥ śuktivadane |
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particularly noteworthy because, as noted above, Tājika has for many centuries been chiefly associated not with jātaka but rather with annual prognostication (varṣaphala, which is derived from and subordinate to the nativity)
and interrogations (praśna). Indeed, Balabhadra quotes a stanza, attributed to
Samarasiṃha himself, that explicitly contrasts Tājika with jātaka:
In general, [true] understanding does not shine forth for men in [considering] the results of genethlialogy (jātaka), which are applied to long
times. Therefore, the annual results proclaimed by Tājika are elucidated
here.30
A pastiche of this stanza also occurs in what has, since the seventeenth century,
been the most popular Tājika textbook of all: the Tājikanīlakaṇṭhī completed
by Nīlakaṇṭha Daivajña in 1587.31 This work illustrates what has just been said:
the former of its two volumes (Saṃjñātantra) deals with basic principles and
terminology, the latter (Varṣatantra) with annual prognostication. As already
noted, a third volume spuriously attributed to Nīlakaṇṭha, the Praśnatantra, is
wholly dedicated to interrogations, but there is no volume on natal horoscopy.32
We shall return below to the stanza just quoted and to the possible significance
of Samarasiṃha’s repeated emphasis on nativities in the closing verses of the
Karmaprakāśa.
Of the two remaining alternative titles of this work, Tājikatantrasāra or The
Essence of Tājika Teachings seems to reflect Samarasiṃha’s claim of having
extracted the choicest part of the writings of his Tājika predecessors (1.1–2),
while Gaṇakabhūṣaṇa or The Astrologer’s Ornament may possibly allude to the
image of the pearl necklace (20.8). These two passages—enclosing, as it were,
30
31
32
tatas tāṃ śreyobhiḥ pariṇatim asau vindati yayā
ruciṃ tanvan pīnastanihṛdi tavāyaṃ vilasati ||
‘A person through merits may become water in the ocean; in this state he is transformed
through good deeds into a cloud; then in the mouth of an oyster he finds through better
ones that maturity through which, [as a pearl necklace] spreading lustre, he sports here
on your heart which has full breasts.’
Quoted in Hāyanaratna 1.2. See quotation ‘a’, p. 121 below, for the Sanskrit text.
Varṣatantra 1.1; cf. quotation ‘b’, p. 121 below. References to the Tājikanīlakaṇṭhī
(Saṃjñātantra and Varṣatantra), as well as the received text of the Praśnatantra, follow
the Jośī (2008) edition. The term pastiche is used here and below not in a pejorative sense,
but to signify an imitation comprising both content and style (by verbatim borrowing
and/or use of closely synonymous phraseology).
For the textual history and antecedents of the Praśnatantra, already touched upon above,
see Gansten 2014 and sections 5–6 below.
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Samarasiṃha’s work between them—are also significant in that they reiterate the fact of the dependence of the Karmaprakāśa on one particular source:
the Gurutājikatantradīpa or Great Lamp [Illuminating] the Tājika Teaching
(or, in the shorter version of the name, the Gurutantra or Great Teaching) of
Khindika. Neither this work nor its author has been clearly identified; and
while Samarasiṃha, writing in Sanskrit, gives it a Sanskrit title, we do not know
with certainty in what language the text itself was written. Pingree believed
it to have been a work translated from Arabic or Persian into Sanskrit some
decades before Samarasiṃha composed his digest of it and claimed, unfortunately without giving details, that quotations from the [Guru]tājikatantradīpa
occur in later Tājika texts.33 On the other hand, Balabhadra—admittedly some
four centuries after the presumed date of the Karmaprakāśa—was unaware
of any earlier Sanskrit sources and believed Samarasiṃha to have translated a
Tājika work directly from ‘the Persian language’ (which he seems not to distinguish from Arabic) into Sanskrit.34
The possible identity of Khindi[ka] (the suffix appears to have been added
here for purely metrical reasons) or Khindhi, who is mentioned as an authority by several later Tājika authors, has been discussed elsewhere. Briefly, pace
Pingree, there seems to be no reason to believe this name to be derived from
a Persian or Arabic (al)-Hindī, and in fact the linguistic evidence of the preserved corpus of Sanskritized Tājika terminology militates against the supposed sound change h > kh and rather supports Albrecht Weber’s original
33
34
Pingree 1997: 81 (omitting Guru from the title). In my relatively extensive researches
into Tājika literature, I have not so far come across any quotations attributed to the
Gurutājikatantradīpa, Tājikatantradīpa, or Gurutantra. References to, if not quotations
from, ‘Khindika’ do occur; but a simple point that nevertheless deserves to be made here
is that Tājika writings, like many branches of Sanskrit literature, are often pseudepigraphic. Such references need therefore no more be genuine than those to supposedly ancient,
but in fact wholly fictitious, authorities such as Hillāja (cf. Gansten 2012a and note 134
below).
Hāyanaratna 1.2; for the full quotation, see note 140 below. Unlike Samarasiṃha,
Balabhadra, whose patron was Shāh Shujāʿ, lived and worked in the Persian-speaking mi
lieu of the Mughal court. Although his writings make use of more than two dozen technical Tājika terms derived from Arabic, he never mentions that language by name but rather
refers explicitly to all Tājika terminology as ‘Persian’, instancing the word ikkavāla (Arabic
iqbāl). Minkowski (2014: 117) similarly speaks of Tājika as ‘Persianate astrology in Sanskrit,
including “exotic” Persian technical terms for features not found in siddhāntic astrology’.
Persian does, of course, contain many Arabic loanwords, but only two Tājika technical
terms known to me are of actual Persian origin (those, too, transmitted via Arabic sources): hillāja and khattakhutta, both of which were soon mistaken for personal names (cf.
note 134).
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identification, not mentioned by Pingree, of Khindi with the Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq
al-Kindī mentioned above.35
In addition to ‘Khindika’, Samarasiṃha in his opening stanzas refers to three
authorities by name, two Indian and one Yavana. The former are the ancient
and semi-mythical Garga and Satya, presumably mentioned separately as representating the categories of sages (muni) and ordinary (Brahman) authors,
respectively.36 Romaka or ‘the Roman’, likewise considered ancient (ādya),
may—if accepted as a historical person—refer either to a Hellenistic author
whose works were preserved in Arabic or to a Byzantine author.37 The tendency towards hybridization that has been noted in later Tājika authors is thus
present to some extent even in the Karmaprakāśa.38 Nevertheless, a close examination of the Karmaprakāśa reveals that Pingree’s view of Tājika as essentially Indian astrology, with Perso-Arabic elements added to it, is incorrect.39
The actual situation, as we shall see below, is the reverse: Perso-Arabic material
comprises the bulk both of the Karmaprakāśa and of the Indian tradition of
Tājika generally, while indigenous astrological sources and concepts are employed only sparingly.
3
Sources, Structure and Content
Despite Samarasiṃha’s repeated statements about his primary source, all
sections of the Karmaprakāśa that I have so far been able to trace are in fact
derived from authors other than ‘Khindika’. The importance for the Tājika
tradition of Sahl ibn Bishr, whose name to my knowledge is never mentioned
35
36
37
38
39
See Gansten 2012a for the full argument. For Pingree’s views, see Pingree 1970–94
A2: 80a; 1981a: 97; and 1997: 80, where the certainty of the earlier statements has been
softened with a ‘probably’. For Weber’s views, see Weber 1853: 249. Pingree’s belief that
‘Khindika’ had composed a work in Sanskrit naturally rests on his identification of this
author as an otherwise unknown ‘Indian’ (al-Hindī) rather than as the Arab al-Kindī.
For Garga and Satya, see Pingree 1978 and 1981 passim.
The self-identification of the Byzantines as Romans (ῥωμαῖοι) was carried over into Arabic
as arrūm. The Byzantine astrologer of greatest importance for the Arabic tradition was
Theophilus the Philosopher (695–785), known in Arabic as Thūfīl ibn Thūmā, from
Edessa in present-day Turkey (near Ḥarrān, known for its enduring tradition of Greek
science and philosophy, Hermeticism and astral religion). See Pingree 2001: 13–20; Dykes
and Gramaglia 2017.
For hybrids of classical (pre-Islamic) Indian and Tājika astrology, cf. Gansten 2014.
Pingree 1997: 81, also echoed by Minkowski (2004: 330), who states that Tājika is ‘a
Persianized version of Indian astrology […] Sanskritic Jyotiṣ [sic] astrology with some
distinctive, imported features’.
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by any Sanskrit author, has been demonstrated before; as we shall see, Sahl
is also one of the sources of the Karmaprakāśa. To account for the apparent
Tājika misattributions of Sahl’s works, I have previously hypothesized the existence of a medieval compendium of astrological texts containing excerpts
from Sahl, al-Kindī, and possibly other Arabic-language authors, and mistakenly credited to al-Kindī alone.40 A variation on this scenario would be
a compendium actually compiled by al-Kindī from earlier sources, including Sahl. Such a compendium could be the text referred to by Samarasiṃha
as the Gurutantra or Gurutājikatantradīpa, which would explain his apparently contradictory identification of his sources both as this one particular
work by ‘Khindika’ and as the entire ‘ocean of astrology’ authored by ‘ancient
Yavanas’. If this hypothesis is correct, the Guru of the title (somewhat unusual, though not unprecedented, in the sense ‘great’) likely translates alkabīr,
commonly occurring in titles of Arabic astrological works.41
The Karmaprakāśa consists of twenty chapters comprising nearly 400
stanzas in a profusion of metres, the number of stanzas in a chapter varying
from 6 to 54.42 The structure of the text appears to be a truncated version of a
pattern common to many Arabic-language textbooks, being loosely based on
the twelve astrological places or houses. It should be noted in this regard that
while the topics of such textbooks are often demarcated according to the significations of the twelve places, the sequential arrangement of those places is
occasionally adjusted so as to group related topics together (for example, social
eminence and wealth), or to make chronological sense in the context of a life
reading (for example, by considering marriage before children, or by deferring
the consideration of death to the end).
The text is thus divisible into five main sections. Chapters 1–4 deal with introductory matters and definitions; chapters 5–13 concern various aspects of
the body, its health and life, relating to the first house of the horoscope (but
including material on illness and death, which might more properly have been
assigned to the sixth and eighth houses, respectively); chapters 14–16 discuss
matters of livelihood, wealth and poverty, relating to the second house (but
including material on occupation and status that might have been assigned to
the tenth); and chapters 17 and 18 concern siblings and parents, relating to the
third and fourth house, respectively. Finally, and somewhat abruptly, chapters
40
41
42
Gansten 2012a.
See Sezgin 1979 passim.
Although the metres used are chiefly syllabic, including śloka, pañcacāmara, upajāti,
śālinī, svāgatā, mālabhāriṇī, jaladharamālā, toṭaka, drutavilambita, puṣpitāgrā,
praharṣiṇī, vasantatilakā, mālinī, mandākrāntā, śikhariṇī, śārdūlavikrīḍita and sragdharā,
a limited number of stanzas in varieties of the moraic āryā metre are also present.
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19 and 20 contain a discussion of female nativities and ‘miscellaneous’. There
are no chapters relating to the topics of the remaining horoscopic places, including marriage (the seventh house), children (fifth), travels and religion
(ninth), friends (eleventh) and enemies (twelfth). A closer examination of
each of the five sections of the Karmaprakāśa will be helpful in determining
the sources employed by Samarasiṃha. For the sake of convenience, I shall use
the printed editions (identically numbered) to refer to chapters and verses, although their readings will sometimes be corrected on the basis of manuscript
evidence.
3.1
Introductory Matters (Chapters 1–4)
From the order in which it is arranged, chapter 1—Rāśyadhikāra ‘On the zodiacal signs’43—appears to be based largely on Sahl ibn Bishr’s popular introduction to astrology,44 although it is a highly condensed rendering. Indeed, as
will be discussed further below, the introductory material found in the first
four chapters of the Karmaprakāśa may be twice abridged. Among the distinguishing Graeco-Arabic doctrines related, particular mention may be made
of the imperfectly transmitted characterizations of the signs as hot, cold,
moist and dry (1.8); the via combusta (1.9); the system of five zodiacal dignities
(pañcavargī), complete with a model of point values (1.11–23); the so-called
blind degrees (1.25–28); and the four kinds of planetary rejoicing (1.30). The
zodiacal melothesia immediately following the maṅgalācaraṇa (1.4), not from
Sahl’s Introduction, is too brief for its source to be identified.
The discussion of the five dignities, which in the Arabic sources are invariably domicile, exaltation, triplicity, term and decan (or ‘face’), appears
to derive from a source that also included the use of the Indian navāṃśa or
ninth-part. This zodiacal division—presumably introduced into the Arabic
astrological synthesis through the Persian tradition rather than directly from
Indian astrologers, given the designation nawbahra (from Middle Persian *nō
bahr) used in Arabic45—is found, for instance, in the writings of al-Kindī and
Abū Maʿshar (787–886), but not in Sahl. The Karmaprakāśa (1.11) has replaced
decans (generally known in Indian astrology as dṛkāṇa or dreṣkāṇa, with
variants) with the navāṃśa in its list of dignities; but in 1.20 the dṛkāṇa is
43
44
45
Chapter titles vary slightly between text witnesses; I have used those of the printed
editions.
Sahl’s work is known under several Arabic titles, including K. alaḥkām ʿalā nniṣba al
falakīya: see Ullmann 1972: 309ff.; Sezgin 1979: 125 ff. I shall refer to it below simply as the
Introduction; references to particular passages will follow the forthcoming translation by
Dykes.
