History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.307

v6.c82.307

Ptolemy speaks of beneficent and malefic planets (I. 5), of masculine and feminine planets (I.6), of diurnal and nocturnal (in Sanskrit *dinabali* and *niśābali*) planets (I. 7), (I. 12) masculine and feminine *rāśis* (signs), the aspects of the signs (I. 13) viz. opposition (180 degrees), trine (120°), quartile (90°) and sextile (60°), of the houses (*svagṛhas* in Sanskrit) of the planets. In Book II he divides the inhabited world into quarters equal in number to the triangular formations of the signs of the zodiac and after a disquisition which would be regarded by modern men as casuistical and practically unintelligible, Ptolemy sets forth a list of over seventy countries (then known), assigning to each sign some countries. For example, to Aries he assigns Britain, Gaul, Germania, Bastarnia, Syria, Palestine, Judaea and one more; to Capricorn he assigns India, Ariana, Gedrosia, Thrace, Macedonia, Illyria. The whole of America, almost the whole of Africa (except the northern part), Indonesia and Australia and the other neighbouring lands are not considered by Ptolemy at all, because these were unknown then. He remarks at the end of II. 3 that as to metropolitan cities they should be treated like individuals and their nativity is to be cast by taking the time of the foundation⁸²⁶ of the city instead of the times of birth, but where the exact time of foundation is not known then the nativity of the founder or of the king is to be taken.