158-509: Traditional Hindu astrology , also called Indian astrology , Jyotisha ( Sanskrit : ज्योतिष , romanized : jyotiṣa ; from jyót 'light, heavenly body') and, more recently, Vedic astrology , is the traditional Hindu system of astrology . It is one of the six auxiliary disciplines in Hinduism that is connected with the study of the Vedas . The Vedanga Jyotisha
316-628: A Bhavishya Purana passage according to which the term "Magadha" is a synonym of "Maga" and refers to "those who contemplate on the Maga". According to Shastri, Utpala has used the word "Magadha" to denote the Magas, who had been accepted as Shaka-dvipi (Maga) Brahmins in the Indian society. Shastri theorizes that "Varaha-mihira" may be a Sanskritized form of the Iranian name "Varaza-Mihr", and may refer to
474-514: A case which had challenged astrology's status as a science. As of 2014, despite continuing complaints by scientists, astrology continues to be taught at various universities in India, and there is a movement in progress to establish a national Vedic University to teach astrology together with the study of tantra , mantra , and yoga . Indian astrologers have consistently made claims that have been thoroughly debunked by skeptics. For example, although
632-644: A dead language in the most common usage of the term. Pollock's notion of the "death of Sanskrit" remains in this unclear realm between academia and public opinion when he says that "most observers would agree that, in some crucial way, Sanskrit is dead." Var%C4%81hamihira Varāhamihira ( c. 20/21 March 505 – c. 587), also called Varāha or Mihira , was a Hindu astrologer-astronomer who lived in or around Ujjain in present-day Madhya Pradesh , India. Unlike other prominent ancient Indian astronomers , Varāhamihira does not mention his date. However, based on hints in his works, modern scholars date him to
790-433: A focus on Indian philosophies and Sanskrit. Though written in a number of different scripts, the dominant language of Hindu texts has been Sanskrit. It or a hybrid form of Sanskrit became the preferred language of Mahayana Buddhism scholarship; for example, one of the early and influential Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (~200 CE), used Classical Sanskrit as the language for his texts. According to Renou, Sanskrit had
948-573: A half year. — Yajurveda Jyotisha-vedanga 8, Translator: Kim Plofker There are sixteen Varga ( Sanskrit : varga , 'part, division'), or divisional, charts used in Hindu astrology: The Nirayana, or sidereal zodiac , is an imaginary belt of 360 degrees, which, like the Sāyana, or tropical zodiac , is divided into 12 equal parts. Each part (of 30 degrees) is called a sign or rāśi ( Sanskrit : 'part'). Vedic (Jyotiṣa) and Western zodiacs differ in
1106-538: A language competed with numerous, less exact vernacular Indian languages called Prakritic languages ( prākṛta - ). The term prakrta literally means "original, natural, normal, artless", states Franklin Southworth . The relationship between Prakrit and Sanskrit is found in Indian texts dated to the 1st millennium CE. Patañjali acknowledged that Prakrit is the first language, one instinctively adopted by every child with all its imperfections and later leads to
1264-702: A legend mentioned in the Mihr Yasht of the Avesta . According to this legend, the god Verethraghna, in the form of a boar ( varaza ), precedes Mihr in his march. Shastri notes that the 5th century Sassanian monarch Bahram V bore the name Mihrvaraza, which is quite similar to Varahamihra. Academic J.E. Sanjana suggests that Varāhamihira was descended from an Iranian Magi priest. Some scholars, such as M.T. Patwardhan and A.N. Upadhye, have identified Varāhamihira with Bazurjmehr, mentioned in Firishta 's writings as
1422-658: A limited role in the Theravada tradition (formerly known as the Hinayana) but the Prakrit works that have survived are of doubtful authenticity. Some of the canonical fragments of the early Buddhist traditions, discovered in the 20th century, suggest the early Buddhist traditions used an imperfect and reasonably good Sanskrit, sometimes with a Pali syntax, states Renou. The Mahāsāṃghika and Mahavastu, in their late Hinayana forms, used hybrid Sanskrit for their literature. Sanskrit
1580-571: A minister of the Sasanian king Khusraw Nushirwan (r. 531-578). However, A.M. Shastri dismisses this theory as unconvincing. There are several historically inaccurate legends about the ancestry of Varāhamihira: Kapitthaka, where Varāhamihira studied, was probably his birthplace. While "Kapitthaka" is the most popular reading the place's name, several variants of this name appear in various manuscripts, including Kampilyaka, Kapilaka, Kapishthala, and Kapishkala. Utpala suggests that this village had
1738-472: A much larger number of verses to the Sun. His commentator Utpala credits his sharp intellect to a boon by the Sun. Some later writers describe him as an incarnation of the Sun god. Utpala, for example, declares that the Sun descended on earth in the form of Varāhamihira to save the jyotisha-shastra from destruction. The Subhashita-ratna-kosha quotes stanzas that praise Varāhamihira as an incarnation of Vishnu and
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#17327754236921896-454: A natural part of the earliest Vedic language, and that these developed in the centuries after the composition had been completed, and as a gradual unconscious process during the oral transmission by generations of reciters. The primary source for this argument is internal evidence of the text which betrays an instability of the phenomenon of retroflexion, with the same phrases having sandhi-induced retroflexion in some parts but not other. This
2054-479: A negative evidence to Pollock's hypothesis, but it is not positive evidence. A closer look at Sanskrit in the Indian history after the 12th century suggests that Sanskrit survived despite the odds. According to Hanneder, On a more public level the statement that Sanskrit is a dead language is misleading, for Sanskrit is quite obviously not as dead as other dead languages and the fact that it is spoken, written and read will probably convince most people that it cannot be
2212-546: A pan-Indo-Aryan accessibility to information and knowledge in the ancient and medieval times, in contrast to the Prakrit languages which were understood just regionally. It created a cultural bond across the subcontinent. As local languages and dialects evolved and diversified, Sanskrit served as the common language. It connected scholars from distant parts of South Asia such as Tamil Nadu and Kashmir, states Deshpande, as well as those from different fields of studies, though there must have been differences in its pronunciation given
2370-489: A person's life. Rahu and Ketu correspond to the points where the moon crosses the ecliptic plane (known as the ascending and descending nodes of the moon). Classically known in Indian and Western astrology as the "head and tail of the dragon", these planets are represented as a serpent-bodied demon beheaded by the Sudarshan Chakra of Vishnu after attempting to swallow the sun. They are primarily used to calculate
2528-429: A position among the sciences in modern India . India's University Grants Commission and Ministry of Human Resource Development decided to introduce "Jyotir Vigyan" (i.e. jyotir vijñāna ) or "Vedic astrology" as a discipline of study in Indian universities, stating that "vedic astrology is not only one of the main subjects of our traditional and classical knowledge but this is the discipline, which lets us know
2686-578: A refined and standardized grammatical form that emerged in the mid-1st millennium BCE and was codified in the most comprehensive of ancient grammars, the Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight chapters') of Pāṇini . The greatest dramatist in Sanskrit, Kālidāsa , wrote in classical Sanskrit, and the foundations of modern arithmetic were first described in classical Sanskrit. The two major Sanskrit epics, the Mahābhārata and
2844-538: A restrained language from which archaisms and unnecessary formal alternatives were excluded". The Classical form of the language simplified the sandhi rules but retained various aspects of the Vedic language, while adding rigor and flexibilities, so that it had sufficient means to express thoughts as well as being "capable of responding to the future increasing demands of an infinitely diversified literature", according to Renou. Pāṇini included numerous "optional rules" beyond
3002-570: A result of the precession of the equinoxes , the origin of the ecliptic longitude has shifted by about 30 degrees. As a result, the placement of planets in the Jyotiṣa system is roughly aligned with the constellations, while tropical astrology is based on the solstices and equinoxes. Unlike Western astrology, Hindu astrology usually disregards Uranus (which rules Aquarius), Neptune (which rules Pisces), and Pluto (which rules Scorpio). The nakshatras or lunar mansions are 27 equal divisions of