See Panaino 1993: 427.
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nevertheless introduced and briefly explained. The passage 1.20–23 displays
the beginnings of the confusion surrounding triplicities, decans and navāṃśas
that characterizes later Tājika literature, and includes two slightly different rulership schemes for the triplicities.46
Chapter 2, Grahādhikāra ‘On the planets’, seems partly to depend on Indian
sources, with mention of the four Hindu social classes (varṇa) and the three
humours (doṣa) of Āyurveda (2.1–5, 9). These verses are arranged topically;
but in 2.6–8 they are complemented by descriptions clearly of Perso-Arabic
origin, arranged by planet in the so-called Chaldean order from Saturn to the
moon, rather than the order employed in classical Indian texts (based on the
days of the week), and again including the fourfold qualities of hot, cold, moist
and dry—alien to Āyurveda but used in Graeco-Arabic (Yūnānī) medicine.
Although the brevity and generic nature of the passage make identification
of the source text difficult, Sahl’s Introduction can be ruled out. The latter
part of the chapter, dealing with planetary aspects, does appear to be a mix
of material from Sahl’s work (2.10–14) and another, as yet unidentified Arabic
source (2.15–16).47
Chapter 3, Ṣoḍaśayogādhikāra ‘On the sixteen configurations’, is the earliest
extant description in Sanskrit of this important Tājika doctrine, derived from
Sahl, and largely agrees with the later versions of it discussed at length elsewhere.48 Although a detailed comparison may bring to light other features of
interest, the most important point to note here is that the list of configurations
in the Karmaprakāśa, like later Tājika sources, includes the spurious tambīra
yoga (from Ar. ṭabīʿa)49 in the fourteenth place and ends with duraḥpha (Ar.
46
47
48
49
For a detailed discussion of this topic, see Gansten 2018.
For a comprehensive discussion of Tājika aspect doctrine, particularly as found in
Samarasiṃha, and its antecedents, see Gansten 2018.
Gansten and Wikander 2011. Two minor terminological differences may deserve mention.
First, mutthaśila (Ar. muttaṣil), which in later Tājika tradition is used synonymously with
itthaśāla (Ar. ittiṣāl) to refer to any applying aspect—that is, one approaching completion—is reserved by Karmaprakāśa 3.4 for such an aspect when partile (occurring within one degree). Second, while supporting the later Tājika reinterpretation of kambūla
(Ar. qabūl) as an applying aspect involving the moon and two other planets (3.9), the
Karmaprakāśa also (9.17; 20.3) employs the form makabūla (Ar. maqbūl) from the same
root, in what may or may not be the original sense of ‘reception’—that is, of one planet
applying to another while occupying the latter’s sign of domicile or other zodiacal dignity.
The Sanskritized forms of this and other Arabic-derived terms vary even within the
Karmaprakāśa, often for metrical reasons. Tambīrayoga arose as a ‘creative misunderstanding’ from the mistaken splitting of Sahl’s single phrase dufʿa ttadbīr wa
ṭṭabīʿa ‘committing disposition and nature’; for the full argument, see Gansten and
Wikander 2011: 533 ff.
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ḍuʿf ‘weakness’),50 thus excluding Sahl’s sixteenth heading aḥwāl alqamar
‘conditions of the moon’. On the one hand, the presence of this distinctive error strongly suggests that later Tājika accounts of the ṣoḍaśayogas all
ultimately depend on Samarasiṃha. On the other hand, the Karmaprakāśa
omits the illustrative examples of certain configurations or conditions which
are found both in Sahl’s ninth-century original and in Tājika works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. One such example—the only one, to my
present knowledge, of which Samarasiṃha’s version is preserved—has been
discussed in some detail elsewhere;51 another may be adduced here by way of
illustration:52
Sahl
An example of that is a question about the Sultan: and the Ascendant was
Libra, and Venus (who was the lord of the Ascendant and the indicator for
the one asking) was in 10° of Aries, and the Moon (who was the lord of the
Midheaven and the indicator for the Sultan) in 12° of Taurus, so they were
not looking at each other; and Jupiter was in 15° of Cancer, in the angle of
the Midheaven, and the Moon and Venus connecting with him. So Jupiter was
collecting their light in the angle, in the place of the sought thing: it indicated
victory based on the assistance of a sage or man entering between them: they
will come to terms through him.53
50
51
52
53
The term is given as durapha in Karmaprakāśa 3.2, duraḥpha or durāpha in 3.16.
See Gansten and Wikander 2011: 536 f., Gansten 2014: 104 ff. This example, dealing
with naql or naktayoga, is found in Sahl’s Introduction 3,25–27; Praśnatantra 4.58–60
(Samarasiṃha’s version); Saṃjñātantra 2.26–27 (Nīlakaṇṭha’s version); and Gaṇeśa’s
Tājikabhūṣaṇa 4.12. The latter two sources are roughly contemporaneous, and an influence either way is unlikely. While the Tājikayogasudhānidhi of Yādavasūri (for whom see
Gansten 2017: 125–128) may be somewhat later, it gives no sign of being influenced by
either Gaṇeśa or Nīlakaṇṭha. As noted in Gansten 2014 (n. 16), this work offers a slightly
different example of naktayoga (6.15, quoted in Hāyanaratna 3.5), though still involving
the same topic of marriage and the same three planets. A subsequent examination of mss
of the Tājikayogasudhānidhi reveals, however, that Sahl’s original version is in fact added
briefly as a variant in the next verse (6.16). The major differences between Sahl’s version
and those of the Tājika writers concern the degrees of longitude assigned to the planets
involved and the sign occupied by the moon. The reason for this appears to be that
Samarasiṃha simplified his examples by excluding such data, leaving later authors the
options of doing the same (Gaṇeśa’s choice) or of inventing their own degree and sign
positions (Nīlakaṇṭha’s and Yādavasūri’s choice).
This example was omitted, presumably by oversight, from the edition and translation of
Sahl’s text in Stegemann 1942, as well as from the translation in Dykes 2008 (though it is
present in the Latin text; see Zahel 123v). As a consequence, Gansten and Wikander (2011:
537), briefly alluding to it, mistakenly state that it does not derive from Sahl.
Introduction 3,29–30, translation taken from Dykes (forthcoming), slightly modified.
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Nīlakaṇṭha
Gaṇeśa
Yādavasūri
If Venus, ruling the Libra
ascendant in a question
on attaining kingship, is in
Aries with sixteen degrees,
and the moon, ruler of
[the place of] kingship, is
in Taurus with six degrees,
there is no aspect between
them. But [if] Jupiter,
slow[er than both and]
placed in Cancer with ten
degrees, aspecting both
within its orb, gave the
light of the faster moon
to Venus, one should
consider and predict that
[the querent] will attain
his position through a
counsellor.a
Venus, ruling the
Libra ascendant in [a
question on] attaining
kingship, was in Aries;
the moon, ruler of [the
place of] kingship, was
in Taurus: there was no
aspect between them.
Jupiter, slow[er than
both and] placed in
the middle, aspecting
[them] within its orb
and taking the light
from the faster moon,
gave it to Venus: before
long [the querent] attains a lofty position by
the agreement of a good
counsellor.b
The ascendant was Libra;
Venus was placed in Aries
with twenty [degrees],
and the moon in Taurus
with four: there was no
aspect between them.
Jupiter in Cancer at
twelve [degrees], taking
the light from the moon,
gave it [to Venus]: [the
querent] attains royal
authority through a
counsellor.c
a Saṃjñātantra 2.29–30:
rājyāptipṛcchātulalagnanātho meṣe sitas tv aṣṭilavair vṛṣasthaḥ |
candro rasāṃśair yadi rājyanātho dṛṣṭis tayor nāsti gurus tu mandaḥ ||
digaṃśakaiḥ karkagatas tu paśyann ubhau maho dīptalavaiḥ sa cāndram |
dadau sitāyeti padasya lābho ’mātyena bhāvīti vimṛśya vācyam ||
b Tājikabhūṣaṇa 4.14:
rājyaprāptitulāvilagnapabhṛgur meṣe vṛṣe candramā
rājyeśas tv anayor na dṛṣṭir amarācāryo ’ntarasthaḥ sthiraḥ |
paśyan dīptadṛśā carāmṛtakarāt tejaḥ pragṛhyārpayac
chukrāyorupadopalabdhir acirāt sanmantriṇo ’ṅgīkṛteḥ ||
c Tājikayogasudhānidhi 6.18:
lagnaṃ tulā bhṛgusuto ’jagato ’bhrapakṣaiś
candro vṛṣe tu nigamair anayor na dṛṣṭiḥ |
karke gurū ravimito himagor gṛhītvā
tejo ’dadāc ca sacivena nṛpāspadāptiḥ ||
The three Sanskrit versions are strikingly similar; but while there can be no
doubt that the Mughal-era authors all ultimately depend for their example on
Sahl, there are sufficient differences between the Arabic and Sanskrit versions
to assume that the latter derive from a common, intermediate version rather
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than directly from the Introduction.54 For Samarasiṃha to constitute this crucial link between Sahl and the later Tājika tradition, we have to posit another,
perhaps fuller work authored by him, containing both the erroneous division
of the yogas and the examples lacking from the Karmaprakāśa. We shall return
to this scenario below.
Chapter 4, Dvātriṃśatsahamādhikāra ‘On the thirty-two sahamas’, is a list
of so-called lots (Ar. sahm, translating κλῆρος), derived by measuring the longitudinal distance between two predefined points in a horoscope (typically
two planets) and projecting it from a third point (typically the ascendant degree). The lots constitute a method of assigning concrete meanings to different
areas of the zodiac, and may have begun as an alternative to the twelve-house
system;55 as the number of lots increased during the medieval period, their
significations often grew more specific. The exact list of lots given in this chapter is not, to my present knowledge, found in any single Arabic author, a circumstance strengthening the hypothesis that Samarasiṃha’s source text was a
compendium of astrological works. The great majority of the lots listed in the
Karmaprakāśa are, however, found in several Arabic-language sources of the
eighth and ninth centuries—either in wholly identical form or slightly corrupt
or simplified (for instance by omitting variants, including but not limited to
variations between a diurnal and a nocturnal formula), but still clearly recognizable. The Arabic authors whose lists of lots display the closest parallels to
the Karmaprakāśa are Abū Maʿshar and ʿImrān ibn Aḥmad.56
54
55
56
One such difference is the mistaken notion, common to all three Tājika authors, that the
slowest-moving planet in the jāmiʿa/yamayā configuration should occupy an intermedi
ate degree with regard to the other two planets involved (within their respective zodiacal signs). This mistake may have arisen either from an analogy with the fastest-moving
planet in the previous configuration (naql/nakta) or from an over-literal reading of Sahl’s
description of the outcome (‘a sage or man entering between them’ [my emphasis]). As
seen from Sahl’s original, both the faster-moving planets in a jāmiʿa must in fact occupy
earlier degrees in order to form applying aspects (approaching the ideal angular distance)
with the planet ‘collecting their light’.
See the discussion in Brennan 2017: 511–534.
This ʿImrān, who may or may not be identical with ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-ʿImrānī (d. 955), is
the otherwise unknown author of a K. fīhi aḥkām majmūʿa min kutub alḥukamāʾ (Book of
Judgements According to a Selection of Books by the Wise). References below to lots in this
work (henceforth, ʿImrān) and to Abū Maʿshar’s K. alMudkhal [alkabīr] ilā ʿilm aḥkām
annujūm (Mudkhal) are based on manuscript sources. In the case of ʿImrān, whose lots
are given in tabulated form, references are to page, column and row; for Mudkhal, the
last figure refers to the number of the lot listed, rather than to the line or paragraph.
Additional references will be made to Abū Maʿshar’s own abridged version, Mukhtaṣar
almudkhal or K. alMudkhal aṣṣaghīr (Mukhtaṣar).
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Even disregarding slight variations between the initial list (4.1) and the subsequent delineation of formulae (4.2–6), the lots in the Karmaprakāśa appear
somewhat disarranged, though not so much so as to obscure the underlying
structure entirely:
1. Fortune
5. Renown
9. Mother
13. Death
17. Enemies
21. Forbearance
25. Friends
29. Strength
2. Knowledge
6. Wealth
10. Brothers
14. Journeys
18. Sons
22. Dignity
26. Marriage
30. Body
3. Love
7. Bondage
11. Expansion
15. Desire
19. Daughters
23. Life
27. Learning
31. Business
4. Valour
8. Father
12. Wife
16. King
20. Work
24. Illness
28. Faith
32. Work of the hands
Items 1–5 and 7 constitute the so-called planetary lots, of which I have translated the Sanskrit names of the first and most important one (puṇya, sukṛta)
rather freely as ‘fortune’ to agree with its well-known designation in other
languages (κλῆρος τῆς τύχης, sahm assaʿāda, pars fortunae); the sense of the
Sanskrit is undoubtedly that of merit accumulated in previous lifetimes,
manifesting as good fortune in the present. This lot appears from the earliest times to have been associated with the moon. The following one, correspondingly identified with the sun, is known in Greek as κλῆρος τοῦ δαίμονος,
rendered in Arabic as sahm alghayb—probably in the sense of ‘the unseen’,
understood in its turn by the Indian translator as ‘[spiritual] knowledge’. From
these two lots were derived two others, those of love and necessity, forming a
tetrad found in several Hellenistic and early Arabic sources.57 The latter pair, of
which only the lot of love is found in the Karmaprakāśa, was eventually associated with Venus and Mercury, respectively, and alternative formulae for them
57
See, e.g., Carm. astr. fragment ii E 3; Vett. Val. ii 16, iv 11; Lib. Arist. iii xii 1–2. (Carm.
astr. is preserved in an interpolated Arabic translation via Middle Persian in addition to
fragments of the original Greek; an improved English translation was recently published
as Dykes 2017. The Arabic original of Lib. Arist. was probably authored by Māshāʾallāh
ibn Atharī, d. ca. 815; an English translation from the Latin is found in Dykes 2009.)
