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Jyotihshastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c10: Chapter VIII. Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries

Jyotiḥśāstra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c10

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English

Contents

Chapter VIII. Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries

c10.2

Some early authors on *jyotiṣa*, such as Varāhamihira, Lalla, Śrīpati, and Bhojarāja, wrote works on several of this *śāstra*'s branches. In this chapter I wish to consider those who attempted to encompass the same diversity within one work.

c10.3

The earliest of such authors is a Buddhist Mahāsthavira from Śrīlaṅkā, Anavamadarśin Saṅgharāja¹ of the Hastavanagalya Mahāvihāra, who wrote his Daivajñakāmadhenu² during the reign of Parākramabāhu II (1236–1271), apparently in 1241. This deals with omens, *jātaka*, *muhūrta*, and *praśna*. Anavamadarśin's sources include Varāhamihira and Bhojarāja.

c10.4

¹ CESS A 1, 42b—43a, and A 3, 13a.

c10.5

² Edited by ŚILASKANDHA as BSS 25, Benares 1906.

c10.6

In 1315 the Jaina scholar Ṭhakkura Pherū³ composed in Prakrit at Kaṇṇāṇapura a Jyotiṣasāra⁴ on astronomy, *jātaka*, and *muhūrta*. To this is added a separate work on mathematics, the Gaṇitasāra,⁵ also in Prakrit.

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³ CESS A 3, 78a—78b, and A 4.

c10.8

⁴ Edited by AGARACANDA and B. NĀHAṬA, Ratnaparīkṣādisaptagranthasaṅgraha, as RPG 44, Jodhpur 1961, pt. 2, pp. 1—40.

c10.9

⁵ Ibid., pt. 2, pp. 41—74.

c10.10

The next work that ought to be placed in this category combines *jātaka* with *muhūrta*; it is Śrīnivāsa's Śuddhidīpikā.⁶ His date is a matter of great uncertainty, but he probably flourished in the fourteenth or fifteenth century. The earliest dated manuscript was copied in 1607; but a commentary, the Arthakaumudī, had been penned by Govindānanda Kavikaṅkaṇa⁷ nearly a century before. The Śuddhidīpikā was popular primarily in Bengal and Mithilā, so that this Śrīnivāsa probably lived in that area of India.

c10.11

⁶ Edited with Govindānanda's *ṭīkā* and a Bengālī translation, Calcutta 1883, 2nd ed. Calcutta 1901; with the same *ṭīkā*, Calcutta 1901 and Calcutta 1927; with KANHAIYĀLĀLA MIŚRA'S Hindī *ṭīkā*, Bombay 1906, reprinted Bombay 1936; and with an Oriyā translation, Cuttack 1964.

c10.12

⁷ CESS A 2, 144a—144b, and A 3, 35b.

c10.13

Śūramahāṭha Śivadāsa, (or Śivarāja), however, the author of the largest extant astrological *nibandha*, the Jyotirnibandha,⁸ probably lived in Mahārāṣṭra or Madhya Pradeśa. Though the edited text contains various additions from the seventeenth century⁹ (its relation to the revision by Kṛṣṇa,¹⁰ the Saṃhitā-sāra, has not been investigated), the earliest dated manuscript was copied in 1579 and the JN was cited by Pītāmbara and others earlier in the sixteenth century. Moreover, Śivadāsa (p. 25) mentions 1440 as the first year of a sixty-year cycle, which it was in the Northern Cycle. One must conclude, therefore, that he wrote in the latter half of the fifteenth century. His work is an extraordinarily rich collection of excerpts on all branches of astrology and some branches of divination from a wide range of named sources, many of which are no longer extant. A thorough investigation of Śivadāsa’s manuscripts and his sources would do much to illuminate the rather obscure history of Indian astrology outside of Gujarāt in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

c10.14

⁸ Published Benares, 1878, and edited by RAṄGANĀTHA VAIDYA as ASS 85, Poona 1919.

c10.15

⁹ S. L. KATRE, “Śivadāsa’s Jyotirnibandha: the Work and its Date,” NIA 5 (1942–43), 275–279.

c10.16

¹⁰ CESS A 2, 52b.

