[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Dark Ages](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages) › [Mughals (1526–1857)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal) › [Akbar (1556–1605)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar) › [Akbarnāma](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama) › [The Akbarnama (H. Beveridge), vols. I–II](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge) › 52 # The Book of Akbar 52: NOTE ON THE HOROSCOPES OF AKBAR. The Akbarnama (H. Beveridge), vols. I–II 52 - **Language:** English ### NOTE ON THE HOROSCOPES OF AKBAR. ### [52.1](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52.1) Abu-l-fazl gives four horoscopes. The first and fourth however appear to be substantially the same. Both were made by Muhammadan servants of Humayun,—the first by Maulana Cand and the fourth by Maulana Alyas of Ardabil. Maulana Cand’s was drawn up according to the “New Tables,” i.e., those of Ulugh Beg Mirza who was Timur's grandson. These were calculated for 1437. Maulana Ilyas’ horoscope was cast according to the Ilkhani or Imperial Tables, i.e., those made by Nasiru-d-din Tusi at Maragha—about 50 miles S. by W. of Tabriz—in the reign of Hulagu Khan cir. 1272. Abu-l-fazl, writing in the 40th year of Akbar, (1596) says (Jarrett II, 4.) that 362 years had elapsed since Nasiru-d-din built his observatory and 156 since Ulugh Beg built his at Samarqand. This gives a date of 1440 for Ulugh Beg’s Tables and of 1234 for Nasiru-d-din’s, but the latter is certainly wrong, and probably there is some clerical error in the text. If Hulagu Khan first established him in Maragha, it is assuredly wrong, but A. F. evidently thinks he was there earlier. (Ain II, 11.) The second horoscope was made by Jotik Rai, Akbar’s astrologer. We do not know its exact date but it was, of course, drawn many years after Akbar’s birth and after the construction, by Humayun’s orders, of the first and fourth horoscopes. ### [52.2](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52.2) The third was made by Fathu-l-lah of Shiraz and could not have been drawn earlier than 991 (1583), for this astronomer did not come to Akbar’s Court till that year. Indeed A. F. tells us that it was in the first year of Fathu-l-lah’s service that he asked him to compare the horoscopes and reconcile their discrepancies. Both Maulana Cand and Maulana Alyas put the birth under Virgo and there is no doubt this is correct,—if correctness can be predicated of such matters. The Indian astrologers probably put the birth in Leo because that Sign is the House of the Sun, between whom and Akbar there was supposed to be a mysterious connection. Possibly however, the earlier date of their Tables warranted them in putting the birth under Leo, as A. F. has explained in his chapter on the discrepancies. But granting that this was so, we are not told why their Tables should be preferred to those of Nasiru-d-din and Ulugh Beg. And indeed Abu-l-fazl does not prefer them. He tells us that Indian Tables agree with the observations of those philosophers who not aware that there was a movement of the Fixed Stars. In other words, he admits that they are wrong. ### [52.3](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52.3) If the precession of the equinoxes account for the difference between the Tables, why stop short at the Hindu observations? A. F. calculates that these were made 1190 years before Ulugh Beg's, i.e., about 1336 before Fathu-l-lah cast Akbar’s horoscope. According to Babar (Erskine 51.) the Hindu Tables were made at Ujjain in the time of Vikramaditya, i.e., cir. 57 B.C. According to Tod, (Rajputana) Hindu astronomers now follow the Tables of Jai Singh which were made in 1728. (See Dr. Hunter's paper, Asiatic Researches V, 177.) But why did not he or Fathu-l-lah carry the calculation further back and ascertain the position of the constellations of the Zodiac at the time, say, of the birth of Adam or at least, of Enoch or Idris who, according to Muhammadans, is the father of astronomy? Some astrologers professed to know the position of the stars at the time of the Creation and held that Adam was born under 1° Capricorn (See infra, for A. F.’s account of Adam). And at all events A. F., who seems to have accepted the chronology according to which Adam was born about 7000 before his own time, could have had no difficulty in calculating the position of the constellations at that period, allowing one degree for every seventy years. ### [52.4](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52.4) According to A. F. the difference between the Indian astrologers and Maulana Cand amounts to 17°. But apparently Fathu-l-lah did not adopt the Indian calculations, which indeed he probably could not read, (He was a Persian and we are told in the Ain (Blochmann 104) that he superintended the translation of part of Ulugh Beg’s Tables, though, if as has been supposed, these were originally written in Persian, one does not see what necessity there was for translating them. There is however a doubt on the point and A. F.’s remark implies that Ulugh Beg’s Tables were written in a foreign language, e.g., Arabic or Turkish. According to D’Herbelot, they were first written in Arabic but Sédillot has no doubt that Persian was their original language). Fathu-l-lah, we are told, based his calculations on the Greek and Persian Tables, not on the Indian, and found the cusp of the Ascendant to be 28° 36' Leo. ### [52.5](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52.5) Leo