Additionally, the group of four lots is mentioned in Macr. Sat. I 19,17 (transl. Kaster 2011:
267 ff.): ‘The Egyptians also use the caduceus’ significance to explain people’s horoscope
(“genesis” it’s called), saying that four gods attend a human being as it’s born, Deity
[Daimôn], Chance [Tykhê], Love [Erôs], and Necessity [Anangkê] […]’ For a detailed study
of these lots, see Greenbaum 2016: 279–388. Burnett and Pingree (Lib. Arist. loc. cit.) note
that Sahl associates these four lots, along with a fifth of friendship (different from the one
in the Karmaprakāśa), with the Persian astrologer known as al-Andarzaghar.
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were devised that involved these two planets. Similar formulae were then devised for the remaining planets, producing the lots here called valour (Mars),
bondage (Saturn), and—with some variation—renown (Jupiter).58 The presence of the original calculation of the lot of love indicates a fairly early source
for at least some of the lots in the Karmaprakāśa.
Next follows a series of lots which may be assumed originally to have been
arranged in order of the horoscopic houses to which their significations may
be said to correspond (a common schema): wealth relates to the second house,
brothers to the third, father and mother to the fourth; the lot of ‘expansion’
(vibhūti) is properly that of offspring (sahm alwuld, seemingly misunderstood: the Arabic root wld ‘bring forth’ overlaps to some extent in meaning
with Sanskrit vi√bhū), belonging to the fifth house; wife and desire relate to
the seventh house,59 death to the eighth, journeys to the ninth, the king (or,
perhaps more relevant in a nativity, kingship)60 to the tenth, and enemies to
the twelfth. While the ‘planetary’ lots are often assigned to the first house, the
sixth and eleventh houses are not represented in this list.
The remaining lots—including those of illness (sixth house) and friends
(eleventh house)—appear to have been added more or less haphazardly to
this list, perhaps from several sources. The lots of sons, daughters, work, life,
and marriage are again standard lots found in several Arabic-language sources.
The lot of business appears to be a mere variant on that of work, while the
lot of illness is surely a corrupt version of the lot of the destroying planet
58
59
60
These alternative and additional formulae are found in Paul of Alexandria, who claims to
cite them from the lost work Panaretus; see Paul. Al. 23 (transl. Greenbaum 2001: 41–44;
Holden 2012: 41–46). Although they are not, to my present knowledge, found in the Tājika
tradition, Nīlakaṇṭha (Saṃjñātantra 3.7) states—unlike the Karmaprakāśa, and possibly as a result of misunderstanding—that the lot of love, which he calls that of friends
(mitra), should be projected from Venus rather than from the ascendant. The Jupiter lot
was originally derived from the lot of the daimon or sahm alghayb and commonly called
the lot of victory (κλῆρος τῆς νίκης, sahm aẓẓafar), but the Karmaprakāśa derives it from
the lot of fortune and calls the result ‘renown’ (yaśas). Some Arabic sources do in fact
include this second variety in addition to the first—notably Abū Maʿshar (Mudkhal viii
6,77), who calls it the lot of success (sahm annujḥ).
The lot called ‘wife’ in this list and ‘others’ wives’ (anyadāra) by Nīlakaṇṭha (Saṃjñātantra
3.16), taken from Saturn to Venus, is known in Arabic as sahm attazwīj [arrijāl] ‘the lot
of marriage [for men]’. Although the lot here called ‘desire’ (āśā), taken from Venus to
Saturn, is commonly known in Arabic sources as the lot of marriage for women (sahm at
tazwīj annisāʾ), Lib. Arist. iii vii 1,6 gives it the more sexualized designation pars incestus
et fornicationis. The source of the Karmaprakāśa may have shared this tradition.
This lot is commonly known in Arabic sources as sahm ashsharaf ‘the lot of nobility’.
Nīlakaṇṭha (Saṃjñātantra 3.22, 10) calls it gurutā ‘dignity’, using the synonym gaurava for
the lot called gurutā (no. 22) in the Karmaprakāśa.
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(κλῆρος αναιρέτου, sahm alkawkab alqattāl).61 The lot of forbearance is given
in other Tājika sources as a double lot—that of quarrel and that of forbearance or forgiveness—which seems to confirm its identity with the Arabic lot
of disputes and opponents (sahm alkhuṣūmāt walmukhāṣimīn).62 The lot of
learning is less common: it is found only in the works of Abū Maʿshar (and
possibly, in corrupt form, in that of ʿImrān).63 The same authors give a ‘lot of
authority and of what the native does’, immediately followed by a ‘lot of manual workers and trades’.64 These two lots seem to have been conflated in the
Karmaprakāśa, where the name of the last lot corresponds to the latter, but
the formula used to the former. It thus seems likely that Samarasiṃha’s source
text depended on one of these authors (the more well-known of which was
certainly Abū Maʿshar) for at least part of its list of lots. The remaining five lots
of the Karmaprakāśa—those of dignity, faith, friends, strength, and body (the
last three of which share their formula with the lot of renown)—have no parallels in any Arabic source known to me.65
Of these 32 lots, all but two are present in what has become the most
widespread list of Tājika sahamas, compiled some three centuries later by
Nīlakaṇṭha and comprising 50 items.66 The two Karmaprakāśa lots absent
from Nīlakaṇṭha’s list are what may be called duplicates, sharing a formula for
calculation with one or more other lots of different name and signification;
of Nīlakaṇṭha’s remaining 20 lots, four are likewise duplicates. But what most
concerns us here is the fact that Balabhadra, relaying Nīlakaṇṭha’s list in his
Hāyanaratna, quotes Samarasiṃha on the formulae of two lots that are absent
61
62
63
64
65
66
This lot is properly taken from the ruler of the ascendant to the moon by day, the reverse
by night, whereas the Karmaprakāśa counts from the moon to the ascendant itself, day
and night. See Rhet. v 77 (ccag viii 4: 199; an English translation is available as Holden
2009a); Mudkhal viii 6,51; Mukhtaṣar 6,37.
See Mudkhal viii 6,49; Saṃjñātantra 3.13.
See Mudkhal viii 6,59; ʿImrān 184 A 8. This lot, taken from Saturn to Jupiter by day and
reversed at night, is unusual in that it is projected from Mercury rather than from the
ascendant.
For the former lot ( sahm assulṭān waayy ʿamal yaʿmalu almawlūd), see Mudkhal viii
6,69; Mukhtaṣar 6,49; ʿImrā n 183 B 11; for the latter (sahm alʿummāl biyadayhim wa
ttijārāt), Mudkhal viii 6,70; ʿImrān 183 B 12.
The lot of dignity (gurutā) is taken by day from the moon to Jupiter and projected from
the sun; by night, from the sun to Jupiter and projected from the moon. The lot of faith
(śraddhā), also called that of mental impressions (vāsanā), is taken from Venus to Mars,
apparently both day and night. The planets involved suggest that the lot may originally
have been associated with marital fidelity rather than religious faith; I am indebted to
Konrad Klawikowski, MA, for this observation.
Saṃjñātantra 3.5–24 (though differing from the Karmaprakāśa in 4 cases out of 30 on
whether or not a given formula should be reversed in a nocturnal nativity).
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from the Karmaprakāśa.67 Other such lots, not mentioned by Balabhadra, may
of course exist. In the light of this finding, it seems advisable to treat with some
caution Pingree’s assumption that the seeming ‘growth in the number of lots
indicates that new Arab/Persian sources were constantly being tapped by the
Indian tājikīs [sic]’.68
3.2
Body, Health and Life (Chapters 5–13)
Following this introductory section, chapter 5, Niṣekādhikāra ‘On impregnation’, sets out the doctrine generally known in western literature as the trutine
of Hermes,69 positing an astrological correlation between the times of conception and birth—the ascendant degree in one being the ecliptical longitude of
the moon in the other, and vice versa. This in turn makes it possible to adjust
an approximate ascendant and its concomitant time of birth. The average duration of a normal pregnancy is assumed to be 273 days or exactly ten sidereal
months, with a maximum deviation of a fortnight either way.70 The antecedents of this doctrine, ascribed by Hellenistic writers to Petosiris, are quite
67
68
69
70
The two quotations, found in Hāyanaratna 4.3, concern the lots of ability (sāmarthya)
and of affliction (saṃtāpa), numbering 8 and 34, respectively, in Nīlakaṇṭha’s list. The
partial stanzas are both in āryā metre:
sāmarthyasahamam ahni ca lagnapater bhūsutaṃ niśi vilomam |
[…] saṃtāpa |
sahamam aharniśam indor mandāntaṃ ṣaṣṭhataḥ pātaḥ ||
That these stanzas do not belong to a variant text of the Karmaprakāśa but to a different
work by Samarasiṃha is strongly suggested by a third partial quotation in the same section of the Hāyanaratna, dealing with a lot that does occur in the Karmaprakāśa. This is
the lot of wealth, a definition of which (also in āryā metre) is quoted by Balabhadra:
[…] arthasahamaṃ dvitīyādhipāt |
dvitīyaṃ ca dinarātram […]
The corresponding definition in Karmaprakāśa 4.2, while identical in content, is in
śārdūlavikrīḍita metre and very differently phrased:
[…] dhanaṃ sveśād dhanāntaṃ sadā ||
Pingree 1997: 89. The superficially regular derivation *tājikin is not attested in any sources
but was invented by Pingree. Like many Sanskrit vṛddhi-derivatives (e.g., jaina, bauddha,
sāṃkhya), the noun tājika is consistently used of both doctrine and practitioner, the distinction to be determined by grammatical gender and, above all, context.
Latin trutina (from τρυτάνη) ‘balance, pair of scales’. In the research literature the trutine
is sometimes referred to as the ‘rule of Petosiris’.
In this context, ‘conception’ does not, of course, refer to fertilization of the ovum (conception in the modern medical sense), but rather to the time of seminal ejection. It is the
interval between this moment and birth that is estimated at an average of 273 days, or
39 weeks.
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ancient: the average value of 273⅓ days for the gestational period is known
from Babylonian astrological sources.71
The distinctive form in which the calculations are presented in the
Karmaprakāśa, including the conversion of twelve-degree segments into
twenty-four half-degrees to facilitate the reckoning of hours in a nychthemeron, is almost certainly derived from Abū Bakr al-Ḥasan ibn al-Khaṣīb’s late
ninth-century Kitāb almawālīd, thus providing us with our second identifiable Arabic source text. In the absence of an Arabic edition of the K. almawālīd,
I have based my comments here and below on its early thirteenth-century Latin
translation De nativitatibus.72 While a careful comparison between the extant
manuscripts of the Arabic text and those of the Karmaprakāśa might bring further details to light, such an exercise is beyond the scope of the present article;
and as the instances below will show, the Sanskrit and Latin texts are generally
so similar as to leave their common origin in little doubt.
Verse 5.7 appears to be a somewhat garbled version of the related doctrine
known in Arabic as annamūdār (from the Persian; generally Latinized as
animodar), too brief for the immediate source to be identified.73 Chapters 6
and 7—Ariṣṭādhikāra ‘On fatality’ and Ariṣṭabhaṅgādhikāra ‘On cancellation
of fatality’ (alternatively called Jīvananirṇayādhikāra ‘On the determination of
life’)—are also closely based on Abū Bakr, with some of the material arranged
slightly differently than in the Latin version.74 These chapters describe the
division of nativities into four categories: those who are born dead or die
immediately after birth; those who die in childhood; those who die young; and
those who attain a full span of life—each with its own astrological criteria. This
discussion is followed by material on the specific kinds and times of childhood
illnesses according to the decans of the zodiacal signs, on the examination of
the moon’s position on certain days following birth, and on the nativities of
children abandoned by their parents. The Karmaprakāśa section on decans
(6.16–23) is garbled and disorganized; interestingly, the same is true of the Latin
versions of Abū Bakr’s work, suggesting corruptions occurring very early in the
71
72
73
74
The opinion of Petosiris is reported in Antiochus 21, on which all surviving sources are
based; see Porph. Isag. 38 (ccag V 4: 210; an English translation is found in Holden 2009b)
and Heph. ii 1,2; iii 10,5. For the Babylonian material, see Rochberg 1998: 73–76; for a full
treatment of the ancient doctrine, Frommhold 2004: 70–172; for the figures of Nechepso(s)
and Petosiris, Heilen 2015: 539–562 and Brennan 2017: 72–77.
Albubather, 1501 edition (translation dating to ca. 1218). The section relevant for the
trutine of Hermes is chapter 3; an English rendering of the Latin is found in Dykes 2010:
91–93.
The Persian meaning of namūdār is ‘proof, model’. For the origin of the animodar doctrine, see Ptol. Tetr. iii 3.
See Albubather 9–10; Dykes 2010: 113–124.