3160-401: A roundabout way, states Plofker, after the arrival of Greek astrology ideas in India. The Jyotisha texts present mathematical formulae to predict the length of day time, sun rise and moon cycles. For example, Water clock A prastha of water [is] the increase in day, [and] decrease in night in the [sun's] northern motion; vice versa in the southern. [There is] a six-muhurta [difference] in
3318-496: A royal patron. Several scholars theorize that Varāhamihira came from a Brahminized family of the sun-worshipping Magi priests (see Ancestry above). He was a worshipper of the sun god Savitur , and stated that he had received all his knowledge by the grace of this god. For example, in Brhaj-jataka , he states that he was able to compose the text because of a boon by the Sun. While he mentions other deities, he devotes
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#17327754236923476-553: A rudimentary level. Technical horoscopes and astrology ideas in India came from Greece and developed in the early centuries of the 1st millennium CE. Later medieval era texts such as the Yavana-jataka and the Siddhanta texts are more astrology-related. The field of Jyotisha deals with ascertaining time, particularly forecasting auspicious day and time for Vedic rituals. The field of Vedanga structured time into Yuga which
3634-439: A similar phonetic structure to Tamil. Hock et al. quoting George Hart state that there was influence of Old Tamil on Sanskrit. Hart compared Old Tamil and Classical Sanskrit to arrive at a conclusion that there was a common language from which these features both derived – "that both Tamil and Sanskrit derived their shared conventions, metres, and techniques from a common source, for it is clear that neither borrowed directly from
3792-483: A sun temple. According to one theory, Kapitthaka is the modern Kayatha , an archaeological site near Ujjain. Statues of the sun deity Surya (whom Varāhamihira worshipped) dated 600-900 CE have been found there, and kapittha trees are abundant in and around Kayatha. However, no historical source suggests that Kapitthaka was another name for Kayatha. According to another theory, Kapitthaka is same as Sankissa (ancient Sankashya) in present-day Uttar Pradesh: according to
3950-711: Is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages . It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late Bronze Age . Sanskrit is the sacred language of Hinduism , the language of classical Hindu philosophy , and of historical texts of Buddhism and Jainism . It was a link language in ancient and medieval South Asia, and upon transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia, East Asia and Central Asia in
4108-479: Is a pseudoscience and has consistently failed experimental and theoretical verification. Jyotisha, states Monier-Williams, is rooted in the word Jyotish, which means light, such as that of the sun or the moon or heavenly body. The term Jyotisha includes the study of astronomy , astrology and the science of timekeeping using the movements of astronomical bodies. It aimed to keep time, maintain calendars, and predict auspicious times for Vedic rituals. Jyotiṣa
4266-433: Is a literary forgery, and is dated variously from 12th-18th century. Varāhamihira definitely did not live in the same century as some of the purported "Navaratnas", such as the much older Kalidasa . Much of the undisputed information about the life of Varāhamihira comes from a stanza in his Brhaj-jataka . According to this stanza, he was a resident of Avanti , was a son of Aditya-dasa, and studied at Kapitthaka through
4424-516: Is akin to that of Latin and Ancient Greek in Europe. Sanskrit has significantly influenced most modern languages of the Indian subcontinent , particularly the languages of the northern, western, central and eastern Indian subcontinent. Sanskrit declined starting about and after the 13th century. This coincides with the beginning of Islamic invasions of South Asia to create, and thereafter expand
4582-506: Is an aspect to an entire house. Grahas cast only forward aspects, with the furthest aspect being considered the strongest. For example, Jupiter aspects the 5th, 7th and 9th house from its position, Mars aspects the 4th, 7th, and 8th houses from its position, and its 8th house. Sanskrit language Sanskrit ( / ˈ s æ n s k r ɪ t / ; attributively 𑀲𑀁𑀲𑁆𑀓𑀾𑀢𑀁 , संस्कृत- , saṃskṛta- ; nominally संस्कृतम् , saṃskṛtam , IPA: [ˈsɐ̃skr̩tɐm] )
4740-622: Is based are early medieval compilations, notably the Bṛhat Parāśara Horāśāstra , and Sārāvalī by Kalyāṇavarma . The Horāshastra is a composite work of 71 chapters, of which the first part (chapters 1–51) dates to the 7th to early 8th centuries and the second part (chapters 52–71) to the later 8th century. The Sārāvalī likewise dates to around 800 CE. English translations of these texts were published by N. N. Krishna Rau and V. B. Choudhari in 1963 and 1961, respectively. Astrology remains an important facet of folk belief in
4898-433: Is because according to Amaraja, the author of a commentary on Brahmagupta 's Khanda-khadyaka , Varāhamihira died in 587 CE (Shaka year 509). If Varāhamihira wrote his work in 505 CE even at the young age of 25, he must have been over 105 years old at the time of his death, which seems exceptionally high to these scholars. Consequently, these scholars consider date Varāhamihira's lifespan to 505-587 CE. Other scholars doubt
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5056-583: Is believed that the daśā largely governs the state of being of a person. The Daśā system shows which planets may be said to have become particularly active during the period of the Daśā. The ruling planet (the Daśānātha or 'lord of the Daśā') eclipses the mind of the person, compelling him or her to act per the nature of the planet. There are several dasha systems, each with its own utility and area of application. There are Daśās of grahas (planets) as well as Daśās of
5214-489: Is called gochara ( Sanskrit : gochara , 'transit'). The study of transits is based on the transit of the Moon (Chandra), which spans roughly two days, and also on the movement of Mercury (Budha) and Venus (Śukra) across the celestial sphere, which is relatively fast as viewed from Earth. The movement of the slower planets – Jupiter (Guru), Saturn (Śani) and Rāhu–Ketu — is always of considerable importance. Astrologers study
5372-452: Is found in the writing of Bharata Muni , the author of the ancient Natya Shastra text. The early Jain scholar Namisādhu acknowledged the difference, but disagreed that the Prakrit language was a corruption of Sanskrit. Namisādhu stated that the Prakrit language was the pūrvam ('came before, origin') and that it came naturally to children, while Sanskrit was a refinement of Prakrit through "purification by grammar". Sanskrit belongs to
5530-763: Is interpreted as " Dvija (Brahmana) of Magadha"; instead "Magadha" here means Maga , as attested by the Bhavishya Purana . Besides the above-mentioned stanza, Varāhamihira's association with Avanti is confirmed by other evidence: in Pancha-siddhantika , he calls himself Avantyaka ("of Avanti"), and the later commentators such as Utpala and Mahidhara describe him as Avantikacharya (" acharya of Avanti"). Utpala also describes Varāhamihira's son Prthu-yashas as Avantikacharya, in his commentary on Shat-panchashika . Historian Ajay Mitra Shastri , relying on Utpala, believes that "Avanti" here refers to
5688-428: Is now taken to mean the planet , originally meant demon. The Ṛigveda also mentions an eclipse-causing demon, Svarbhānu . However, the specific term graha was not applied to Svarbhānu until the later Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa . The foundation of Hindu astrology is the notion of bandhu of the Vedas (scriptures), which is the connection between the microcosm and the macrocosm. The practice relies primarily on
5846-521: Is often mistakenly thought to be a single work and attributed to Paul of Alexandria (c. 378 CE). However, this notion has been rejected by other scholars in the field, notably by David Pingree who stated that "...the identification of Paulus Alexandrinus with the author of the Pauliṣa Siddhānta is totally false". A number of his writings share similarities with the earlier texts like Vedanga Jyotisha . Some scholars consider Varāhamihira to be
6004-555: Is one of the Vedāṅga , the six auxiliary disciplines used to support Vedic rituals. Early jyotiṣa is concerned with the preparation of a calendar to determine dates for sacrificial rituals, with nothing written regarding planets. There are mentions of eclipse -causing "demons" in the Atharvaveda and Chāndogya Upaniṣad , the latter mentioning Rāhu (a shadow entity believed responsible for eclipses and meteors). The term graha , which
