[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Science, technology and education](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science) › [Jyotihshastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981) › c6.10.1 # Jyotihshastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c6.10.1 Jyotiḥśāstra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c6.10.1 - **Language:** English ### [c6.10.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c6.10.1) Much clearer is the transmission of Mesopotamian omen texts—both protases and apodoses—to India in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., for the contemporary Sanskrit and Prakrit literature is replete with references to and examples of such omens.⁸ They are related mainly to two cuneiform series: Šumma ālu,⁹ which deals with terrestrial omens affecting individuals, and Enūma Anu Enlil,¹⁰ which deals with atmospheric and celestial omens affecting countries or their rulers. The Buddha was represented in the Dīghanikāya (I 1, 24) as condemning the Brāhmaṇas who earn their living from the useless knowledge of omens, but, in a later Buddhist story, the Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna,¹¹ written probably in the first century A.D., the display by an outcaste of a knowledge of astral omens similar to those of Enūma Anu Enlil and of the mathematical astronomy adapted from Babylonia by Lagadha is used to establish the outcaste's equality with a Brāhmaṇa. The earliest version of this avadāna includes sections on the characteristics of the native born when the Moon is in each nakṣatra (61–62); the character and/or fate of an individual or people if a city is entered when the Moon is in each nakṣatra (pp. 62–67; in verse); a list of the countries and regions of India dominated by each nakṣatra (pp. 67–68); the affect on the country if the first rainfall in the last month of grīṣma (summer) occurs as the Moon is in each nakṣatra (pp. 68–79); what a lunar eclipse in each nakṣatra portends (pp. 79–81); - [Previous: c6.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c6.9) - [Next: c6.10.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c6.10.2) - [Up: c6.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c6.10) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c6.10.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c6.10.1) · Pramāṇa