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manuscript tradition, prior to the east-west diffusion.75 Chapter 7 invokes the
authority of a certain ‘Durvītthasa’; as confirmed by De nativitatibus, the name
refers to Dorotheus of Sidon.76
The brief chapter 8, Śarīrādhikāra ‘On the body’, details the physical characteristics of a native on the basis of the ruler of the (ascending?) decan. While
the descriptions of the seven planets (largely a reiteration of 2.6–8) are too
general for their source to be positively identified, the material is not based on
the works of Sahl or Abū Bakr already discussed. The text (8.1) states that it is
taken from ‘Yavana’ or possibly ‘the Yavanas’; the order in which the planets are
presented, from Saturn to the moon, confirms an extra-Indian origin.
Chapter 9, Āyurdāyādhikāra ‘On the length of life’, is a faithful if condensed
rendering of Abū Bakr’s version of longevity procedures based on the ἀφέτης
or, to use the term most common in western literature since medieval times,
the hyleg.77 These are similar to but not identical with procedures presented by
other medieval Arabic-language authors, all largely resting on Persian astrological tradition and constituting varying syntheses of the doctrines of Ptolemy,
Dorotheus and Vettius Valens.78 As in Abū Bakr, while the selection of the
chief significator of life or hillāja (Ar. hīlāj, from Persian hīlāg),79 is explained
in some detail in the Karmaprakāśa, there is no mathematical elucidation on
calculating its directed motion (ἄφεσις) to the killing points. This is presumably why the technical Arabic term for such motion—tasyīr, met with in some
later Tājika texts as tāsīra—is not found in the Karmaprakāśa. We do, however,
find the important term khattakhutta (via Ar. kadkhudāh from Middle Persian,
translating οἰκοδεσπότης), designating the planet having authority over the
hillāja and determining the approximate years of life allotted to the native.80
75
76
77
78
79
80
See Albubather 9; Dykes 2010: 122 f. Karmaprakāśa 6.23 explicitly notes that the results
for Virgo and Pisces have been omitted in their entirety (noktāni kanyājhaṣayoḥ phalāni),
which is true of the Latin editions as well.
Albubather 12 (6r): Dixit Dorochius. Later Tājika sources—including a passage from
Nīlakaṇṭha’s jyotiṣa section of the Ṭoḍarānanda (1572), quoted by Balabhadra in
Hāyanaratna 1.2; cf. note 134 below—mention an otherwise unknown authority called
Durmukha (‘Ugly-faced’ or ‘Foul-mouthed’); this unflattering epithet could possibly represent a corruption of the foreign name, perhaps through scribal attempts at correction.
Albubather 12–13; Dykes 2010: 125–134.
For a discussion of the ἀφέτης doctrine, see Gansten 2012b. The relevant ancient sources
are Ptol. Tetr. iii 11, Vett. Val. iii 3, and Carm. astr. iii.
The Middle Persian form is hīlāg, Arabized as hīlāj—not, as consistently assumed by
Pingree (1976: 235–245; 1981a: 83, 97 f.; 1997: 83, 90; etc.), haylāj: as noted by Kunitzsch
(1977: 49), medieval European transcriptions (hylech, alhileg, etc.), like the Sanskrit, all
reflect a pronunciation with ī rather than ay.
Alkadkhudāh was commonly rendered in medieval Latin as alcochoden, with many
variants.
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The list of greater, middle and lesser years given by the seven planets when
they fulfil this office (9.20) deviates slightly from the standard figures according to all available text witnesses; but the figure of 39½ for the middle years of
the sun and moon does agree with Abū Bakr’s text.81
Chapter 10, Daśānayanādhikāra ‘On the calculation of periods’, begins (10.1–
3) as a summary of the next section of the Kitāb almawālīd, on the directed
motion of the ascendant through the terms (hadda, from Ar. ḥadd) and the
aspects of the planets.82 These verses include Abū Bakr’s example of the ascendant being directed through the terms of Mercury, once using the technical
designation kisimā (from Ar. qisma ‘division’) for such a period, but otherwise
the generic Sanskrit word daśā. For the rest of the chapter, however, the daśās
described are not based on directions (tasyīr, ἄφεσις), but rather on the socalled fardārāt, a mathematically far less demanding system probably of medieval Persian origin.83 No variant of the word fardār occurs in the Sanskrit text,
nor is there any indication that the transition from one prognostic method to
the other is at all intentional; the impression given is rather that of a misunderstanding. The fardārāt are not described by Abū Bakr, so that the passage
discussing them must have been excerpted from some other, as yet unidentified Perso-Arabic source.84 The order in which the results of each planet’s period are described is the classical Indian one (following the days of the week),
81
82
83
84
The middle years of a planet are typically half the sum of its greater and lesser years
(which in the case of the sun are 120 and 19, respectively, and for the moon, 108 and 25),
but Abū Bakr uses a different formula for the sun and moon, adding half the greater years
to the lesser and then dividing the sum by two. Abū Maʿshar’s Mudkhal (ii 8) and the
Latin translation of his Mukhtaṣar (iii 6, Burnett et al. 1994: 80 ff.) agree with the resulting figure of 39½ years for both the luminaries, while Kūshyār ibn Labbān’s tenth-century
K. almudkhal fī ṣināʿat aḥkām annujūm (iii 6, Yano 1997: 178 f.) accepts it for the sun but
keeps the standard figure 66½ for the moon. The Karmaprakāśa further assigns Jupiter
43½ years like Saturn, rather than the standard 45½, and rounds the 40½ years of Mars
to 40.
Albubather 14; Dykes 2010: 135–138. For the terms in Tājika tradition, see Gansten 2018.
The fardārāt or firdārāt, with variants, are planetary periods of fixed lengths forming
cycles of varying magnitudes, the least of which—totalling 75 years—is used for nativities,
while greater cycles are applied to world events (mundane astrology). Both the etymology and the origin of the technique itself are unclear; see Kunitzsch 1979: 48 f. (justifiably
characterizing the common derivation of the word from περίοδος—still upheld in Pingree
1997: 74, albeit with a softening ‘apparently’—as ‘pure conjecture’). Cf. also Burnett and
al-Hamdi 1991/92, especially 299–302 on the transmission from Persian to early Arabic
sources.
The planetary periods for a daytime nativity are given in a non-standard order (the north
and south nodes of the moon intervening between Mercury and the moon itself); but
thus far I have been unable to find a corresponding deviation in any Arabic source. It
seems most likely to be an error originating with Samarasiṃha.
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suggesting that this passage was reworked by Samarasiṃha rather than taken
directly from a source text. We may further note the use of the technical term
dalīla (Ar. dalīl) in the sense of ‘signification’ or ‘significator’, introduced here
(10.8) and occurring frequently in following chapters.
Chapter 11, Nidhanādhikāra ‘On the end [of life]’, makes a return to the topic
of the hillāja and discusses how to establish the precise time of death using
Indian calendric parameters, though still without explaning the mathematical procedures properly underlying the method of direction. It also describes
how to predict the cause of death, or of a brush with death (apamṛtyu)—‘by
illness or by iron’—from the planet afflicting the hillāja. While this method
appears to be derived from Ptolemy, the intermediary Perso-Arabic source is as
yet unidentified.85 The text attributes the doctrine simply to ‘Yavana’; like the
similarly attributed chapter 8 above, it is also very short—with its six verses in
fact the shortest chapter of the Karmaprakāśa.
By contrast, chapter 12, Doṣādhikāra ‘On defects’, is the longest chapter of
the work, and is clearly based on Abū Bakr’s extensive list of astrological correlatives for various illnesses.86 Despite its length, the Karmaprakāśa chapter is
only a partial summary of the material in the K. almawālīd, but the sequence
of the material is largely the same, dealing in order with illnesses of the eyes,
ears and tongue (including speech defects); hunchbacks; leprosy and other
skin ailments; madness and idiocy; epilepsy and sharp pains (śūla, possibly a
misunderstanding: the Latin version has paralysis); ailments of the heart, belly
and spleen; bilious disease; impotence, genital deformity, sexual misconduct
and excessive lust; hemorrhoids and boils; dwarfishness; baldness; bad breath;
bodily weakness; broken limbs; injuries to hands and legs; and general methods
for determining the parts of the body vulnerable to illness as well as the time of
its onset. Particular note may be made of the concept of ‘black bile’ (kṛṣṇapitta,
12.30), not found in pre-Islamic Indian medicine.
The first few verses of chapter 13, Prakṛtyadhikāra ‘On [the native’s] nature’,
bring us back to the topic of directions through the terms begun in chapter
10. Based on the same section of Abū Bakr’s work, they clearly demonstrate
Samarasiṃha’s lack of understanding of the mechanics of direction (tasyīr).
Abū Bakr’s example nativity has 1° Gemini (expressed in ordinal numbers
as the ‘second degree’) on the ascendant, with 5° of the terms of Mercury
therefore yet to rise; he converts these 5° of ecliptical longitude into 4°40′
85
86
Cf. Ptol. Tetr. iv 9. For an overview of astrological prognostication of the length of life in
classical antiquity, see Heilen 2015: 984–1021.
Albubather 53–89; Dykes 2010: 234–259.
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of oblique ascension, which he equates with four years and eight months.87
Samarasiṃha’s version has no ascensional degrees but simply puts the longitude of the ascendant at 4°40′ Gemini and equates this with four years and
eight months elapsed (not remaining) of Mercury’s period.
The remainder of the chapter is based on the immediately following section of the K. almawālīd, treating the moral character of the native.88 Some
parts of this section found in the available Latin editions of De nativitatibus
are missing in the Karmaprakāśa; interestingly, most of these are also absent
from a manuscript of De nativitatibus dated 1458–59 (now in the Biblioteka
Jagiellońska, Krakow), referenced by Dykes.89 As it stands, the Karmaprakāśa
(13.5–26) lists, in order, planetary configurations for courage, cowardice, irascibility, forbearance, shamelessness, bashfulness, eloquence, compassion,
deceit and mendacity; further, for becoming a jester or entertainer, robber,
thief, adulterer or adulteress, or a faithful husband; and finally, for generosity
and greed.
3.3
Livelihood, Wealth and Poverty (Chapters 14–16)
The Karmaprakāśa’s main source of material on psycho-physical constitution,
life and health is thus Abū Bakr, just as the main source of its introductory matters is Sahl ibn Bishr. The sources of the next section are less clear-cut. Chapters
14 and 15 both cover matters of wealth and occupation, the latter in greater
detail, but still with some overlap, as reflected in the similar headings: chapter 14 is labelled Upajīvikādhikāra ‘On subsistence’ or Karmapratyayādhikāra
‘On the understanding of work’; chapter 15, Ājīvikādhikāra ‘On livelihood’ or
Hastakarmādhikāra ‘On the work of the hands’. The latter is in fact based on
Abū Bakr, setting out methods for determining the general nature of a native’s
work and his level of professional success as well as particular configurations
for a variety of occupations: vendors of musk and perfumes, dyes, fruit and
87
88
89
The Latin edition actually has 4 degrees 4 minutes, using Arabic numerals; but as noted
by Dykes 2010: 136 (n. 639), the correct figure has to be 4°40′ to agree with the conversion
into 4 years and 8 months. Karmaprakāśa 13.2 confirms both the number of degrees and
minutes and the corresponding measure of time:
[…] haddabhāgā vedā yutāḥ khaśrutibhiḥ kalābhiḥ |
tatsaṃkhyakābdāni sahāṣṭamāsaiś catvāri […]
Assuming a tropical zodiac, the figure 4°40′ would be correct for a geographical latitude
around 28° N, such as southern Iran (Abū Bakr was a Persian), whereas 4°04′ would
require a latitude around 45° N.
Albubather 15–52; Dykes 2010: 139–163.
MS BJ 793 iii; see Dykes 2010: xx. The chapters not found in this Latin MS are numbered
24–30 in Albubather (1501); the material omitted from the Karmaprakāśa corresponds to
chapters 23–31.
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bark; farmers; merchants in various types of coarse or fine cloth including silk,
wool and camel hair, or in lentils and grains such as barley, wheat, sesame and
rice; those who deal in leather goods or in camels, donkeys, cows, horses, goats
and other quadrupeds; sellers of, or workers in, pearls and gold; and craftsmen or labourers such as weavers, makers of woollen goods, carpenters and
metalworkers, shoemakers, dyers, diggers, sailors, makers of tools and weapons, entertainers, physicians, hunters, fishermen and fowlers—all variously
subdivided.90
For Chapters 14 and 16 (the latter entitled Dāridryādhikāra ‘On poverty’)
I have thus far been unable to find any clear parallel texts, though the content
as such is fairly detailed and conforms to standard patterns of medieval PersoArabic astrological discourse—prominently featuring term and triplicity rulers, sect factors, syzygies, orientality and occidentality, and the lots of fortune
and wealth. Given the underlying textual confusion suggested by the available
Latin versions, the question of whether these chapters are based on authentic sections of Abū Bakr’s text, subsequently lost in the western transmission,
must, for the present, remain open.
The opening stanza of chapter 14 as given by the available text witnesses is,
in its former half, almost certainly corrupt:
Wealth is the foundation here [in the world]: prior to that is the work
undertaken. To elucidate that, he explained an opinion. There is a description (varṇanā). If the moon, coming out from under the sun, [forms]
a muthaśila with the ruler of the terms of the previous last phase (tithi),
that [ruler] indicates the work.91
However, Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa’s commentary implies a somewhat different reading. Text witnesses of the Daivajñasaṃtoṣaṇī (14.1) give two variant paraphrases, one fuller, the other seemingly abridged or incomplete:
90
91
Albubather 90–128; Dykes 2010: 294–324.