6162-407: Is one of the earliest texts about astronomy within the Vedas . Some scholars believe that the horoscopic astrology practised in the Indian subcontinent came from Hellenistic influences. However, this is a point of intense debate, and other scholars believe that Jyotisha developed independently, although it may have interacted with Greek astrology . The scientific consensus is that astrology
6320-532: Is rare in the later version of the language. The Homerian Greek, like Ṛg-vedic Sanskrit, deploys simile extensively, but they are structurally very different. The early Vedic form of the Sanskrit language was far less homogenous compared to the Classical Sanskrit as defined by grammarians by about the mid-1st millennium BCE. According to Richard Gombrich—an Indologist and a scholar of Sanskrit, Pāli and Buddhist Studies—the archaic Vedic Sanskrit found in
6478-479: Is taken along with evidence of controversy, for example, in passages of the Aitareya-Āraṇyaka (700 BCE), which features a discussion on whether retroflexion is valid in particular cases. The Ṛg-veda is a collection of books, created by multiple authors. These authors represented different generations, and the mandalas 2 to 7 are the oldest while the mandalas 1 and 10 are relatively the youngest. Yet,
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6636-493: Is the Abhiśeka Nakṣatra, which is held as king over the other nakṣatras. Worshipping and gaining favour over this nakṣhatra is said to give power to remedy all the other nakṣatras, and is of concern in predictive astrology and mitigating Karma. The junction of two Râshis as well as Nakshatras is known as Gandanta. The word dasha ( Devanāgarī : दशा, Sanskrit , daśā , 'planetary period') means 'state of being' and it
6794-589: Is the predominant language of one of the largest collection of historic manuscripts. The earliest known inscriptions in Sanskrit are from the 1st century BCE, such as the Ayodhya Inscription of Dhana and Ghosundi-Hathibada (Chittorgarh) . Though developed and nurtured by scholars of orthodox schools of Hinduism, Sanskrit has been the language for some of the key literary works and theology of heterodox schools of Indian philosophies such as Buddhism and Jainism. The structure and capabilities of
6952-540: The Bhagavata Purana , the Panchatantra and many other texts are all in the Sanskrit language. The Classical Sanskrit with its exacting grammar was thus the language of the Indian scholars and the educated classes, while others communicated with approximate or ungrammatical variants of it as well as other natural Indian languages. Sanskrit, as the learned language of Ancient India, thus existed alongside
7110-580: The Dalai Lama , the Sanskrit language is a parent language that is at the foundation of many modern languages of India and the one that promoted Indian thought to other distant countries. In Tibetan Buddhism, states the Dalai Lama, Sanskrit language has been a revered one and called legjar lhai-ka or "elegant language of the gods". It has been the means of transmitting the "profound wisdom of Buddhist philosophy" to Tibet. The Sanskrit language created
7268-613: The Indo-European family of languages . It is one of the three earliest ancient documented languages that arose from a common root language now referred to as Proto-Indo-European : Other Indo-European languages distantly related to Sanskrit include archaic and Classical Latin ( c. 600 BCE–100 CE, Italic languages ), Gothic (archaic Germanic language , c. 350 CE ), Old Norse ( c. 200 CE and after), Old Avestan ( c. late 2nd millennium BCE ) and Younger Avestan ( c. 900 BCE). The closest ancient relatives of Vedic Sanskrit in
7426-616: The Magadha region. According to another theory, the word "Magadha" in this context refers to the sun-worshipping Maga cult that Varāhamihira was a part of. In his Brhat-samhita , Varāhamihira mentions that the Magas were the only people suitable for consecrating an image of the Sun god. The Magas, as they came to be known in India, originated from the Magi priests of the Achaemenid Empire . Historian Ajay Mitra Shastri cites
7584-753: The Rigveda had already evolved in the Vedic period, as evidenced in the later Vedic literature. Gombrich posits that the language in the early Upanishads of Hinduism and the late Vedic literature approaches Classical Sanskrit, while the archaic Vedic Sanskrit had by the Buddha 's time become unintelligible to all except ancient Indian sages. The formalization of the Saṃskṛta language is credited to Pāṇini , along with Patañjali's Mahābhāṣya and Katyayana's commentary that preceded Patañjali's work. Panini composed Aṣṭādhyāyī ('Eight-Chapter Grammar'), which became
7742-532: The Rigveda , a collection of 1,028 hymns composed between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE by Indo-Aryan tribes migrating east from the mountains of what is today northern Afghanistan across northern Pakistan and into northwestern India. Vedic Sanskrit interacted with the preexisting ancient languages of the subcontinent, absorbing names of newly encountered plants and animals; in addition, the ancient Dravidian languages influenced Sanskrit's phonology and syntax. Sanskrit can also more narrowly refer to Classical Sanskrit ,
7900-531: The Rāmāyaṇa , however, were composed in a range of oral storytelling registers called Epic Sanskrit which was used in northern India between 400 BCE and 300 CE, and roughly contemporary with classical Sanskrit. In the following centuries, Sanskrit became tradition-bound, stopped being learned as a first language, and ultimately stopped developing as a living language. The hymns of the Rigveda are notably similar to
8058-522: The Saptarishis and Garga . According to Shastri, this, combined with the fact that both Dravya-vardhana and Varāhamihira lived in Avanti, suggests that Dravya-vardhana was the royal patron of Varāhamihira. Shastri theorizes that Dravya-vardhana was a successor of Yashodharman alias Vishnu-vardhana, who may have also been a patron of Varāhamihira. Some other historians identify Dravya-vardhana with
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#17327754236928216-634: The Supreme Court of India stated that the introduction of astrology to university curricula is "a giant leap backwards, undermining whatever scientific credibility the country has achieved so far". In 2004, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition, concluding that the teaching of astrology did not qualify as the promotion of religion. In February 2011, the Bombay High Court referred to the 2004 Supreme Court ruling when it dismissed
8374-406: The sandhi rules, both internal and external. Quite many words found in the early Vedic Sanskrit language are never found in late Vedic Sanskrit or Classical Sanskrit literature, while some words have different and new meanings in Classical Sanskrit when contextually compared to the early Vedic Sanskrit literature. Arthur Macdonell was among the early colonial era scholars who summarized some of
8532-525: The sidereal zodiac , which differs from the tropical zodiac used in Western (Hellenistic) astrology in that an ayanāṃśa adjustment is made for the gradual precession of the vernal equinox . Hindu astrology includes several nuanced sub-systems of interpretation and prediction with elements not found in Hellenistic astrology, such as its system of lunar mansions ( Nakṣatra ). It was only after
8690-500: The verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- is a compound word consisting of sáṃ ('together, good, well, perfected') and kṛta - ('made, formed, work'). It connotes a work that has been "well prepared, pure and perfect, polished, sacred". According to Biderman, the perfection contextually being referred to in the etymological origins of the word is its tonal—rather than semantic—qualities. Sound and oral transmission were highly valued qualities in ancient India, and its sages refined
8848-435: The 11th-century writer Kshemendra describes him as a great poet. He apparently wrote a set of two works - detailed and short - in the following areas: The chronological order of some of these works can be determined based on the internal evidence and Utpala's commentary. In order or earliest to latest, these works are: Laghu-jataka states that it was written after Brhaj-jataka , and Utpala's commentary states that it
9006-414: The 13th century, a premier center of Sanskrit literary creativity, Sanskrit literature there disappeared, perhaps in the "fires that periodically engulfed the capital of Kashmir" or the "Mongol invasion of 1320" states Pollock. The Sanskrit literature which was once widely disseminated out of the northwest regions of the subcontinent, stopped after the 12th century. As Hindu kingdoms fell in the eastern and
9164-672: The 6th century CE; possibly, he also lived during the last years of the 5th century. In his Pancha-siddhantika , Varāhamihira refers to the year 427 of the Shaka-kala (also Shakendra-kala or Shaka-bhupa-kala ). Identifying this calendar era with the Shaka era places Varāhamihira in the 505 CE. Alternative theories identify this calendar era with other eras, placing him before the 5th century CE. However, these theories are inaccurate, as Varāhamihira must have lived after Aryabhata (born 476 CE), whose work he refers to. The particulars of
