Jyotihshastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c6.2

c6.2

Omens (*adbhuta*, *utpāta*, *nimitta*) have probably always been regarded by Indians, as by others, as a means of knowing the future. There are, for instance, various references in the Ṛgveda (II 42–43 and X 165) and in the Atharvaveda (VI 27–29 and VII 64) to an ominous bird (*śakuna*). But the earliest attempts¹ to list and classify omens and to provide their ritual countermeasures (*śānti*) occur in the Kauśikasūtra² (XIII = kaṇḍikās 93–136) of the Atharvaveda and the common source³ of the Adbhutabrāhmaṇa, which is adhyāya VI or V of the Ṣaḍvimśabrāhmaṇa,⁴ the Āśvalāyanagṛhyapariśiṣṭa⁵ (IV 11–22), and the Adbhutaśānti⁶ of the Atharvavedapariśiṣṭa. The omens in this latter source were associated with the seven deities Indra, Varuṇa, Yama, Agni, Vaiśravaṇa, Viṣṇu, and Vāyu, and involve phenomena occurring on the earth, in the atmosphere, and in the heavens. One cannot but be struck by the similarity of these omens with their *śānti* rituals to the Babylonian omens with their *namburbi* rituals, though no exact parallels exist since the Indian omens are without apodoses. It is possible, however, though not demonstrable, that the original of these three Sanskrit texts was at least in part dependent on a Mesopotamian prototype that reached India slightly before or after the Achaemenid occupation of Gandhāra in the sixth century B.C.⁷