Karmaprakāśa 14.1 (found in mss K1, K2 and N, besides the editions):
artho hi mūlam iha tasya purāttakarma
tadvyaktaye matam abhāṣata varṇanāsti |
candro gatāntatithihaddabhujā dineśān
nirgatya cen muthaśilaḥ sa hi karmadarśī ||
The ‘previous last phase’ is the full or new moon (the last tithi of the bright or dark half of
the month, respectively) most nearly preceding the nativity; a muthaśila is an applying
aspect.
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Here, indeed, wealth is the foundation of a man. The cause of that wealth
is the work previously undertaken, [that is], acquired. To elucidate, that
is, clarify that, the preceptor Varṇana stated [his] opinion.92
Property is the foundation of a man. To elucidate that, he stated the opinion of the preceptor Varṇana.93
This meaning, which implies the reading varṇanasya for varṇanāsti—understanding Varṇana as a proper name—seems preferable to that of the received
text. Even with this emendation, however, the half-stanza does give the impression of being rather awkwardly based on a non-Sanskrit original.
No author with a name approximating Varṇana is known from either Indian
or Arabic sources, although the name could conceivably be a corruption of
an Arabicized form of ‘Hermes’.94 The doctrine of the moon’s first application
following the prenatal syzygy indicating the native’s work is found in several
sources, though without mention of the ruler of the terms.95 In any case, the
phrase ‘he explained’, used not only by the commentator but in the text itself,
was most likely taken over directly from an Arabic original: Indian astrological
works very rarely attribute doctrines to particular authors (with the exception
of deities or semi-divine sages).
3.4
Siblings and Parents (Chapters 17–18)
The next two chapters relate to one astrological place each: chapter 17 is
named Sahajādhikāra ‘On siblings’ (belonging to the third place) and chapter 18, Pitrorariṣṭādhikāra ‘On the fatality of the parents’, although it does in
fact treat the matter of parents (belonging to the fourth place) somewhat
more broadly. Both chapters are, once more, based on Abū Bakr.96 Apart
from consistently reinterpreting Abū Bakr’s use of triplicities as referring to
92
93
94
95
96
MS B: iha puruṣasya artha eva mūlam | tasya arthasya purātta[ṃ] arjitaṃ karma nimittaṃ
tadvyaktaye nāma prakaṭaye varṇanācāryaḥ mataṃ abhāṣata | Omitting the dubious
visarga would give the meaning ‘[…] he stated the opinion of the preceptor Varṇana’.
Śrīdhara Jaṭāśaṅkara Śarman 1886–87, 1915–16: puruṣamūlaṃ dravyaṃ tadvyaktaye
varṇanācāryamatam abhāṣata. MS W largely agrees: puruṣasya mūlaṃ dravyaṃ tadvyak
tase drarṇanācāryamatam abhāṣata. Above the initial character of the penultimate word,
but probably intended as a correction of the preceding character, is a superscript yeḥ.
A conjecture perhaps indirectly supported by the variation in the name found in MS W
(cf. the previous note), which could suggest Varṇana to be a pseudo-etymologization
(making use of the Sanskrit root varṇ ‘depict, describe, proclaim’). For the varying Arabic
and other Semitic representations of the name Hermes, see van Bladel 2009: 26.
Cf. Rhet. V 82 (ccag viii 4: 207 f.); Albohali 33; Lib. Arist. iii x 3.
Albubather 149–152 and 153–162, respectively; Dykes 2010: 196–222.
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the navāṃśa, chapter 17 is of interest chiefly for including a reference that is
also present in the Krakow manuscript of De nativitatibus but omitted from
the printed edition.97 The last verse of the chapter refers to an otherwise
unknown authority by the name Kuttha- or Kucchasena, called Albucate in
Salio’s translation.98
In chapter 18 we encounter the first instances of the word musallaha or
muśallaha, derived from the Arabic muthallatha ‘triangle, triplicity’; 18.7 uses
musallaha and navāṃśa in parallel, confirming that they are to be understood as synonyms. The same stanza includes two unusual expressions (va
jraha, saravilagna) for which I cannot provide satisfactory etymologies but
which are taken by Nārāyaṇabhaṭṭa to refer to dvādaśāṃśas or twelfth-parts
(δωδεκατημόρια)—an ancient zodiacal division, though not among those enumerated in the opening chapter of the Karmaprakāśa.99 Although the stanza
appears to draw together a number of separate indications discussed by Abū
Bakr in the chapters relating to parents, these do include, in the Latin translation, the twelfth-parts (duodenaria).
While this tendency to summarize and abbreviate sometimes obscures
the relation of the Sanskrit text to its sources, parts of chapter 18 may derive from material preserved in the Krakow manuscript but absent from the
Latin edition. The chapter ends with a verse summarizing in the form of a
universal rule what in Abū Bakr’s text is a particular anecdote about the astrologer Abū l-ʿAnbas aṣ-Ṣaimarī (Latinized as Alanbes) meant to illustrate
97
98
99
Dykes (2010: 201) hesitatingly paraphrases the Biblioteka Jagiellońska MS as saying that
‘the brothers will do the bad works of kings?’. Karmaprakāśa 17.12 states that the native’s
brothers will be nṛpakṣepakāḥ ‘overthrowers (or, possibly, revilers) of kings’.
K1 and K2 give kuchasenaḥ; N and the editions, kutthasenaḥ. (Kuccha- or kuttha- is required by the metre; ch for th is a common error in manuscripts.) The Sanskritized and
Latinized versions could possibly refer to different parts of the Arabic name, Albu rendering abū and indicating a hyionymic (similar to Albubather for Abū Bakr, or Albumasar
for Abū Maʿshar) and ‘Kutthasena’ being a Sanskrit rendering of the personal name (ism).
But the similarity between kuttha and cate suggests another possible, if more speculative,
scenario involving a double textual corruption: in Arabic, ibn for abū, transforming the
hyionymic into a patronymic; and in Sanskrit, sena (‘army’, a common last component
in princely Sanskrit names) for sūnu ‘son’, translating that patronymic. The exact name
that would correspond to kuttha or cate in such a scenario is uncertain; elsewhere in the
Karmaprakāśa (3.2, 13, 16), kuttha is used to render Ar. quwwa (f.) ‘strength’.
For vajraha, K2 and N read vajjasa and vajjaha, respectively. For the roles of the musal
laha/navāṃśa, dvādaśāṃśa and other zodiacal subdivisions in Samarasiṃha and later
Tājika tradition, see Gansten 2018.
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the broader principle of using directions or tasyīr to find the parents’ time of
death,100 though neither Abū l-ʿAnbas nor directions are mentioned in the
Sanskrit text.
3.5
Female Nativities and ‘Miscellaneous’ (Chapters 19–20)
At this point in the Karmaprakāśa, the connection to Abū Bakr’s K. almawālīd
breaks off, and the last two chapters do not relate to particular horoscopic
houses. Instead, chapter 19 is entitled Strījātakādhikāra ‘On female nativities’.
Although this is a more common topic in classical Indian astrological works
(where it is often assigned separate chapters) than in Greek or Perso-Arabic
ones, the Karmaprakāśa explicitly relies on non-Indian, as yet unidentified
sources.101 Verse 19.1 states that while the principles outlined for men with
regard to length of life and similar topics apply equally to the nativities of
women, Yavana or the Yavanas have laid down five topics peculiar to women:
the husband’s position and affection for his wife, children, virtue, and happiness. The remaining stanzas confirm by repeated use of lots and triplicity rulers that Samarasiṃha’s immediate source is an Arabic one.
Despite its name, chapter 20, Miśraprakīrṇādhikāra ‘On diverse and miscellaneous matters’, is in fact largely homogenous. Up to the last four verses,
which eulogize the work itself (20.8–9) and outline Samarasiṃha’s paternal
ancestry (20.10–11), it presents a succinct classification of nativities into four
groups with respect to wealth and social standing: those who are fortunate
or unfortunate, respectively, throughout life, and those who go from misfortune to fortune or vice versa. According to the text (20.7), this basic model of
stratification was included to resolve the confusion of methods presented by
previous authors in connection with occupations. The earliest Arabic work in
which it is found is ʿUmar ibn al-Farrukhān aṭ-Ṭabarī’s (d. ca. 815) own Kitāb
almawālīd—likewise preserved in Latin translation under the generic title De
nativitatibus—which thus becomes our last identifiable Arabic source text.102
100
101
102
Albubather 161 (misprinted as 191); Dykes 2010: 215–216. The Latinized word used for
‘direction’ is athazir (from Ar. attasyīr).
For ‘female nativities’ (strījātaka) in early Indian astrology, see Pingree 1978: I 27–37; for
examples from classical texts, cf. Varāhamihira’s Bṛhajjātaka 24; Kalyāṇavarman’s Sārāvalī
46; Vaidyanātha’s Jātakapārijāta 16; etc. Sezgin (1979: 145) mentions a single Arabic work
of possible relevance to this topic, though I have not seen it: Abū Maʿshar’s K. mawālīd
arrijāl wannisāʾ (Book on the Nativities of Men and Women).
For the relevant passage in Latin translation, see Omar iii 1; for an English rendering of
the Latin, Dykes 2010: 47 f. ʿUmar himself attributes his fourfold stratification to ‘the philosopher’ in a hitherto unidentified Book of Allegories; as noted by Dykes (loc. cit. n. 224),
it bears a certain resemblance to the model of the so-called Liber Aristotilis.
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Samarasiṃha’s account of his family lineage—from the royal minister
Caṇḍasiṃha through Śobhanadeva and Sāmanta to Kumārasiṃha—is remarkable chiefly for omitting both his own name (at least in full) and his date.
As noted above, Samarasiṃha is dated by Pingree to any time between 1060
and 1365, an estimate based on his great-great-grandfather serving a king of the
Caulukya dynasty. This argument clearly rests on the reading caulukyakṣitipāla
at Karmaprakāśa 20.10, which is almost certainly correct, although the printed
editions and two of three manuscripts available to me give the variant reading trailokyakṣitipāla ‘king of the three worlds’—tritely grandiose but worthless from the point of view of historical information.103 Tejaḥsiṃha, whose
precise relationship (if any) to Samarasiṃha is unknown but who belonged
to the same Prāgvāṭa community, likewise claimed a family connection with
the Caulukyas in a ministerial capacity.104 As Tejaḥsiṃha is not only known to
have written a commentary on a work by Samarasiṃha, but also borrows from
the latter in his Daivajñālaṃkṛti, authored in 1337, we can safely assume that
Samarasiṃha wrote no later than the early fourteenth century, and very possibly earlier.105 The 1274 date suggested for the Karmaprakāśa by one of Pingree’s
sources is thus quite plausible.
Although Samarasiṃha’s name is not explicitly given in the Karmaprakāśa,
the very last verse (20.11) does contain a punning allusion to it, referring to the
author as Smara, the god of love, extracting the perfume from the pericarp of
the lotus flower of Tājika for the pleasure of astrologer bees.106 While there is
103
104
105
106
The reading caulukyakṣitipāla is supported by MS N, trailokyakṣitipāla by K1 and K2.
The remaining mss (or the parts of them available to me) do not contain the stanza in
question.
For Tejaḥsiṃha, see Gansten 2017: 118–123, correcting the information provided by Pingree
(1970–94 A3: 89; 1981a: 99; 1997: 82).
Tejaḥsiṃha’s role as commentator on Samarasiṃha, not mentioned in any of
Pingree’s publications, is referred to in passing by Balabhadra (Hāyanaratna 5.1: āha
samarasiṃhaḥ […] taṭṭīkākṛt tejaḥsiṃho ’pi). For an instance of Tejaḥsiṃha borrowing from Samarasiṃha, see the comment on quotation ‘b’, p. 121 below. It also seems
pertinent to note that Daivajñālaṃkṛti is synonymous with Gaṇakabhūṣaṇa (one of the
alternative titles of the Karmaprakāśa), both meaning The Astrologer’s Ornament.
Karmaprakāśa 20.11cd:
tatsūnunā gaṇakabhṛṅgamude smareṇa
gandho ’bhyudadhriyata tājikapadmakośāt ||
Traditional imagery of Smara or Kāma includes both flowers and bees, forming the arrows
and string, respectively, of the deity’s bow. Tājikapadmakośa is also the name of a nontheoretical work predicting the outcomes of the placements of the planets in the twelve
horoscopic houses in an annual revolution figure, authored by the Brahman Govardhana,
probably in the sixteenth century; very possibly the choice of title reflects the author’s
acquaintance with the Karmaprakāśa.
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no doubt that his actual name was Samarasiṃha (‘a lion in battle’), the difference in pronunciation between this and Smarasiṃha (‘a lion in love[making]’)
would have been minimal, and the latter variant is occasionally met with in
Tājika literature.107
4
An Incomplete Text?
Although Samarasiṃha is unambiguous in naming the Gurutājikatantradīpa
or Gurutantra (Great Teaching) by ‘Khindika’ as his source, we can thus discern
at least five actual main sources for the Karmaprakāśa: Sahl ibn Bishr (chapters 1 and 3); Abū Maʿshar or, less likely, ʿImrān ibn Aḥmad (chapter 4); Abū
Bakr (chapters 5–7, 9–10, 12–13, 15 and 17–18); ʿUmar aṭ-Ṭabarī (chapter 20);
and one or more Arabic authors so far unidentified (chapters 8, 11, 14, 16 and
19). In addition, occasional verses in several chapters have unknown Arabic
sources, and chapter 2 depends largely on Indian material, also unidentified.