9322-532: The 7th century where he established a major center of learning and language translation under the patronage of Emperor Taizong. By the early 1st millennium CE, Sanskrit had spread Buddhist and Hindu ideas to Southeast Asia, parts of the East Asia and the Central Asia. It was accepted as a language of high culture and the preferred language by some of the local ruling elites in these regions. According to
9480-597: The 7th-century Chinese traveler Xuanzang , this town was also known as Kah-pi-t'a. Historian Ajay Mitra Shastri notes that Kah-pi-t'a is phonetically similar to Kapittha or Kapitthaka. Based on the term "Magadha-dvija" (see above), Sudhakara Dvivedi suggests that Varāhamihira was born and brought up in Magadha, and later migrated to Ujjain. Ajay Mitra Shastri disputes this, noting that Utpala describes him as "Avantikacharya" ( Acharya of Avanti ) and "Magadha-dvija": these two terms cannot be reconciled if "Magadha-dvija"
9638-425: The Classical Sanskrit language launched ancient Indian speculations about "the nature and function of language", what is the relationship between words and their meanings in the context of a community of speakers, whether this relationship is objective or subjective, discovered or is created, how individuals learn and relate to the world around them through language, and about the limits of language? They speculated on
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#17327754236929796-532: The Dravidian languages borrowed from Sanskrit vocabulary, but they have also affected Sanskrit on deeper levels of structure, "for instance in the domain of phonology where Indo-Aryan retroflexes have been attributed to Dravidian influence". Similarly, Ferenc Ruzca states that all the major shifts in Indo-Aryan phonetics over two millennia can be attributed to the constant influence of a Dravidian language with
9954-521: The Dravidian words and forms, without modifying the word order; but the same thing is not possible in rendering a Persian or English sentence into a non-Indo-Aryan language. Shulman mentions that "Dravidian nonfinite verbal forms (called vinaiyeccam in Tamil) shaped the usage of the Sanskrit nonfinite verbs (originally derived from inflected forms of action nouns in Vedic). This particularly salient case of
10112-573: The Greeks") was translated from Greek to Sanskrit by Yavaneśvara during the 2nd century CE, and is considered the first Indian astrological treatise in the Sanskrit language. However the only version that survives is the verse version of Sphujidhvaja which dates to AD 270. The first Indian astronomical text to define the weekday was the Āryabhaṭīya of Āryabhaṭa (born AD 476). According to Michio Yano, Indian astronomers must have been occupied with
10270-476: The Indo-Aryan language underwent rapid linguistic change and morphed into the Vedic Sanskrit language. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit . The earliest attested Sanskrit text is the Rigveda , a Hindu scripture from the mid- to late-second millennium BCE. No written records from such an early period survive, if any ever existed, but scholars are generally confident that
10428-519: The Indo-European languages are the Nuristani languages found in the remote Hindu Kush region of northeastern Afghanistan and northwestern Himalayas, as well as the extinct Avestan and Old Persian – both are Iranian languages . Sanskrit belongs to the satem group of the Indo-European languages. Colonial era scholars familiar with Latin and Greek were struck by the resemblance of
10586-607: The Lagna, the two being a Keṅdra ('angular house'—first, fourth, seventh and tenth houses) and Trikona Bhāva respectively. Dhana Yogas are formed by the association of wealth-giving planets such as the Dhaneśa or the 2nd Lord and the Lābheśa or the 11th Lord from the Lagna. Dhana Yogas are also formed due to the auspicious placement of the Dārāpada (from dara , 'spouse' and pada , 'foot'—one of
10744-518: The Lords of the Trikona ('trines', 120 degrees—first, fifth and ninth houses). The Rāja yogas are culminations of the blessings of Viṣṇu and Lakṣmī. Some planets, such as Mars for Leo Lagna, do not need another graha (or Navagraha , 'planet') to create Rājayoga , but are capable of giving Rājayoga by themselves due to their own lordship of the 4th Bhāva ('astrological house') and the 9th Bhāva from
10902-532: The Muslim rule in the form of Sultanates, and later the Mughal Empire . Sheldon Pollock characterises the decline of Sanskrit as a long-term "cultural, social, and political change". He dismisses the idea that Sanskrit declined due to "struggle with barbarous invaders", and emphasises factors such as the increasing attractiveness of vernacular language for literary expression. With the fall of Kashmir around
11060-496: The Muslim rulers. Hindu rulers such as Shivaji of the Maratha Empire , reversed the process, by re-adopting Sanskrit and re-asserting their socio-linguistic identity. After Islamic rule disintegrated in South Asia and the colonial rule era began, Sanskrit re-emerged but in the form of a "ghostly existence" in regions such as Bengal. This decline was the result of "political institutions and civic ethos" that did not support
11218-643: The Rāśis (zodiac signs). The primary system used by astrologers is the Viṁśottarī Daśā system, which has been considered universally applicable in the Kali Yuga to all horoscopes. The first Mahā-Daśā is determined by the position of the natal Moon in a given Nakṣatra. The lord of the Nakṣatra governs the Daśā. Each Mahā-Dāśā is divided into sub-periods called bhuktis , or antar-daśās , which are proportional divisions of
11376-499: The Saṃskṛta language, both in its vocabulary and grammar, to the classical languages of Europe. In The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World , Mallory and Adams illustrate the resemblance with the following examples of cognate forms (with the addition of Old English for further comparison): The correspondences suggest some common root, and historical links between some of
11534-638: The South India, such as the great Vijayanagara Empire , so did Sanskrit. There were exceptions and short periods of imperial support for Sanskrit, mostly concentrated during the reign of the tolerant Mughal emperor Akbar . Muslim rulers patronized the Middle Eastern language and scripts found in Persia and Arabia, and the Indians linguistically adapted to this Persianization to gain employment with
11692-602: The Sun in the opening stanza of his work Shatpanchashikha . Varāhamihira was well-versed with the Vedic tradition . He recommends the performance of several ancient Hindu rituals such as Punyaham and chanting of Vedic hymns . Varāhamihira praises Vishnu in the chapters 42 and 104 of Brhat-samhita, leading A.N.S. Aiyangar and K.V.R Aiyangar to speculate that he came in contact with the Shrivaishnava saints (Alvars); however, A.M. Shastri dismisses this theory, describing
11850-425: The Sun, presumably because of two parts of his name ( varaha referring to an avatar of Vishnu, and mihira meaning sun). Sun worship seems to have been his family's religion, as his father Aditya-dasa's name literally means "slave (or servant) of the Sun". Kutuhula-manjari , a later text, suggests that Varāhamihira was born to Aditya-dasa by the blessings of the Sun. Varāhamihira's son Prthu-yashas also invokes
12008-447: The Vedic Sanskrit in these books of the Ṛg-veda "hardly presents any dialectical diversity", states Louis Renou – an Indologist known for his scholarship of the Sanskrit literature and the Ṛg-veda in particular. According to Renou, this implies that the Vedic Sanskrit language had a "set linguistic pattern" by the second half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Beyond the Ṛg-veda, the ancient literature in Vedic Sanskrit that has survived into
12166-451: The Vedic Sanskrit's bahulam framework, to respect liberty and creativity so that individual writers separated by geography or time would have the choice to express facts and their views in their own way, where tradition followed competitive forms of the Sanskrit language. The phonetic differences between Vedic Sanskrit and Classical Sanskrit, as discerned from the current state of the surviving literature, are negligible when compared to
12324-483: The Yajurveda recension has 43 verses of which 29 verses are borrowed from the Rigveda. The Rigveda version is variously attributed to sage Lagadha, and sometimes to sage Shuci. The Yajurveda version credits no particular sage, has survived into the modern era with a commentary of Somakara, and is the more studied version. The Jyotisha text Brahma-siddhanta , probably composed in the 5th century CE, discusses how to use