is the Sign immediately preceding Virgo, and if the difference of the Hindu and Persian calculations be 17°, the cusp according to the former, should apparently be 20° Leo, for Maulana Cand's horoscope brought out the cusp of the Ascendant as 7° Virgo. We are not told what Tables Fathu-l-lah used and are left in the dark as to his modus operandi. The difference between his calculations and those of Maulānā Cand was apparently, about viz., from 28° 36' Leo to 7° Virgo. If, as A. F. does, we take the rate of precession to be one degree in 70 years, Fathu-l-lah must have used Tables made about 600 years before Ulugh Beg. This would give a date of about 830 A.D., which approximates to the Baghdad observations of the Khalif Māmūn referred to in the Ain (Jarrett II. 3.) If we take the more correct rate of precession, viz., one degree in 72 years, we get a still closer approximation for 8½° = 612 years and this deducted from 1434 = 822 A.D. ### [52.6](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52.6) I regret that I have not been able to translate the four horoscope enters in a satisfactory manner. They are difficult, for several words of frequent use in them, are not to be found in our dictionaries, at least not with their astronomical meaning. Dozy's Supplement is of little or no use for astrological terms, and Lane appears to ignore them altogether. Unfortunately with all his amplitude of detail, A. F. fails us at the very pinch of the case. That is, he gives no explanation of Fathu-l-lah’s modus operandi and does not tell us how he managed to bring the horoscope into Leo. It is probable that in places, the text is corrupt. Books on astrology are very numerous. One of the best of the old treatises is De Judiciis Astrorum by ‘Alī Abu-l-hasan (Albohazen Haly Aben Ragel). He, it appears, was born in Spain, for he is styled Ash-Shaibānī and Ash-Shabīlī (Hispaliensis) and his full name is Abu-l-hasan ‘Alī Ibn Abī-r-rajalu-sh-shaibānī. In Hammer-Purgstall’s History of Arabian Literature, (6436) he is styled ‘Alī Ibn Rajal and we are told that Europeans called him Aben-Ragel and that he was born at Cordova and lived in the beginning of the 5th century of the Hijra. ### [52.7](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52.7) His work on astrology, “Opus magnum de astrologia, octo partibus comprehensum,” was first translated from Arabic into Spanish by order of Alphonso, the king of Castile, and afterwards from Spanish into Latin. He appears also to have been a poet, for a poem of his on astrology is mentioned in Casiri’s catalogue of the Escurial Library I, 128 and 344. The best edition of Haly’s work appears to be that by Anthony Stupa, Basle, 1551. There is a copy of this in the British Museum and bound up with it, is an elaborate treatise on astrology by Guido Bonatus and also a commentary on the Tetrabiblos. Guido Bonatus, also called Guido Bonatti and Bonati, was a noted astrologer of the 13th century. He was a native of Florence, but is commonly called Foroliviensis or De Foro Livii, the modern Forli, a town on the eastern side of the Appenines and not far from Ravenna. He is said by his astrological skill to have saved Forli from a siege. Eventually he became a monk and died in 1296. ### [52.8](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52.8) Lilly quotes Abu-l-Hasan under the name of Haly and Sir Walter Scott makes Guy Mannering refer both to him and to Guido Bonatus. Delambre says, in his History of astronomy in the Middle Ages, that Abu-l-hasan's book “est l’un des plus clairs, des plus methodiques, and des plus completes que nous ayons. C’est une compilation de tout ce que les sages de differents pays et de differents siecles ayaient écrit sur ce sujet futile.” It appears that Haly was a Christian. There is a MS. copy of his work in the British Museum written in beautifully clear Arabic characters. It is numbered 23,399. See Codices Arabici 623b. It is to be hoped that some day an Arabic scholar print and edit it. Lilly’s Christian Astrology and the works of Zadkiel are useful and so also are Wilson's Dictionary of Astrology (London, 1819), and a work by E. Sibley in two quarto volumes and published in 1817. For Hindu astrology, I can commend two Bengali books kindly sent me by Dr. Grierson, viz., the Jyotisha Prakasa (Beni Madhab De & Co., Calcutta, 1882, Sak. 1804) and the Varaha Mihira of Kali Prosanna Chattarji (1891, Fasli 1300). I have also found the notes of Muhammad Sadiq ‘Alī the Lucknow editor of the Akbarnāma very useful and I have obtained some light from the two elaborate horoscopes of Shah Jahan,—one of his birth and the other of his accession,—which are given in 'Abdu-l-Hamīd’s Bādshāhnāma. ### [52.9](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52.9) Mr. Rehatsek's Catalogue of the Mulla Firoz Library in Bombay shows that it is very rich in Persian works on astrology. To the useful books on Astrology may be added the treatise of Julius Firmicus Maternus, a Latin writer of the 4th century A.D. A good and cheap edition of this work is in course of publication at Leipsic under the editorship of Charles Sittl. Firmicus describes the Dodecatemoria, p. 48, the Decani, p. 41, and has a chapter, p. 233, on empty and full degrees, the full being degrees where the Decani are found, and the empty where their influence does not operate. --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52](https://indike.org/pramana/in.darkages.mughal.akbar.akbarnama~en-beveridge.52) · Pramāṇa