[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) › c7.2 # Jyotihshastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c7.2 Jyotiḥśāstra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c7.2 - **Language:** English ### [c7.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c7.2) Though already as a part of divination Indians had for long predicted the characteristics of a native on the basis of the \*nakṣatra\* occupied by the Moon at his birth (e.g., \*Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna\*, pp. 61–62), the prediction of the life of the native on the basis of the horoscope cast at his birth—a science that was developed in Hellenistic Egypt in the second century B.C.—was introduced into India only in the second century A.D. In 149/150, probably at the court of the Western Kṣatrapa Rudradāman in Ujjayinī, a Greek manuscript of an astrological text composed in Egypt shortly after 100 A.D. was translated into Sanskrit prose by the head of the Greek community, who was entitled Yavaneśvara. Already in this translation the Hellenistic system had begun to be Hinduized—for instance, the pictures of the Decans and Hours that adorned the Greek manuscript were interpreted by Yavaneśvara in terms of the iconography of Śiva and Pārvatī.¹ Unfortunately, we no longer have Yavaneśvara's translation, but we do possess a very substantial portion of a versification of it made by the \*Yavana\*rāja Sphujidhvaja in 269/270, during the reign of the Western Kṣatrapa Rudrasena II. His \*Yavanajātaka\*² shows further signs of Hinduization; in particular one suspects that he was responsible for adding the chapter on reincarnation (YJ 43), the lists of minerals, plants, and animals that are influenced by āyurvedic materia medica (YJ 62), and the section on military astrology that is indebted to such sources as the GS (YJ 73–76). The original Greek system was of course further modified so that the predictions fit the social and economic expectations of people born in India, and Indian astrologers after Sphujidhvaja considerably developed genethlialogy by emphasizing some aspects at the expense of others or by creating new and more complex techniques of interpreting horoscopes; but basically all of \*jātaka\* before the introduction of \*tājika\* texts in the thirteenth century, and even most of \*jātaka\* after that, can be traced back to the \*Yavanajātaka\* and to the lost work of Satya, who had access to at least one other Sanskrit translation of a Greek text on genethlialogy besides the YJ. - [Previous: c7.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c7.1) - [Next: c7.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c7.3) - [Up: c7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c7) ## Linked texts (2) - [Vṛddhayavanajātaka](https://indike.org/pramana/in.astro.hora.yavana.vrddhayavanajataka) — Mīnarāja, Sanskrit - [Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.avadana.divyavadana.sardulakarnavadana) — Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c7.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c7.2) · Pramāṇa