12482-453: The accuracy of Amaraja's statement, since he lived a thousand years after Varāhamihira. According to a historically inaccurate tradition, Varāhamihira was associated with the first century BCE legendary emperor Vikramaditya . This tradition is based on Jyotirvid-abharana , a work attributed to Kalidasa , which states that Varāhamihira (along with Kalidasa) was one of the navaratnas ("nine gems") at Vikramaditya's court. However, this text
12640-407: The alphabet, the structure of words, and its exacting grammar into a "collection of sounds, a kind of sublime musical mold" as an integral language they called Saṃskṛta . From the late Vedic period onwards, state Annette Wilke and Oliver Moebus, resonating sound and its musical foundations attracted an "exceptionally large amount of linguistic, philosophical and religious literature" in India. Sound
12798-400: The boon of the sun god. Varāhamihira's father Aditya-dasa likely trained him in jyotisha (Indian astrology and astronomy ), as suggested by the Brhaj-jataka stanza and the opening stanza of Pancha-siddhantika . Varāhamihira's commentator Utpala calls him "Magadha-dvija". According to one interpretation, this means that Varāhamihira was Brahmana ( dvija ), whose ancestors belonged to
12956-440: The capacity to understand the old Prakrit languages such as Ardhamagadhi . A section of European scholars state that Sanskrit was never a spoken language. However, evidences shows that Sanskrit was a spoken language, essential for oral tradition that preserved the vast number of Sanskrit manuscripts from ancient India. The textual evidence in the works of Yaksa, Panini, and Patanajali affirms that Classical Sanskrit in their era
13114-615: The city of Ujjayini in the Avanti region of central India. Scholar Dániel Balogh, however, notes that Avanti here may refer to the city of Ujjayini or the Avanti region in general: there is no concrete evidence that Varāhamihira lived in the city; he may have lived elsewhere in Avanti. Varāhamihira likely lived in the Aulikara kingdom, as the Aulikaras ruled Avanti in the 6th century CE. Varāhamihira's Brhat-samhita states that on
13272-527: The close relationship between the Indo-Iranian tongues and the Baltic and Slavic languages , vocabulary exchange with the non-Indo-European Uralic languages , and the nature of the attested Indo-European words for flora and fauna. The pre-history of Indo-Aryan languages which preceded Vedic Sanskrit is unclear and various hypotheses place it over a fairly wide limit. According to Thomas Burrow, based on
13430-433: The contemporary lives of many Hindus . In Hindu culture , newborns are traditionally named based on their jyotiṣa charts ( Kundali ), and astrological concepts are pervasive in the organization of the calendar and holidays, and in making major decisions such as those about marriage, opening a new business, or moving into a new home. Many Hindus believe that heavenly bodies, including the planets, have an influence throughout
13588-614: The context of a speech or language, is found in verses 5.28.17–19 of the Ramayana . Outside the learned sphere of written Classical Sanskrit, vernacular colloquial dialects ( Prakrits ) continued to evolve. Sanskrit co-existed with numerous other Prakrit languages of ancient India. The Prakrit languages of India also have ancient roots and some Sanskrit scholars have called these Apabhramsa , literally 'spoiled'. The Vedic literature includes words whose phonetic equivalent are not found in other Indo-European languages but which are found in
13746-653: The crystallization of Classical Sanskrit. As in this period the Indo-Aryan tribes had not yet made contact with the inhabitants of the South of the subcontinent, this suggests a significant presence of Dravidian speakers in North India (the central Gangetic plain and the classical Madhyadeśa) who were instrumental in this substratal influence on Sanskrit. Extant manuscripts in Sanskrit number over 30 million, one hundred times those in Greek and Latin combined, constituting
13904-585: The date mentioned by Varāhamihira - Shukla pratipada of the Chaitra month of the Shaka year 427 - align accurately with 20-21 March 505 CE. Al-Biruni also places Varāhamihira in 505 CE. In accordance with the contemporary tradition, 505 CE was most probably the year in which Varāhamihira composed Pancha-Siddhantaka or began planning it. However, some scholars believe that it was the year of Varāhamihira's birth or of another important event in his life. This
14062-449: The dates of eclipses. They are described as "shadow planets" because they are not visible in the night sky. Rahu and Ketu have an orbital cycle of 18 years and they are always retrograde in motion and 180 degrees from each other. A natal chart shows the position of the grahas at the moment of birth. Since that moment, the grahas have continued to move around the zodiac, interacting with the natal chart grahas. This period of interaction
14220-467: The detailed and sophisticated treatise then transmitted it through his students. Modern scholarship generally accepts that he knew of a form of writing, based on references to words such as Lipi ('script') and lipikara ('scribe') in section 3.2 of the Aṣṭādhyāyī . The Classical Sanskrit language formalized by Pāṇini, states Renou, is "not an impoverished language", rather it is "a controlled and
14378-471: The differences between the Vedic and Classical Sanskrit. Louis Renou published in 1956, in French, a more extensive discussion of the similarities, the differences and the evolution of the Vedic Sanskrit within the Vedic period and then to the Classical Sanskrit along with his views on the history. This work has been translated by Jagbans Balbir. The earliest known use of the word Saṃskṛta (Sanskrit), in
14536-460: The distant major ancient languages of the world. The Indo-Aryan migrations theory explains the common features shared by Sanskrit and other Indo-European languages by proposing that the original speakers of what became Sanskrit arrived in South Asia from a region of common origin, somewhere north-west of the Indus region , during the early 2nd millennium BCE. Evidence for such a theory includes
14694-605: The earlier Aulikara ruler Drapa-vardhana . Shastri disputes this, arguing that Varāhamihira describes Dravya-vardhana as a maharajadhiraja (emperor), while the Rīsthal inscription describes Drapa-vardhana as a senapati (commander). Balogh disagrees with Shastri, noting that Varāhamihira actually uses the term nrpo maharajadhiraja-kah ( nrpa or ruler "connected to the emperor") for the king, which Shastri has misunderstood as maharajadhirajah (emperor). Only one manuscript reads maharajadhirajah , which can be discarded as it doesn't fit
14852-490: The early medieval era, it became a language of religion and high culture , and of the political elites in some of these regions. As a result, Sanskrit had a lasting impact on the languages of South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia, especially in their formal and learned vocabularies. Sanskrit generally connotes several Old Indo-Aryan language varieties. The most archaic of these is the Vedic Sanskrit found in
15010-532: The events happening in human life and in universe on time scale" in spite of the complete lack of evidence that astrology actually does allow for such accurate predictions. The decision was backed by a 2001 judgement of the Andhra Pradesh High Court , and some Indian universities offer advanced degrees in astrology. This was met with widespread protests from the scientific community in India and Indian scientists working abroad. A petition sent to
15168-548: The first language of the respective speakers. The Sanskrit language brought Indo-Aryan speaking people together, particularly its elite scholars. Some of these scholars of Indian history regionally produced vernacularized Sanskrit to reach wider audiences, as evidenced by texts discovered in Rajasthan, Gujarat, and Maharashtra. Once the audience became familiar with the easier to understand vernacularized version of Sanskrit, those interested could graduate from colloquial Sanskrit to
15326-412: The foundation of Vyākaraṇa, a Vedānga . The Aṣṭādhyāyī was not the first description of Sanskrit grammar, but it is the earliest that has survived in full, and the culmination of a long grammatical tradition that Fortson says, is "one of the intellectual wonders of the ancient world". Pāṇini cites ten scholars on the phonological and grammatical aspects of the Sanskrit language before him, as well as
15484-689: The four divisions—3 degrees and 20 minutes—of a Nakshatra in the 7th house), when reckoned from the Ārūḍha Lagna (AL). The combination of the Lagneśa and the Bhāgyeśa also leads to wealth through the Lakṣmī Yoga. Sanyāsa Yogas are formed due to the placement of four or more grahas , excluding the Sun, in a Keṅdra Bhāva from the Lagna. There are some overarching yogas in Jyotiṣa such as Amāvasyā Doṣa, Kāla Sarpa Yoga-Kāla Amṛta Yoga and Graha Mālika Yoga that can take precedence over Yamaha yogar planetary placements in