c10.17

The most extensive encyclopaedia of science conceived and executed in pre-modern India was the Toḍarānanda¹¹ in twenty-three saukhyas sponsored by Toḍaramalla,¹² an official in Akbar’s government from at least 1565 till his death in 1589. He entrusted the Jyautiṣasaukhya, the third section, along with several sections on branches of dharmaśāstra to Nīlakaṇṭha, who later wrote the far more influential Tājikanīlakaṇṭhī and Praśnakaumudī. Nīlakaṇṭha completed the Jyautiṣasaukhya in 1572; it contains three skandhas—on saṃhitā (omens), on gaṇita (astronomy; it is not known whether or not mathematics was included), and on horā (genethlialogy). There are also two saukhyas by Nīlakaṇṭha on muhūrta, one of which does not appear as part of Toḍaramalla’s plan as reconstructed; these are the Vivāhasaukhya and the Vāstusaukhya, which latter is saukhya 5. Judging from the quality of Nīlakaṇṭha’s published works these encyclopedic opera would be well worth investigating.

c10.18

¹¹ The first two saukhyas, entitled Sargasaukhya and Avatārasaukhya, were edited by P. L. VAIDYA, Ganga OS 5, Bikaner 1948.

c10.19

¹² CESS A 3, 77b–78a, and A 4.

c10.20

On a smaller scale Kṛpāśaṅkara¹³ composed a Jyotiṣedāra¹⁴ in 1627. This work has four āvalis: saṃhitā (including muhūrta) gaṇita (astronomy only), horā (jātaka and tājika), and praśna. There is a commentary by Cirañjīva Bhaṭṭa,¹⁵ who wrote a Rāmaprakāśa at Indurakhī, Gwalior, in 1647.

c10.21

¹³ CESS A 2, 49b–50a.

c10.22

¹⁴ I have used an incomplete manuscript, 1869 in the University of Pennsylvania.

c10.23

¹⁵ CESS A 3, 51a–51b.

c10.24

At about the same time Śuka composed a Jyotiṣasāra¹⁶ that is primarily on muhūrta, but includes a substantial amount of jātaka and praśna material. The earliest dated manuscript was copied in 1647. It was probably in the eighteenth century that someone claiming to be the great poet, Kālidāsa,¹⁷ wrote an Uttarakālāmṛta¹⁸ in South India as a supplement to Veṅkaṭa Yajvan’s popular Kālāmṛta. Ps.-Kālidāsa’s work concerns *jātaka* and *muhūrta*.

c10.25

¹⁶ Published with a Hindī ṭīkā, Bombay 1956.

c10.26

¹⁷ CESS A 2, 34b, and A 3, 19b.

c10.27

¹⁸ Published with a Telugu *ṭīkā*, Madras 1908; Cocanada 1926; with an English translation by V. SUBRAHMANYA SASTRI, Bangalore 1939, 2nd edition Bangalore 1951; and with JAGANNĀTHA BHASĪNA’S Hindi *ṭīkā*, Delhi 1971.

Kośa

c10.s1.1

Though various normal Sanskrit dictionaries contain definitions of terms used in astronomy and astrology (e.g., a large part of the first *khaṇḍa* of Amarasimha’s Liṅgānuśāsana), very few specialized dictionaries of such terms were produced. It appears that the only one describing the traditional Sanskrit vocabulary is Haridatta’s Gaṇitanāmamālā,¹⁹ of which the earliest dated manuscript was copied in 1697. Kṛṣṇadāsa,²⁰ a protégé of Akbar, wrote a Pārasīprakāśa²¹ in about 1575. This work consists of two parts: a Persian-Sanskrit dictionary (including terms relating to the heavens, to the directions, and to time), and a Persian grammar in Sanskrit. This, however, was entirely insufficient for translators of Persian astronomical and astrological works into Sanskrit; so, in 1643, Mālajit,²² who received the title Vedāṅgarāya from Shāh Jahān, wrote his Pārasīprakāśa at Śrīsthala in Gujarāt. In consideration of the numerous translations made from Persian and Arabic, both in the Mughal period and before, one must conclude that many other aids were available. The one that we are definitely informed of is the bilingual Muḥammad Ābidda who assisted Nayanasukhopādhyāya; and it should also be noted that many Persian technical terms used by al-Qūshjī are given their Sanskrit equivalents in the Hayatagrantha.

c10.s1.2

¹⁹ Published by MANNĀLĀLA PAṆḌITA in his Dvādaśakośānāṃ saṅgraha, Vārāṇasī 1865.

c10.s1.3

²⁰ CESS A 2, 57a–57b, and A 4.

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²¹ Edited by A. WEBER, “Über den Pārasīprakāça des Kṛṣṇadāsa,” AAWB (1887), Phil.-hist. Kl. 1, and “Über den zweiten, grammatischen, Pārasīprakāça des Kṛṣṇadāsa,” AAWB (1888), Phil.-hist. Kl. 3; and by V. BHAṬṬĀCĀRYA as SBG 95, Benares 1965.

c10.s1.5

²² CESS A 4.

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