The combination of several Arabic source texts supports the hypothesis that
the Great Teaching was an Arabic compendium of astrology compiled by or
attributed to al-Kindī. All identified authors whose dates are known belong
to the ninth century, indicating that such a compendium may have been created not much later. Chapters 8, 11 and 19, all based on unidentified Arabic
material, invoke the authority of ‘Yavana’, and while the Sanskrit word was by
this time used indiscriminately to refer to any western foreigner—including
Persians and Arabs—the possibility that it is employed here in the original
sense of ‘Greek’, perhaps to render the Arabic yūnān with the same origin and
meaning, is certainly worth considering, particularly as one of these chapters
describes a distinctively Ptolemaic doctrine not discussed by most medieval
Arabic sources.108
As already noted, the list of topics covered by the Karmaprakāśa appears
to be incomplete. The order of the material based on Abū Bakr largely agrees
with the Latin edition of De nativitatibus, swelling the section relating to the
107
108
Such readings are secure for metrical reasons. The Tājikamuktāvali (v. 41) of Tuka Jyotirvid
(fl. 1549–50) and its probable autocommentary Tājikamuktāvaliṭippaṇī (3.39), both quoted by Balabhadra without distinction (Hāyanaratna 7.2, 2.3), use the form smarasiṃha.
(For these works and their author, not discussed by Pingree, see Gansten 2017: 123–125.)
For Arabic translations and reception of the works of Ptolemy, see Sezgin 1979: 41–48.
A commentary on Ptol. Tetr., no longer extant, is attributed to ʿUmar aṭ-Ṭabarī, who,
as already seen, is one of the likely sources of the Karmaprakāśa. It would thus be
quite possible for Ptolemaic ideas to have found their way into a compendium used by
Samarasiṃha.
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first horoscopic house with discussions of illnesses and occupations—otherwise belonging to the sixth and tenth houses, respectively—immediately prior
to the section on wealth (second house).109 These sections are followed in
the Karmaprakāśa by chapters on the third and fourth houses, as seen above;
but the remaining six houses are conspicuously absent. The chapters in De
nativitatibus corresponding to those houses cover the topics of children, marriage and sexual relations, circumstances of death, journeys, friends, and enemies, none of which is discussed in the Karmaprakāśa.110 That Samarasiṃha
should have considered such topics—several of which have been mainstays
of astrological consultations since antiquity—of insufficient interest to merit
inclusion in his text is almost inconceivable, and we are thus left with two
alternatives: either Samarasiṃha lacked access to material (from Abū Bakr or
any other Arabic-language source) dealing with the house topics in question,
or else the version of the Karmaprakāśa that has come down to us is incomplete, with a number of chapters missing between what are now chapters 18
and 19. For such a loss of text to leave no trace in the form of variant readings
in the extant witnesses, it would have had to occur very early in the transmission history.
At present we have no way of determining with certainty which is the more
likely alternative; but we may note a further omission, which could indicate
that the text we have is not the complete Karmaprakāśa. As described above,
Samarasiṃha states in the opening verses of the work that he will explain astounding things, including ‘[the prediction of] the flavours of food’. Discussions
on food or meals—with headings like bhojyavicāra or bhojanacintā—are
common in later Tājika texts, though they typically occur in the context either
of interrogations or of day-to-day predictions within an annual prognosis.111
These sections are always found near the end of the respective works; the
same is true of the treatment of meals in Sahl’s Kitāb fi lmasāʾil walaḥkām,
on which the Tājika material is partly based.112 If the Karmaprakāśa did originally contain a section on food, it very possibly followed the same pattern
109
110
111
112
This agreement between the Karmaprakāśa and De nativitatibus demonstrates that the
sequential arrangement of topics dates back to an Arabic source common to both eastern
and western transmissions, and possibly to Abū Bakr himself. While retaining this arrangement, the Latin edition carries separate headings for the sixth and tenth places—
chiefly, it seems, for the sake of formal completeness, as very little material is actually
included u nder these headings.
The circumstances of death are briefly touched upon, as noted above, but not in relation
to the eighth place of the horoscope, and the material does not derive from Abū Bakr.
For examples, see Praśnatantra 3.130–143; Tājikasāra 4.92–94; Nīlakaṇṭha’s Varṣatantra
18.36–47; Tājikabhūṣaṇa 8.25; Praśnavaiṣṇava 14.1–11; Hāyanaratna 8.12.
See chapter 18 in the translation included in Dykes (forthcoming).
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(though this does not help us to understand the relevance of a discussion
of food in a treatise on genethlialogy). Pingree, while stating that the topic
‘evidently did not have much attraction for the older Greek astrologers’, gives
a valuable list of Hellenistic, classical Indian and Byzantine sources, some of
the latter based largely on Arabic works;113 but in the absence of an actual
treatment of the topic by Samarasiṃha, speculation on his possible sources
is pointless.
5
Samarasiṃha’s Authorship Reflected in Later Sources
Following its initial chapters on general principles, the Karmaprakāśa is thus
exclusively concerned with genethlialogy or natal astrology. There is no trace
of the annual prognostication (varṣaphala) with which later Tājika tradition is more or less synonymous, nor of its other chief topic, interrogations
(praśna). This difference in content between the Karmaprakāśa and subsequent Tājika literature is particularly striking in view of the authority that
Samarasiṃha’s name commands among later generations of authors; and
when we examine the actual references to Samarasiṃha found in the works
of these authors, what we find is, with very few exceptions, passages that do
not belong to the Karmaprakāśa at all. One such instance has already been
noted above.114
I have previously demonstrated that the popular Praśnatantra, commonly
but mistakenly attributed to Nīlakaṇṭha, has for its core some 170 stanzas in āryā
metre comprising a Sanskrit epitome chiefly of Sahl ibn Bishr’s work on interrogations (K. fi lmasāʾil walaḥkām), with some additions from his Introduction
and from one or two other Arabic-language sources.115 This Sanskrit epitome
is attributed by the commentator Viśvanātha to Samarasiṃha, an attribution
indirectly supported by Viśvanātha’s junior contemporary Balabhadra, who in
his Hāyanaratna quotes several of the same stanzas from ‘Samarasiṃha’, without mentioning the title of the work. Not one of these 170 stanzas forms part of
the Karmaprakāśa as we have it, nor are they limited to the topics noted above
as missing from that text (such as marriage or children). More decisively, the
Praśnatantra material attributable to Samarasiṃha is metrically uniform and
113
114
115
Pingree 1978: 383 f.
See note 67.
See Gansten 2014.
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refers repeatedly to astrological interrogations,116 whereas the Karmaprakāśa
is metrically highly varied and concerns itself only with genethlialogy.117 We
are thus left to conclude that the original version of the Praśnatantra was a
separate work on interrogations authored in Sanskrit by Samarasiṃha on the
basis of Arabic source texts. The extant text of the Praśnatantra—with additions from both Tājika and non-Tājika works, some as late as the sixteenth
century—is widely published; Samarasiṃha’s original text may or may not
have included stanzas no longer present.118
Apart from the Praśnatantra, the two main sources of quotations from
Samarasiṃha are, to my present knowledge, Balabhadra’s Hāyanaratna on annual prognostication and Viśvanātha’s Prakāśikā commentary on Nīlakaṇṭha’s
Tājikanīlakaṇṭhī.119 All three sources raise important questions, particularly when examined together. The stanzas quoted from Samarasiṃha by
Balabhadra fall into two categories: those addressing fundamental concepts
and definitions applicable to all branches of Tājika astrology, and those dealing specifically with annual prognostication or varṣaphala. Both types of
quotation are also found in Viśvanātha’s commentary. Intriguingly, although
Balabhadra quotes no verses explicitly on the subject of interrogations or
praśna, several of the verses he does quote also appear, with minor variations,
in the Praśnatantra, which is concerned almost exclusively with praśna. In one
such instance, the received text of the Praśnatantra does in fact read rather
116
117
118
119
All stanzas attributed to Samarasiṃha by Viśvanātha are in āryā metre. Similarly, out
of 138 full or partial stanzas attributed to Samarasiṃha (with no title mentioned) in
Balabhadra’s Hāyanaratna, 137 are in āryā and a single stanza (in section 5.2) in śloka
metre. This one exception seems highly likely to be a misattribution, of which there are
other instances in the Hāyanaratna. Both authors also quote from the Karmaprakāśa,
giving the title as Manuṣyajātaka; see section 6 below.
For the metres used in the Karmaprakāśa, see note 42.
The portions of the extant Praśnatantra attributable to Samarasiṃha comprise verses
1.7–10, 52–55; 2.1–8, 13–29, 31–36, 39–131; 3.1–5, 87–114, 130–132; and 4.49–61. See Gansten
2014 for details.
The Tājikabhūṣaṇa, while not quoting Samarasiṃha directly, displays a familiarity with
his work by including (in 1.3) a pastiche of Karmaprakāśa 1.2 (for which cf. note 23 above):
gargādyair yavanaiś ca romakamukhaiḥ satyādibhiḥ kīrtitaṃ
śāstraṃ tājikasaṃjñakaṃ niravadhiṃ tadvāridhiṃ dustaram |
etat tājikabhūṣaṇaṃ navatarā tartuṃ samarthā tarir
vyaktārthaṃ vimaloktivākyavilasatkarṇānukīrṇaṃ bhṛśam ||
‘The doctrine known as Tājika is celebrated by Garga and other [sages], by the Yavanas
headed by Romaka, and by Satya and other [Brahmans]. This Ornament of Tājika, of clear
meaning and filling the ears entirely with the delight of splendid words and expressions,
is a new vessel capable of crossing its boundless and insurmountable ocean.’
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like a passage on annual predictions, with the word ‘year’ occurring three times
in two verses:120
‘Samarasiṃha’
Praśnatantra
‘Will I have progeny in this year?’ If [a client
asks thus and] the rulers of the ascendant
and the fifth [house] partake of an itthaśāla,
it will certainly happen in that very year.
Or if they should both occupy each other’s
domicile, then too progeny should be
predicted in that year—from a benefic configuration, not otherwise.a
‘Will there be progeny in this year?’ If
[a client asks thus and] the rulers of
the ascendant and the fifth [house]
partake of an itthaśāla, it will certainly happen in that very year. Or if
they should both occupy each other’s
domicile, then too progeny should be
predicted in that year—from a benefic
configuration, not otherwise.b
a Quoted in Hāyanaratna 6.6:
asmin varṣe ’patyaṃ mama bhavitā lagnapañcamādhīśau |
bhajato yadītthaśālaṃ tatraivābde bhaven nūnam ||
yadi vā mitho gṛhagatau syātāṃ cet saṃtatis tad api |
vācyā tasmin varṣe śubhayogād anyathā na punaḥ ||
b Praśnatantra 2.41–42:
asmin varṣe ’patyaṃ bhavitā vilagnapañcamādhīśau |
bhajato yadītthaśālaṃ tatraivābde bhaven nūnam ||
yadi vā mitho gṛhagatau syātām etau ca saṃtatis tad api |
vācyā tasmin varṣe śubhayogād anyathā na punaḥ ||
(Available editions and mss all agree on the metrically deficient reading of 41b.)
Here the two versions are virtually identical; but the following example concerns two passages which, while composed in the same metre and more or
less interchangeable with regard to meaning—being clearly based on the same
source text—are so different in phrasing that we cannot plausibly blame textual corruptions, but must conclude that one constitutes a deliberate reworking of the other:121
120
121
The Arabic source of this passage is probably Sahl’s K. fi lmasāʾil (5,2 in the forthcoming
Dykes translation, the numbering of which will be followed below), which, however, does
not include any mention of the current year; cf. note 124.
The Arabic source of this passage is Sahl’s K. fi lmasāʾil 11,2–9.
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‘Samarasiṃha’
Praśnatantra
‘Will I receive honour from the king?’
[If a client asks thus], by a friendly
aspect between the rulers of the ascendant and the eleventh house, it will
happen quickly; by an inimical aspect,
only after many days. If the ruler of
the eleventh house occupies an angle,
joined to or aspected by the moon, the
result is full; in a fixed sign it will be
complete, little in a movable one, and
half in a mixed one. If Jupiter occupies
an angle in its exaltation and so on,
the results of the king’s goodwill are
complete, [but] if afflicted by malefic
planets, it will come to a swift end.a
In a question saying: ‘Will I receive the
honour and so forth that I desire from
the king or not?’, if there is a muthaśila
by friendly aspect between the rulers of
the eleventh place and the ascendant
it will happen soon; by an inimical
aspect, after many days. And if the ruler
of the eleventh place and the moon
have a kambūla in an angle, it should be
predicted that [the client’s] desire is fulfilled. If it occupies a [sign that is] movable, fixed or of dual nature, the result is
[according to] its own designation. If the
slow[er planet] is afflicted by malefics,
the desire, having been realized, is quickly destroyed [again]; if it is not joined by
malefics but by benefics, the desire will
be attained by means of a dignity.b
a Quoted in Hāyanaratna 6.12:
nṛpater gauravalābho me syād iti lagnalābhapatyoś ca |
snehadṛśā śīghraṃ syād ripudṛṣṭyā bahudinair eva ||
āyeśe kendrasthe śaśiyutadṛṣṭe ca pūrṇaphalam asti |
sthirarāśau paripūrṇaṃ care ’lpam ardhaṃ bhaven miśre ||
devagurau kendragate svoccādigate ca nṛpaśubhāśā |
pūrṇaphalā krūragrahanipīḍite śīghranāśaḥ syāt ||
b Praśnatantra 2.123–125:
nṛpater gauravalābhāśādi mama syān na veti ca praśne |
āyeśalagnapatyoḥ snehadṛśā muthaśile drutaṃ bhavati ||
ripudṛṣṭyā bahudivasaiḥ kendre cāyeśakambūle |
vācyā pūrṇaivāśā carasthiradvisvabhāvage svanāmaphalam ||
mande krūropahate bhūtvāśāśu praṇāśam upayāti |
krūrāyukte ca śubhayujy adhikāravaśena labdhyāśā ||
The metrical variant of 124cd, with eight feet (gaṇa) consisting of four morae (mātrā) each
except for the penultimate, which has five, recurs in several quotations from Samarasiṃha
found in the Hāyanaratna. The ca in 125c, however, seems spurious and has been eliminated
in translation.