15642-537: The gods Varuna, Mitra, Indra, and Nasatya found in the earliest layers of the Vedic literature. O Bṛhaspati, when in giving names they first set forth the beginning of Language, Their most excellent and spotless secret was laid bare through love, When the wise ones formed Language with their mind, purifying it like grain with a winnowing fan, Then friends knew friendships – an auspicious mark placed on their language. — Rigveda 10.71.1–4 Translated by Roger Woodard The Vedic Sanskrit found in
15800-498: The head of the Indian Astrologers Federation about war between India and Pakistan in 1982 also failed. In 2000, when several planets happened to be close to one another, astrologers predicted that there would be catastrophes, volcanic eruptions and tidal waves . This caused an entire sea-side village in the Indian state of Gujarat to panic and abandon their houses. The predicted events did not occur and
15958-431: The historic Sanskrit literary culture and the failure of new Sanskrit literature to assimilate into the changing cultural and political environment. Sheldon Pollock states that in some crucial way, "Sanskrit is dead ". After the 12th century, the Sanskrit literary works were reduced to "reinscription and restatements" of ideas already explored, and any creativity was restricted to hymns and verses. This contrasted with
16116-489: The horoscope. The Hindu Jātaka or Janam Kundali or birth chart , is the Bhāva Chakra ( Sanskrit : 'division' 'wheel'), the complete 360° circle of life, divided into houses, and represents a way of enacting the influences in the wheel. Each house has associated kāraka ( Sanskrit : 'significator') planets that can alter the interpretation of a particular house. Each Bhāva spans an arc of 30° with twelve Bhāvas in any chart of
16274-621: The horoscope. These are a crucial part of any horoscopic study since the Bhāvas, understood as 'state of being', personalize the Rāśis/ Râshis to the native and each Rāśi/ Râshi apart from indicating its true nature reveals its impact on the person based on the Bhāva occupied. The best way to study the various facets of Jyotiṣa is to see their role in chart evaluation of actual persons and how these are construed. Drishti ( Sanskrit : Dṛṣṭi , 'sight')
16432-423: The iconography of Ganesha , but this verse appears only in one or two manuscripts, and is likely a later interpolation. Similarly, a Tikanika-yatra verse in which the author reveres Ganesha (among other deities), is likely spurious; this verse appears only in one manuscript. Varāhamihira is credited with writing several authoritative texts on astronomy and astrology . He was also known for his poetic skills, and
16590-479: The influence may have flowed from India to Mesopotamia. Ohashi states that it is incorrect to assume that the number of civil days in a year equal 365 in both Hindu and Egyptian–Persian year. Further, adds Ohashi, the Mesopotamian formula is different from the Indian formula for calculating time, each can only work for their respective latitude, and either would make major errors in predicting time and calendar in
16748-486: The intense change that must have occurred in the pre-Vedic period between the Proto-Indo-Aryan language and Vedic Sanskrit. The noticeable differences between the Vedic and the Classical Sanskrit include the much-expanded grammar and grammatical categories as well as the differences in the accent, the semantics and the syntax. There are also some differences between how some of the nouns and verbs end, as well as
16906-432: The largest cultural heritage that any civilization has produced prior to the invention of the printing press. — Foreword of Sanskrit Computational Linguistics (2009), Gérard Huet, Amba Kulkarni and Peter Scharf Sanskrit has been the predominant language of Hindu texts encompassing a rich tradition of philosophical and religious texts, as well as poetry, music, drama , scientific , technical and others. It
17064-406: The life of a human being, and these planetary influences are the "fruit of karma ". The Navagraha , planetary deities, are considered subordinate to Ishvara (the Hindu concept of a supreme being) in the administration of justice. Thus, it is believed that these planets can influence earthly life. Astrology has been rejected by the scientific community as having no explanatory power for describing
17222-412: The linguistic expression and sets the standard for the Sanskrit language. Pāṇini made use of a technical metalanguage consisting of a syntax, morphology and lexicon. This metalanguage is organised according to a series of meta-rules, some of which are explicitly stated while others can be deduced. Despite differences in the analysis from that of modern linguistics, Pāṇini's work has been found valuable and
17380-514: The literary works. The Indian tradition, states Winternitz , has favored the learning and the usage of multiple languages from the ancient times. Sanskrit was a spoken language in the educated and the elite classes, but it was also a language that must have been understood in a wider circle of society because the widely popular folk epics and stories such as the Ramayana , the Mahabharata ,
17538-627: The loan-words typically seen when ideas migrate are missing on both sides as far as words for various time intervals and techniques. Further, adds Plofker, and other scholars, that the discussion of time keeping concepts are found in the Sanskrit verses of the Shatapatha Brahmana , a 2nd millennium BCE text. Water clock and sun dials are mentioned in many ancient Hindu texts such as the Arthashastra . Some integration of Mesopotamian and Indian Jyotisha-based systems may have occurred in
17696-532: The maha-dasa. Further proportional sub-divisions can be made, but error margins based on accuracy of the birth time grow exponentially. The next sub-division is called pratyantar-daśā , which can in turn be divided into sookshma-antardasa , which can in turn be divided into praana-antardaśā , which can be sub-divided into deha-antardaśā . Such sub-divisions also exist in all other Daśā systems. The navagraha ( Sanskrit : नवग्रह , romanized : navagraha , lit. 'nine planets') are
17854-417: The method of measurement. While synchronically, the two systems are identical, Jyotiṣa primarily uses the sidereal zodiac (in which stars are considered to be the fixed background against which the motion of the planets is measured), whereas most Western astrology uses the tropical zodiac (the motion of the planets is measured against the position of the Sun on the spring equinox ). After two millennia , as
18012-426: The metre; three others have maharajdhiraja-jah . Thus, the actual title of Drapa-vardhana was nrpa , which is much closer to senapati in status. Utpala also interprets the term maharajadhiraja-kah to mean "born in the dynasty of the (or an) emperor". Hans Bakker interprets the term to maharajadhiraja-kah as a governor installed at Ujjayini by the contemporary Gupta emperor. Balogh believes that Dravya-vardhana
18170-511: The modern age include the Samaveda , Yajurveda , Atharvaveda , along with the embedded and layered Vedic texts such as the Brahmanas , Aranyakas , and the early Upanishads . These Vedic documents reflect the dialects of Sanskrit found in the various parts of the northwestern, northern, and eastern Indian subcontinent. According to Michael Witzel, Vedic Sanskrit was a spoken language of
18328-429: The more advanced Classical Sanskrit. Rituals and the rites-of-passage ceremonies have been and continue to be the other occasions where a wide spectrum of people hear Sanskrit, and occasionally join in to speak some Sanskrit words such as namah . Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini , around the fourth century BCE. Its position in the cultures of Greater India
18486-401: The most advanced analysis of linguistics until the twentieth century. Pāṇini's comprehensive and scientific theory of grammar is conventionally taken to mark the start of Classical Sanskrit. His systematic treatise inspired and made Sanskrit the preeminent Indian language of learning and literature for two millennia. It is unclear whether Pāṇini himself wrote his treatise or he orally created
18644-547: The most archaic poems of the Iranian and Greek language families, the Gathas of old Avestan and Iliad of Homer . As the Rigveda was orally transmitted by methods of memorisation of exceptional complexity, rigour and fidelity, as a single text without variant readings, its preserved archaic syntax and morphology are of vital importance in the reconstruction of the common ancestor language Proto-Indo-European . Sanskrit does not have an attested native script: from around
18802-545: The movement of planets, sun and moon to keep time and calendar. This text also lists trigonometry and mathematical formulae to support its theory of orbits, predict planetary positions and calculate relative mean positions of celestial nodes and apsides. The text is notable for presenting very large integers, such as 4.32 billion years as the lifetime of the current universe. The ancient Hindu texts on Jyotisha only discuss time keeping, and never mention astrology or prophecy. These ancient texts predominantly cover astronomy, but at
