[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) › c8.s1 # Jyotihshastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c8.s1: Yātrā Jyotiḥśāstra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c8.s1 - **Language:** English ### Yātrā ### [c8.s1.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.1) Military “astrology,” an aspect of catarchic astrology in which the Indian developments influenced the Syriac scholar, Theophilus of Edessa,⁵¹ in the eighth century and through him the later astrology of Islam, Byzantium, and Western Europe, began in India with the omens during the late first millennium B.C. It is found, then, in such texts as the GS (32–34) and in numerous other collections of omens, including the Narapatijayacaryā and other texts on svara, and regularly in treatises on muhūrta. Yātrā, which combines omens with real astrology, is also the subject of a section of the YJ (73–76); in the commentary thereon (vol. 2, pp. 389–393) a partial list of authorities on the subject, numbering fifty-six, was given. But here only the independent literature on the subject will be briefly considered. ### [c8.s1.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.2) ⁵¹ D. PINGREE in Viator 7 (1976), 148–149. ### [c8.s1.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.3) The earliest separate treatises on yātrā that we have are the three composed by Varāhamihira in the sixth century: the Ṭikanikayātrā,⁵² the Yogayātrā,⁵³ and the Bṛhadyātrā.⁵⁴ Verses from each of these works occur in the other two. In addition to the omens and astrology proper, the BY (18), following the lead of Sphujidhvaja (YJ 76, 66 and 77, 1), gives detailed instructions for the worship of the planets (grahayajña). Commentaries on the YY and the BY were composed by Bhaṭṭotpala in Kāśmīra in about 970, and on the BY by Sūryadeva at Gaṅgāpura in the early thirteenth century; of the two commentaries on the BY all that now survives seems to be a miserable fragment of Bhaṭṭotpala’s. Varāhamihira refers to Bādarāyaṇa⁵⁵ as one of his authorities, and Bhaṭṭotpala in his ṭīkā on the YY cites many verses from a Bādarāyaṇīyayātrā, of which a few manuscript copies are known.⁵⁶ ### [c8.s1.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.4) ⁵² Edited by V. K. PANDIT, “Ṭikanikayātrā of Varāhamihira,” JUB 20 (Arts 26) (1951), 40–63. ### [c8.s1.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.5) ⁵³ Adhyāyas 1–9 with a German translation were edited by H. KERN, “Die Yogayātrā des Varāhamihira,” IS 10 (1868), 161–212; 14 (1876), 312–358; and 15 ### [c8.s1.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.6) ⁵⁴ Edited with a fragment of Bhaṭṭotpala’s commentary by D. PINGREE, Madras 1972. ### [c8.s1.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.7) ⁵⁵ CESS A 4. ### [c8.s1.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.8) ⁵⁶ I have used PM 1313 in the Adyar Library and G 6412 in the Asiatic Society of Bengal. ### [c8.s1.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.9) After the tenth century, new literature on military astrology (aside from adhyāyas in muhūrta texts) seems to have followed the models of the Narapatijayacaryā and the Samarasāra rather than Varāhamihira; such seems to be the case, for example, with the Yuddhajayotsava of Gaṅgārāma,⁵⁷ and it is also to a large extent true of Kumāra Gaṇaka,⁵⁸ who wrote his Raṇadīpikā⁵⁹ in Kerala. As yet little is known of the Rājavijaya of Raṇahastin save that it was composed for a king named Mandana, the son of Hammīra, the son of Simhanadeva, and that the oldest dated manuscript was copied in 1600. Clearly Mandana is the Haihaya (Kalacuri) ruler of Ratnapura, Madanabrahman, the son of Ḍamghīra (?), the son of Siṃhaṇa, who is mentioned in the first Kosgain (Kosaṅga) Stone Inscription of his (Madanabrahman’s) great-grandson Vāharendra,⁶⁰ who ruled from about 1480 till about 1515. Raṇahastin, therefore, flourished at Ratanpur north of Bilāspur in Madhya Pradeśa in about 1400. ### [c8.s1.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.10) ⁵⁷ CESS A 2, 86a—86b. ### [c8.s1.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.11) ⁵⁸ CESS A 2, 46b, and A 4. ### [c8.s1.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.12) ⁵⁹ Edited K. SĀMBAŚIVA ŚĀSTRĪ as TSS 95, Trivandrum 1928. ### [c8.s1.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1.13) ⁶⁰ CII IV, Ootacamund 1955, pp. 557—563. ## Linked texts (6) - [Narapatijayacaryā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.astro.yatra.narapatijayacarya) — Narapati, Sanskrit - [Vṛddhayavanajātaka](https://indike.org/pramana/in.astro.hora.yavana.vrddhayavanajataka) — Mīnarāja, Sanskrit - [Bṛhadyātrā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.astro.yatra.brhadyatra) — Varāhamihira, Sanskrit - [Yogayātrā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.astro.yatra.yogayatra) — Varāhamihira, Sanskrit - [Raṇadīpikā](https://indike.org/pramana/in.astro.yatra.ranadipika) — Kumāra Gaṇaka 1625, Sanskrit - [Kosgain stone inscription (No. I) of Vāhara](https://indike.org/pramana/inp.epigraphy.central.kalacuri.kosgain-stone-inscription-no-i-of-vahara) — Sanskrit --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.science.pingree-1981.c8.s1) · Pramāṇa