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While neither version refers to the current year, it is surely significant
that the word praśne (‘in a question’) is absent from the variant quoted by
Balabhadra.122
A possible explanation of these textual peculiarities would be that Samarasiṃha
authored at least two independent or semi-independent works in addition to the
Karmaprakāśa: one—the original Praśnatantra, based on Sahl—dealing with
interrogations or praśna, the other with annual revolutions or varṣaphala; and
that he included in the latter a certain amount of reworked material imported
from the former.123 Balabhadra’s Hāyanaratna, being chiefly concerned with
varṣaphala, would naturally favour the latter variants.124
In this connection it will be useful to examine some of Viśvanātha’s statements about Samarasiṃha’s works in the Prakāśikā commentary. The most substantial section of the Praśnatantra derived from Sahl through Samarasiṃha
is introduced (2.1) with the words: ‘Now follows the investigation of questions pertaining to the individual places [of the horoscope, as found] in the
Praśnatantra related in the Tājikaśāstra.’125 If we assume that Tājikaśāstra
is to be taken as the designation of an actual text, then this suggests that, to
Viśvanātha’s mind at least, the original Praśnatantra did form part of a larger
work. His commentary on Nīlakaṇṭha’s Saṃjñātantra 2.52 gives us a further
piece of the puzzle as he remarks, before quoting a verse on inauspicious configurations: ‘For that reason the plain meaning of this is clearly stated in the
Saṃjñātantra [of the] Tājika authored by Samarasiṃha.’126 Another section of
the Praśnatantra is introduced (3.1) with the simple phrase tājike samarasiṃhe.
122
123
124
125
126
Of the text witnesses used for the forthcoming edition of the Hāyanaratna, a single, fairly
late MS (Koba Gyan Tirth 19-187, dated 1833–34 ce) does actually give a reading much
closer to the Praśnatantra version, but with the crucial word praśne replaced with varṣe
‘in the year’.
It is, of course, also possible that Samarasiṃha had access to a work on annual revolutions composed by Sahl (or to excerpts from it), in addition to the K. fi lmasāʾil, and that
it was Sahl himself who incorporated material from one work in the other. Ibn an-Nadīm
attributes a K. taḥāwīl sinī lmawālīd (Book of Revolutions of the Years of Nativities) to Sahl,
but no MS of this text apparently survives. See Ullmann 1972: 311; Sezgin 1979: 128.
As noted above (see note 120), Praśnatantra 2.41–42 on children has the appearance of
dealing with annual predictions rather than interrogations and may have been included
in this text by mistake. As remarked in Gansten 2014: 116, these two stanzas are very close
to Praśnatantra 2.25cd–27ab with regard to technical content, and both may ultimately
derive from the same passage in Sahl’s K. fi lmasāʾil (5,2). Another example of material
migrating from different parts of Samarasiṃha’s writings into the received text of the
Praśnatantra is discussed below (cf. notes 131 and 137).
atha pratyekabhāvapraśnanirūpaṇaṃ tājikaśāstroktapraśnatantre.
yataḥ kāraṇāt tatra samarasiṃhakṛtatājikasaṃjñātantre sphuṭaṃ prakaṭārtham uktam
asti.
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It thus seems reasonable to assume that Samarasiṃha wrote, in addition to
the Karmaprakāśa, a set of works known collectively by generic titles such as
Tājika[śāstra] or Samarasiṃha[tājika] and comprising a Saṃjñātantra on fundamentals of Tājika astrology, a Praśnatantra on interrogations, and a work
on annual revolutions, probably called *Varṣatantra. Stanzas on these three
topics attributed to Samarasiṃha but not found in the Karmaprakāśa are in
the same āryā metre, accentuating the underlying unity of the texts.
6
The Karmaprakāśa and the Tājikaśāstra
Although familiar with the Karmaprakāśa, Viśvanātha appears to have been ignorant of the identity of its author. This is not so strange as it may seem: as discussed above, the text of the Karmaprakāśa proper does not actually mention
Samarasiṃha’s name. Nevertheless, we can be fairly certain that Samarasiṃha
did author the Karmaprakāśa, for three reasons. First, as evinced by the colophons of many (but not all) manuscripts and corroborated by Balabhadra,127
there is a tradition to that effect, even if Viśvanātha was unaware of it. Second,
as was also previously mentioned, the last verse of the Karmaprakāśa does
contain a pun on the author’s name; and third, stanzas on fundamental
Tājika doctrines quoted by other authors from what we may now tentatively
call Samarasiṃha’s Tājikaśāstra have very marked similarities—often word
for word, though in different metres—with corresponding passages in the
Karmaprakāśa, though the latter are occasionally more concise. Two brief examples will suffice for the present:
‘Samarasiṃha’ (Tājikaśāstra)
Karmaprakāśa
Red, white, green, pink, grey, whitish,
many-coloured, black, golden, yellow,
variegated, and brown are the colours
of [the twelve signs] beginning with
Aries.a
Red, white, parrot-coloured, pink-hued,
grey, whitish, variegated, black, golden,
yellow, variegated, and brown: these are
the colours of the bodies of [the twelve
signs] beginning with Aries.b
127
See note 134.
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(cont.)
‘Samarasiṃha’ (Tājikaśāstra)
Karmaprakāśa
In the daytime and in the former
[bright] fortnight, in a nativity or a
question, Saturn placed in a male sign
does little harm, but much harm if the
opposite. Mars at night, in the latter
fortnight, and placed in a female sign,
does little harm in a nativity or a
question, but much if the opposite.c
When Saturn in the former [bright]
fortnight is placed in a male [sign, or]
Mars in the other [fortnight] in a female
one, it is of little harm.d
a Quoted in Hāyanaratna 1.4:
aruṇasitaharitapāṭaladhūsaravipāṇḍurā vicitraḥ |
śitihemadyutipiṅgāḥ karburababhrū hy ajādivarṇāḥ syuḥ ||
b Karmaprakāśa 1.7:
raktaḥ śvetaḥ kīraruk pāṭalābho dhūmraḥ pāṇḍuḥ karburaḥ śyāmalaś ca |
hemaḥ piṅgaḥ karburo babhrur ete meṣādīnāṃ dehavarṇāḥ krameṇa ||
While the Tājikaśāstra quotation is in the udgīti variant of the moraic āryā metre, the
present stanza is in the syllabic metre śālinī. The two stanzas agree wholly in content
(‘parrot-coloured’ being a synonym of ‘green’), with half the colour terms being identical or
near-identical. The present stanza is arguably slightly less skilfully composed, making use of
the word karbura twice.
c Quoted in Hāyanaratna 3.16:
divase tu pūrvapakṣe pṛcchāyāṃ jātake ca ravisūnuḥ |
nararāśigo ’lpadoṣaṃ bahudoṣaṃ vyatyayāt kurute ||
bhaumo rātrāv apare pakṣe strīrāśisaṃgataḥ svalpam |
doṣaṃ kurute praśne janmani ca vyatyayāt pracuram ||
d Karmaprakāśa 3.18ab:
pūrve pakṣe puṃgate bhānuputre bhaume ’nyasmin strīgate cālpadoṣaḥ |
The metre is again śālinī rather than āryā. While the present half-stanza is quite terse,
the phrasing is very similar to that of the previous quotation: the fortnight in question is
called ‘former’ rather than ‘bright’ (an idiom inherited from Sahl, whose presentation in the
Introduction [3,117–118] is based on the Islamic calendar); Saturn is referred to by the epithet
‘son of the sun’ (ravisūnu; bhānuputra) and Mars as bhauma ‘son of the earth’; and both stanzas speak of a planet doing ‘little harm’ (alpadoṣaṃ […] kurute; alpadoṣaḥ).
On the three occasions that Viśvanātha quotes the Karmaprakāśa in his
commentary, he refers to it only by title (as the Manuṣyajātaka), never
by author; and on one such occasion, he adds: ‘[This] is also said in
Samarasiṃha’.128 Further on, in the context of a disputed reading, Viśvanātha
128
uktaṃ ca manuṣyajātake […] samarasiṃhe ’py uktam asti (ad Saṃjñātantra 2.36). The
stanza quoted from the Karmaprakāśa is 3.9.
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Gansten
states: ‘However, in Samarasiṃha and likewise in the Yavanatājika and likewise in the Manuṣyajātaka, the reading is […].’129 Both ‘Samarasiṃha’ and
the Karmaprakāśa are then quoted verbatim in the gloss: it is ‘Samarasiṃha’
that contains the exact phrase discussed (lagnād dvitīyabhavanāt), while the
Karmaprakāśa (4.4) includes a very similar one (lagnād dvitīyāc ca). The reference to a Yavanatājika, not quoted, remains unclear.130 None of the stanzas that
Viśvanātha explicitly attributes to Samarasiṃha is found in the Karmaprakāśa,
although, as noted above, those on general topics (such as aspect doctrine or
lots) have close parallels—always in other metres—in that text.131
As for Nīlakaṇṭha, he was not only familiar with Samarasiṃha’s Tājikaśāstra
himself, but also expected his readers to be so. This is clear from a reference
found in the Saṃjñātantra of his Tājikanīlakaṇṭhī (2.51–52), which includes a
partial quotation:
From the example beginning If the moon occupies Aries [with] Saturn,
others say that itthaśāla and the other [configurations apply] to a slower
and a swifter [planet] occupying a single sign. That is incorrect, since it
is clearly said there that an itthaśāla of a fallen [planet] with [another]
fallen [planet, or] of an enemy with an enemy, destroys the object [asked
about].132
129
130
131
132
paraṃ tu samarasiṃhe tathā yavanatājike tathā manuṣyatājike [sic] lagnād dvitīya
bhavanād ity eva pāṭho ’sti (ad Saṃjñātantra 3.24), reading manuṣyajātake for what is
almost certainly a scribal error. (Though the mistake is present in all three editions at
my disposal, the actual quotation from the Karmaprakāśa at the end of the same gloss
is preceded by the correct title: tathā coktaṃ manuṣyajātake.) The disputed phrase
from ‘Samarasiṃha’ is also quoted and discussed by Balabhadra in Hāyanaratna 4.2.
Pingree 1970–94 A5: 326 lists ten mss of Tājika works attributed to ‘Yavana’, one with the
title given as Yavanatājika. I have not seen any of these texts. On the other hand, a possible reason for Viśvanātha not actually quoting from the Yavanatājika could be that he is
referring not to a Sanskrit text, but to an Arabic one. A few sentences earlier Viśvanātha
had invoked ‘the school/opinion of the Yavanas’ (yavanānāṃ mate), which could conceivably denote contemporary Muslim astrological practice.
The same is true of Praśnatantra 4.49–57, 60–61 (at the very end of the text, derived
from Sahl’s Introduction rather than his work on interrogations), which correspond minutely to Karmaprakāśa 2.10–14; 3.4–7, 9, and most likely formed part of Samarasiṃha’s
Saṃjñātantra rather than his original Praśnatantra. For an actual borrowing between the
Tājikaśāstra and the Karmaprakāśa, see note 135.
meṣasthe ’bje śanītyādidṛṣṭāntān mandaśīghrayoḥ |
ekarkṣāvasthitāv itthaśālādīn apare jaguḥ ||
tad ayuktaṃ nīcagasya nīcena ripuṇā ripoḥ |
itthaśālaḥ kāryanāśīty uktaṃ tatra yataḥ sphuṭam ||
The point Nīlakaṇṭha is making is that, since no two planets share the same sign of fall, an
itthaśāla or application between two fallen planets must be formed between different signs.
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Viśvanātha’s commentary gives the original verses in full and identifies them
as originating with Samarasiṃha, an attribution corroborated by Balabhadra.133
The opening of Nīlakaṇṭha’s Varṣatantra is likewise a pastiche on a stanza by
Samarasiṃha—most probably from his own *Varṣatantra—which we know
from a quotation in the Hāyanaratna:
‘Samarasiṃha’ (Tājikaśāstra)
Nīlakaṇṭha: Varṣatantra
In general, [true] understanding
does not shine forth for men in
[considering] the results of
genethlialogy (jātaka), which are
applied to long [times]. Therefore,
the annual results proclaimed by
the Tājikas are elucidated here.a
Because the results of the periods related
in [texts on] nativities (jātaka) clearly give
[only] the results of large [periods of] time,
[and] the understanding of the astrologer
does not shine forth in [using] them,
therefore I shall explain the results of the
year from the ancient Tājika [doctrine].b
a Quoted in Hāyanaratna 1.2:
prāyo na jātakaphale ciraprayojye matiḥ sphurati puṃsām |
tenātra hāyanaphalaṃ prakāśyate tājikaproktam ||
b Varṣatantra 1.2:
jātakoditadaśāphalaṃ ca yat sthūlakālaphaladaṃ sphuṭaṃ nṛṇām |
tatra na sphurati daivavinmatis tad bruve ’bdaphalam āditājikāt ||
An earlier and even closer pastiche of Samarasiṃha’s verse is found in Tejaḥsiṃha’s
Daivajñālaṃkṛti 1.2 (1337; cf. note 105):
prāyo ’tra jātakaphale bahukālasādhye
buddhir nṛṇāṃ sphurati no khalu duḥkhasādhye |
tat tājikoktam anuvacmy anubhūya pūrvaṃ
saṃkṣipya vārṣikavilagnaphalaṃ sphuṭārthaṃ ||
‘In general, understanding does not shine forth for men in [considering] the results of nativities (jātaka), which are produced with much [expenditure of] time [or: for long periods
of time] and with much difficulty. Therefore, I relate the results of the annual horoscope
proclaimed by Tājika [teaching], which are clear in meaning, having first verified and abbreviated them.’