18960-425: The night sky used in Hindu astrology, each identified by its prominent star(s). Historical (medieval) Hindu astrology enumerated either 27 or 28 nakṣatras. In modern astrology, a rigid system of 27 nakṣatras is generally used, each covering 13° 20′ of the ecliptic . The missing 28th nakshatra is Abhijeeta . Each nakṣatra is divided into equal quarters or padas of 3° 20′. Of greatest importance
19118-519: The nine celestial bodies used in Hindu astrology: The navagraha are said to be forces that capture or eclipse the mind and the decision making of human beings. When the grahas are active in their daśās , or periodicities they are said to be particularly empowered to direct the affairs of people and events. Planets are held to signify major details, such as profession, marriage and longevity. Of these indicators, known as Karakas, Parashara considers Atmakaraka most important, signifying broad contours of
19276-545: The numbers are thought to signify a wish to be aligned with the prestige of the language. Sanskrit has been taught in traditional gurukulas since ancient times; it is widely taught today at the secondary school level. The oldest Sanskrit college is the Benares Sanskrit College founded in 1791 during East India Company rule . Sanskrit continues to be widely used as a ceremonial and ritual language in Hindu and Buddhist hymns and chants . In Sanskrit,
19434-403: The oral transmission of the texts is reliable: they are ceremonial literature, where the exact phonetic expression and its preservation were a part of the historic tradition. However some scholars have suggested that the original Ṛg-veda differed in some fundamental ways in phonology compared to the sole surviving version available to us. In particular that retroflex consonants did not exist as
19592-507: The other region. According to Asko Parpola, the Jyotisha and luni-solar calendar discoveries in ancient India, and similar discoveries in China in "great likelihood result from convergent parallel development", and not from diffusion from Mesopotamia. Kim Plofker states that while a flow of timekeeping ideas from either side is plausible, each may have instead developed independently, because
19750-431: The other." Reinöhl further states that there is a symmetric relationship between Dravidian languages like Kannada or Tamil, with Indo-Aryan languages like Bengali or Hindi, whereas the same relationship is not found for non-Indo-Aryan languages, for example, Persian or English: A sentence in a Dravidian language like Tamil or Kannada becomes ordinarily good Bengali or Hindi by substituting Bengali or Hindi equivalents for
19908-483: The planet Saturn is in the constellation Aries roughly every 30 years (e.g. 1909, 1939, 1968), the astrologer Bangalore Venkata Raman claimed that "when Saturn was in Aries in 1939 England had to declare war against Germany", ignoring all the other dates. Astrologers regularly fail in attempts to predict election results in India, and fail to predict major events such as the assassination of Indira Gandhi . Predictions by
20066-574: The popular gods worshipped during his period. He also describes the iconography of two non-Brahmanical faiths, that of the Buddha and the Jinas . He appears to have been religiously liberal, as he reveres the Buddha as "the father of the world" and devotes an entire stanza to Buddha's iconology (compared to shorter descriptions of several Brahmanical deities). A verse in the Brhat-samhita describes
20224-414: The possible influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is only one of many items of syntactic assimilation, not least among them the large repertoire of morphological modality and aspect that, once one knows to look for it, can be found everywhere in classical and postclassical Sanskrit". The main influence of Dravidian on Sanskrit is found to have been concentrated in the timespan between the late Vedic period and
20382-401: The praise for Vishnu as an example of religious eclecticism. In Brhat-samhita , Varāhamihira discusses the iconography of several Brahmanical deities, including Vishnu , Baladeva , Ekanamsha , Shamba , Pradyumna , consorts of Shamba and Pradyumna, Brahma , Skanda , Indra , Shiva , Surya, the divine mothers ( Matrikas ), Revanta , Yama , Varuna , and Kubera . These were presumably
20540-439: The previous 1,500 years when "great experiments in moral and aesthetic imagination" marked the Indian scholarship using Classical Sanskrit, states Pollock. Scholars maintain that the Sanskrit language did not die, but rather only declined. Jurgen Hanneder disagrees with Pollock, finding his arguments elegant but "often arbitrary". According to Hanneder, a decline or regional absence of creative and innovative literature constitutes
20698-480: The problems of interpretation and misunderstanding. The purifying structure of the Sanskrit language removes these imperfections. The early Sanskrit grammarian Daṇḍin states, for example, that much in the Prakrit languages is etymologically rooted in Sanskrit, but involves "loss of sounds" and corruptions that result from a "disregard of the grammar". Daṇḍin acknowledged that there are words and confusing structures in Prakrit that thrive independent of Sanskrit. This view
20856-609: The regional Prakrit languages, which makes it likely that the interaction, the sharing of words and ideas began early in the Indian history. As the Indian thought diversified and challenged earlier beliefs of Hinduism, particularly in the form of Buddhism and Jainism , the Prakrit languages such as Pali in Theravada Buddhism and Ardhamagadhi in Jainism competed with Sanskrit in the ancient times. However, states Paul Dundas , these ancient Prakrit languages had "roughly
21014-497: The relationship between various Indo-European languages, the origin of all these languages may possibly be in what is now Central or Eastern Europe, while the Indo-Iranian group possibly arose in Central Russia. The Iranian and Indo-Aryan branches separated quite early. It is the Indo-Aryan branch that moved into eastern Iran and then south into South Asia in the first half of the 2nd millennium BCE. Once in ancient India,
21172-562: The role of language, the ontological status of painting word-images through sound, and the need for rules so that it can serve as a means for a community of speakers, separated by geography or time, to share and understand profound ideas from each other. These speculations became particularly important to the Mīmāṃsā and the Nyaya schools of Hindu philosophy, and later to Vedanta and Mahayana Buddhism, states Frits Staal —a scholar of Linguistics with
21330-496: The same relationship to Sanskrit as medieval Italian does to Latin". The Indian tradition states that the Buddha and the Mahavira preferred the Prakrit language so that everyone could understand it. However, scholars such as Dundas have questioned this hypothesis. They state that there is no evidence for this and whatever evidence is available suggests that by the start of the common era, hardly anybody other than learned monks had
21488-556: The semi-nomadic Aryans . The Vedic Sanskrit language or a closely related Indo-European variant was recognized beyond ancient India as evidenced by the " Mitanni Treaty" between the ancient Hittite and Mitanni people, carved into a rock, in a region that now includes parts of Syria and Turkey. Parts of this treaty, such as the names of the Mitanni princes and technical terms related to horse training, for reasons not understood, are in early forms of Vedic Sanskrit. The treaty also invokes
21646-615: The social structures such as the role of the poet and the priests, the patronage economy, the phrasal equations, and some of the poetic metres. While there are similarities, state Jamison and Brereton, there are also differences between Vedic Sanskrit, the Old Avestan, and the Mycenaean Greek literature. For example, unlike the Sanskrit similes in the Ṛg-veda, the Old Avestan Gathas lack simile entirely, and it
21804-452: The strong candidate for the one who understood and introduced the zodiac signs, predictive calculations for auspicious ceremonies and astrological computations in India. Varāhamihira's works contain 35 Sanskritized Greek astronomical terms, and he exhibits a good understanding of the Greek astronomy. He praised the Greeks ( Yavanas ) for being "well trained in the sciences", though impure in ritual order. Varāhamihira gained reputation as
21962-458: The task of Indianizing and Sanskritizing Greek astronomy during the 300 or so years between the first Yavanajataka and the Āryabhaṭīya . The astronomical texts of these 300 years are lost. The later Pañcasiddhāntikā of Varāhamihira summarizes the five known Indian astronomical schools of the sixth century. Indian astronomy preserved some of the older pre-Ptolemaic elements of Greek astronomy. The main texts upon which classical Indian astrology
22120-560: The topic of omens ( shakuna ), one of the works he consulted was that of Dravya-vardhana, the king of Avanti. Dravya-vardhana likely belonged to the Aulikara dynasty, several of whose members bore names ending in -vardhana . Historian Ajay Mitra Shastri notes that Dravya-vardhana is the only person for whom Varāhamihira employs the honorific Shri , although he mentions several other notable people. Moreover, he mentions Dravya-vardhana's work before he mentions reputed authorities such as
22278-523: The transit of the Daśā lord from various reference points in the horoscope. In Hindu astronomy, yoga ( Sanskrit : yoga , 'union') is a combination of planets placed in a specific relationship to each other. Rāja yogas are perceived as givers of fame, status and authority, and are typically formed by the association of the Lord of Keṅdras ('quadrants'), when reckoned from the Lagna ('ascendant'), and
22436-508: The transmission of Hellenistic astrology that the order of planets in India was fixed in that of the seven-day week. Hellenistic astrology and astronomy also transmitted the twelve zodiacal signs beginning with Aries and the twelve astrological places beginning with the ascendant. The first evidence of the introduction of Greek astrology to India is the Yavanajātaka which dates to the early centuries CE. The Yavanajātaka ( lit. "Sayings of
22594-653: The turn of the 1st-millennium CE, it has been written in various Brahmic scripts , and in the modern era most commonly in Devanagari . Sanskrit's status, function, and place in India's cultural heritage are recognized by its inclusion in the Constitution of India 's Eighth Schedule languages . However, despite attempts at revival, there are no first-language speakers of Sanskrit in India. In each of India's recent decennial censuses, several thousand citizens have reported Sanskrit to be their mother tongue, but
22752-451: The universe. Scientific testing of astrology has been conducted, and no evidence has been found to support any of the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological traditions. There is no mechanism proposed by astrologers through which the positions and motions of stars and planets could affect people and events on Earth. In spite of its status as a pseudoscience , in certain religious, political, and legal contexts, astrology retains
22910-597: The vacant houses were burgled. Time keeping [The current year] minus one, multiplied by twelve, multiplied by two, added to the elapsed [half months of current year], increased by two for every sixty [in the sun], is the quantity of half-months ( syzygies ). — Rigveda Jyotisha-vedanga 4 Translator: Kim Plofker The ancient extant text on Jyotisha is the Vedanga-Jyotisha , which exists in two editions, one linked to Rigveda and other to Yajurveda . The Rigveda version consists of 36 verses, while
23068-408: The variants in the usage of Sanskrit in different regions of India. The ten Vedic scholars he quotes are Āpiśali, Kaśyapa , Gārgya, Gālava, Cakravarmaṇa, Bhāradvāja , Śākaṭāyana, Śākalya, Senaka and Sphoṭāyana. In the Aṣṭādhyāyī , language is observed in a manner that has no parallel among Greek or Latin grammarians. Pāṇini's grammar, according to Renou and Filliozat, is a classic that defines
23226-564: The vernacular Prakrits. Many Sanskrit dramas indicate that the language coexisted with the vernacular Prakrits. The cities of Varanasi , Paithan , Pune and Kanchipuram were centers of classical Sanskrit learning and public debates until the arrival of the colonial era. According to Lamotte , Sanskrit became the dominant literary and inscriptional language because of its precision in communication. It was, states Lamotte, an ideal instrument for presenting ideas, and as knowledge in Sanskrit multiplied, so did its spread and influence. Sanskrit
23384-502: The Ṛg-veda is distinctly more archaic than other Vedic texts, and in many respects, the Rigvedic language is notably more similar to those found in the archaic texts of Old Avestan Zoroastrian Gathas and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey . According to Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton – Indologists known for their translation of the Ṛg-veda – the Vedic Sanskrit literature "clearly inherited" from Indo-Iranian and Indo-European times
23542-473: Was a 5-year interval, divided into multiple lunisolar intervals such as 60 solar months, 61 savana months, 62 synodic months and 67 sidereal months. A Vedic Yuga had 1,860 tithis ( तिथि , dates), and it defined a savana -day (civil day) from one sunrise to another. The Rigvedic version of Jyotisha may be a later insertion into the Veda, states David Pingree , possibly between 513 and 326 BCE, when Indus valley
23700-408: Was a spoken language ( bhasha ) used by the cultured and educated. Some sutras expound upon the variant forms of spoken Sanskrit versus written Sanskrit. Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang mentioned in his memoir that official philosophical debates in India were held in Sanskrit, not in the vernacular language of that region. According to Sanskrit linguist professor Madhav Deshpande, Sanskrit
23858-427: Was a spoken language in a colloquial form by the mid-1st millennium BCE which coexisted with a more formal, grammatically correct form of literary Sanskrit. This, states Deshpande, is true for modern languages where colloquial incorrect approximations and dialects of a language are spoken and understood, along with more "refined, sophisticated and grammatically accurate" forms of the same language being found in
24016-472: Was adopted voluntarily as a vehicle of high culture, arts, and profound ideas. Pollock disagrees with Lamotte, but concurs that Sanskrit's influence grew into what he terms a "Sanskrit Cosmopolis" over a region that included all of South Asia and much of southeast Asia. The Sanskrit language cosmopolis thrived beyond India between 300 and 1300 CE. Today, it is believed that Kashmiri is the closest language to Sanskrit. Reinöhl mentions that not only have
24174-738: Was also the language of some of the oldest surviving, authoritative and much followed philosophical works of Jainism such as the Tattvartha Sutra by Umaswati . The Sanskrit language has been one of the major means for the transmission of knowledge and ideas in Asian history. Indian texts in Sanskrit were already in China by 402 CE, carried by the influential Buddhist pilgrim Faxian who translated them into Chinese by 418 CE. Xuanzang , another Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, learnt Sanskrit in India and carried 657 Sanskrit texts to China in
24332-417: Was based on; according to Balogh, this actually makes it more likely that the king lived at a time earlier than Varāhamihira, who did not have access to the older work of Bharadvaja. According to Balogh, Varāhamihira likely lived during the reign of the Aulikara kings Prakasha-dharman, Yashodharman, or an unknown successor of Yashodharman. However, unlike Shastri, Balogh believes that Varāhamihira did not have
24490-484: Was occupied by the Achaemenid from Mesopotamia . The mathematics and devices for time keeping mentioned in these ancient Sanskrit texts, proposes Pingree, such as the water clock may also have arrived in India from Mesopotamia. However, Yukio Ohashi considers this proposal as incorrect, suggesting instead that the Vedic timekeeping efforts, for forecasting appropriate time for rituals, must have begun much earlier and
24648-429: Was probably same as Drapa-vardhana: "Dravya" may be a variant arising from a mistake in a medieval manuscript, which is the source of later manuscripts. Balogh disputes Shastri's assertion that Varāhamihira shows a particularly reverential attitude to the king, and even if he did, this is no evidence that the two were contemporaries. Varāhamihira consulted the king's work instead of the original work of Bharadvaja that it
24806-442: Was visualized as "pervading all creation", another representation of the world itself; the "mysterious magnum" of Hindu thought. The search for perfection in thought and the goal of liberation were among the dimensions of sacred sound, and the common thread that wove all ideas and inspirations together became the quest for what the ancient Indians believed to be a perfect language, the "phonocentric episteme" of Sanskrit. Sanskrit as
24964-637: Was written after the abridged version of Pancha-siddhantika . However, its order with respect to the other works is not certain. Later authors also mention or quote from some other works composed by Varaha-mihira. Manuscripts of some other works attributed to Varaha-mihira exist, but these attributions are of doubtful nature. The Romaka Siddhanta ("The Doctrine of the Romans") and the Paulisa Siddhanta were two works of Western origin which influenced Varāhamihira's thought. The Pauliṣa Siddhānta
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