133
meṣasthe ’bje śaninā karkasthe bhūbhuvā striyāṃ kavinā |
makarasthe guruṇā saha mīnasthe jñena na śubhaṃ ca ||
yadi nīco nīcena ca muthaśilakārī tathā ripur dviṣatā |
tat kambūlaṃ neṣṭaṃ candro ’pi vināśako ’muṣmin ||
These two stanzas are also quoted (with the minor variation tadvat tat kambūlaṃ in the
penultimate pāda) in Hāyanaratna 3.3. The former stanza is based directly on the explication of ghayr alqabūl or non-reception in Sahl’s Introduction (3,58–60).
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Of the Karmaprakāśa, however, Nīlakaṇṭha appears to have been ignorant. He neither quotes nor makes any mention of it; moreover, the technical
terms hillāja and khattakhutta—explained in the Karmaprakāśa as discussed
above—are mistaken both by Nīlakaṇṭha and by much of the later Tājika tradition for the personal names of earlier authorities.134 This circumstance strongly suggests that Nīlakaṇṭha had not actually read the Karmaprakāśa, perhaps
even that he was unaware of its existence, which in turn may indicate that
the Karmaprakāśa never achieved the same circulation as the Tājikaśāstra.
Balabhadra’s Hāyanaratna, which is a nibandha or meta-commentary drawing on many important expositions of Tājika, does contain a single reference to
the Karmaprakāśa (under the title Manuṣyajātaka), which he recognizes as authored by Samarasiṃha.135 Despite having at least some acquaintance with the
Karmaprakāśa, however, Balabhadra—whether solely out of respect for his gu
ru’s brother, or because he was unfamiliar with certain parts of the work (perhaps due to an incomplete manuscript)—perpetuates the misunderstanding
of hillāja and khattakhutta as personal names.136
The relative dating of the Tājikaśāstra and the Karmaprakāśa cannot, perhaps, be conclusively settled on purely text-internal grounds; but one or two
points of interest may be noted. First, as discussed above, while the verse just
quoted from the Tājikaśāstra contrasts the Tājika approach with that of genethlialogy (jātaka), the Karmaprakāśa specifically addresses Tājika genethlialogy. This difference in focus may reflect a development in Samarasiṃha’s
134
135
136
Balabhadra in Hāyanaratna 1.2 quotes this stanza from the jyotiṣa section of the
Ṭoḍarānanda, completed by Nīlakaṇṭha in 1572:
khattakhutto romakaś ca hillājo dhiṣaṇāhvayaḥ |
durmukhācārya ity ete tājikasya pravartakāḥ ||
‘Khattakhutta, Romaka, Hillāja, Dhiṣaṇa and Durmukhācārya: these are the propounders
of Tājika.’ I have previously suggested (Gansten 2012a) that hīlāj and kadkhudāh may have
been thus misunderstood due to being of Persian rather than Arabic origin (unlike the
majority of Tājika technical terms), but I now rather believe the reason to be the early
decline—one might almost say the death in infancy—of Tājika genethlialogy.
Hāyanaratna 3.7: manuṣyajātake samarasiṃho ’pi, quoting Karmaprakāśa 3.8. At a later
point in the Hāyanaratna (5.7), Balabhadra also quotes two consecutive āryā verses on
the scheme of triplicity rulerships from ‘Samarasiṃha’, the former of which does occur in
Karmaprakāśa 1.21 but is probably quoted here from the Tājikaśāstra; see Gansten 2018:
175 f.
Not only does Balabhadra quote Nīlakaṇṭha with approval (cf. note 134), but he actually
states at the beginning of the Hāyanaratna (1.2):
hillājakhattakhuttāryakhindhiromakasaṃmatam |
sāraṃ samarasiṃhasya kriyate vārṣikaṃ phalam ||
‘[Here] the results pertaining to the year are set forth: the essence of [the writings of]
Samarasiṃha, approved by Hillāja, the noble Khattakhutta, Khindhi and Romaka.’
JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY 1 (2018) 79–132
Samarasiṃha and the Early Transmission of Tājika Astrology
123
understanding of Tājika, and perhaps in his access to Arabic-language sources,
with the Karmaprakāśa representing a later and more inclusive phase. Second,
as was also noted, the evidence strongly suggests that the doctrine of the sixteen configurations (ṣoḍaśayoga) was received by the Indian tradition through
Samarasiṃha, whose distinctive misnumbering is repeated by every later author on the subject; but the original examples that accompany some of Sahl’s
definitions, though present in later authors such as Nīlakaṇṭha and Gaṇeśa,
are lacking from the Karmaprakāśa. This implies that the doctrine in question,
with the examples intact, was transmitted through the Tājikaśāstra rather than
through the Karmaprakāśa; and in fact, Samarasiṃha’s rendition of one such
example has been preserved for us in the extant text of the Praśnatantra (4.58–
59).137 Assuming that a Sanskrit version preserving material from the Arabic
original is likely to be earlier than an abridged version, this would support the
hypothesis of the Karmaprakāśa having been composed after the Tājikaśāstra.138
If Samarasiṃha did indeed author three interrelated texts known individually as the Saṃjñātantra, Praśnatantra and *Varṣatantra, it seems more than
likely that Nīlakaṇṭha’s own Saṃjñātantra and Varṣatantra were intended
to emulate and perhaps to eclipse the work of his illustrious predecessor. In
this he was ultimately successful, an achievement probably not unrelated to
his official position as jyotiṣarāja at Akbar’s court.139 The extant, hybridized
Praśnatantra, while containing no original contribution by Nīlakaṇṭha, may
have been compiled by himself or one of his students in order to complete the
triad; or the compilation may have been mistakenly attributed to Nīlakaṇṭha
on the strength of his existing Saṃjñatantra and Varṣatantra. If Nīlakaṇṭha
was further unaware that Samarasiṃha had also composed a jātaka work—
namely, the Karmaprakāśa—this would help to explain the lack of any genethlialogical material in his own writings.
137
138
139
See Gansten 2014: 105 ff.; cf. also note 124 above. While the surrounding verses (Praśnatantra
4.54–57, 60) are closely mirrored in Karmaprakāśa 3.4–7, the latter text omits the example. As it relates to a fundamental concept of Tājika, the example in question is likely
originally to have occurred in the Saṃjñātantra of Samarasiṃha’s Tājikaśāstra rather
than in its Praśnatantra.
As remarked above (note 20), the fact of the Karmaprakāśa lacking an eponymous variant title may lend some support to the hypothesis of another well-known work with such
a designation (Samarasiṃhatājika or -śāstra) preceding it in time, and may also have
played a part in obscuring the authorship of the Karmaprakāśa.
See Pingree 1997: 92 f.; Sarma 2000.
JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY 1 (2018) 79–132
124
7
Gansten
Concluding Remarks
Irrespective of who was technically the earliest writer on Tājika, Samarasiṃha
remains undoubtedly the single most influential author in the tradition as a
whole, both directly and through his impact on Nīlakaṇṭha, whose works in
their turn have largely defined Tājika since early modern times. Although next
to nothing is known of Samarasiṃha personally, and even the century of his
floruit remains somewhat conjectural, a close study of his preserved writings
enables us to form some tentative conclusions about his role in the Sanskritlanguage transmission of Perso-Arabic astrology.
The available evidence, then, suggests that Samarasiṃha authored at least
four works on Tājika, the first three of which were interconnected and known
collectively as the Tājikaśāstra, with variants. The individual parts dealt with
general principles, interrogations, and annual prognostication, respectively;
the former two were known as Saṃjñātantra and Praśnatantra, the third most
likely as *Varṣatantra. Very likely it was this Tājikaśāstra that Balabhadra had
in mind when defining his subject matter at the beginning of the Hāyanaratna:
The word Tājika denotes the treatise (śāstra) composed by Yavanācārya
in the Persian language, comprising one area of astrology and having
for its outcome the prediction of the various kinds of results of annual
[horoscopy] and so on. That same treatise was rendered into the Sanskrit
language by those born after him, Samarasiṃha and other Brahmans
versed in grammar, and that [work], too, is denoted by the word Tājika.140
These three works depended heavily (though, in the case of the *Varṣatantra,
perhaps only indirectly) on Sahl ibn Bishr, with some influence from other
Arabic-language authorities—one of which may have been al-Kindī, and
another ʿUmar aṭ-Ṭabarī—as evinced by the extant Praśnatantra. Centuries
later, the latter text was substantially enlarged by the addition of excerpts
from other, mostly non-Tājika works, and the text as a whole was (mis)attributed to Nīlakaṇṭha. The Saṃjñātantra and *Varṣatantra are apparently lost,
or at least not available in print nor listed under those names in any manuscript catalogues examined by me; their positions of authority seem to have
140
Hāyanaratna 1.2: yavanācāryeṇa pārasyā bhāṣayā praṇītaṃ jyotiḥśāstraikadeśarūpaṃ
vārṣikādinānāvidhaphalādeśaphalakaṃ śāstraṃ tājikaśabdavācyam | tadanantara
saṃbhūtaiḥ samarasiṃhādibhir adhītavyākaraṇair brāhmaṇais tad eva śāstraṃ saṃskṛta
śabdopanibaddhaṃ tad api tājikaśabdavācyam eva. As remarked above, Balabhadra
appears not to have distinguished Arabic from Persian, nor is his identification of
Samarasiṃha as a Brahman correct.
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Samarasiṃha and the Early Transmission of Tājika Astrology
125
been usurped by Nīlakaṇṭha’s identically named works, jointly known as the
Tājikanīlakaṇṭhī. Samarasiṃha’s Tājikaśāstra was, however, still extant in
the early seventeenth century, as confirmed by quotations in the works of
Viśvanātha and Balabhadra.
The transmission of Tājika doctrines formulated by Samarasiṃha appears to
have taken place primarily through this Tājikaśāstra, while his fourth work, the
Karmaprakāśa on genethlialogy, has exercised comparatively little influence
on the later tradition. For this work, Samarasiṃha explicitly cites ‘Khindika’,
probably identical with al-Kindī, as the author of his source, which may have
been a compendium. The ultimate Arabic source texts appear to be the genethlialogical works of Abū Bakr (for the bulk of the text), Abū Maʿshar (particularly for lots, sahama), ʿUmar (a brief passage) and one or more authors as
yet unidentified. Some of the material in the initial part of the Karmaprakāśa,
ultimately based on Sahl, was most probably adapted in slightly abbreviated
form from Samarasiṃha’s own Tājikaśāstra.
There is reason to suspect that the extant text of the Karmaprakāśa is incomplete, lacking as many as seven or more chapters. The material that it does
contain is highly abbreviated as compared to the source texts, and sometimes
imperfectly understood. One reason for this may be that Samarasiṃha viewed
the Perso-Arabic doctrines through the lens of Indian astrological tradition.
By contrast, the transmission of the same doctrines to the Latin west, which
had no previous tradition of judicial astrology to speak of, was much fuller and
more faithful. Even so, the Sanskrit versions do occasionally include material
which is not present in the surviving Latin translations.
Given the paramount importance of Samarasiṃha for the tradition of
Tājika astrology, we may wonder why his genethlialogical teachings seem not
to have been passed down the generations as diligently as those on annual
prognostication and interrogations. One partial explanation may be the lack
of a living teacher-student tradition of Tājika in the period immediately following Samarasiṃha. Such a situation is indicated by Tejaḥsiṃha, who—although belonging to the same region, hereditary community and social class
as Samarasiṃha, intimately familiar with at least some of his works, and writing within perhaps two or three generations of him—explicitly states that
he wrote his own work after verifying by experience the statements taken
from books, ‘even without the mediation of a true teacher’.141 Significantly,
Tejaḥsiṃha deals only with definitions and revolutions, not with genethlialogy
141
Daivajñālaṃkṛti, penultimate verse (with minor emendations; see Gansten 2017: 121 f.):
[…] sadguror yat |
pāramparyād ṛte ’pi svayam anubhavanād granthajārthasya […]
JOURNAL OF SOUTH ASIAN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY 1 (2018) 79–132
126
Gansten
proper, suggesting that only parts of Samarasiṃha’s oeuvre were available to
him; perhaps he also contributed to their wider distribution.
Despite these circumstances, the Karmaprakāśa has outlived—at least in
part—Samarasiṃha’s more popular works, although its authorship was sometimes forgotten. Ironically, its relatively neglected status may have contributed
to its survival, as Nīlakaṇṭha and other authors of the Mughal era did not attempt to outshine it with genethlialogical works of their own.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to acknowledge the generous funding by Riksbankens
Jubileumsfond of the research on which this article is based, as well as the substantial contributions of Levente László, MA, in tracing and examining some
of the Greek, Latin and Arabic sources discussed, particularly with regard to
the doctrines of lots (κλῆροι) and the so-called trutine of Hermes.
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