31
Lithin wrote:
Our Moderator is alas somewhat off the mark in his expressed perception of yours truly and in my humble opinion would better abstain from personal remarks about his fellow forum members.
Just to clarify I am not the moderator here Martin Gansten is. And my comment was not a personalised attack on anyone. I just wish we could all discuss the sources in a more open minded and respectful manner despite our differences.

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

32
Martin Gansten wrote: I haven't the time or the inclination to attempt to convince you, particularly as you have a very definite agenda which you seem determined to defend against nearly 1800 years' worth of tradition.
My agenda here is the truth about the Yavanajataka, honestly. Independently of the 1800 years of tradition that followed and that did not exist at that time. I find it pity that you are not willing to defend your understanding of the text.

I don't care much for arguments from authority, but I will take the liberty of pointing out that I have studied Sanskrit for 30 years (and taught it at two major universities) and Indian astrology for 23. As a result, I do know a thing or two about Sanskrit syntax, and also about the difference between the Indian categories of astronomy (ga?ita-jyoti?a) and astrology (phalita-jyoti?a).
I knew that when I entered the discussion.

Dieter

33
I have been looking at the text of the The Yavanajataka of Sphujidhvaja myself. Its a fascinating text for many reasons.

One section that intrigues me is in Chapter 1 68-69 discussing the rising times of signs.
68. The measure of the rising-times of the first and last signs is
demonstrated with certainty to be two muhiirtas each; know that the
measure of the rising-times (of the rest of the signs) in the two halves of
the zodiac, taken (respectively) in direct and reverse order, is (two
muhurtas) with a fifth (of that measure) added (successively to each).

69. Knowing that the signs are thus measured as being short, medium, or
long, they consider the lengths of journeys as being similar to the
divisions of the zodiac (and the limbs of the zodiacal man)
I am afraid maths is not my strong suit. However, might this give us any clues to what zodiac is involved? Obviously, in the tropical zodiac we have signs of short, intermediate and long rising periods. I am genuinely unclear what is involved in calculating the rising times of sidereal equal sized signs. Would the same terminology make sense there too?

Incidentally, I have only managed to download a version without David Pingree's commentary. Has anyone read his commentary? What view did Pingree take on the text and the type of zodiac involved?

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

34
Mark wrote:I have been looking at the text of the The Yavanajataka of Sphujidhvaja myself. Its a fascinating text for many reasons.

One section that intrigues me is in Chapter 1 68-69 discussing the rising times of signs.
68. The measure of the rising-times of the first and last signs is
demonstrated with certainty to be two muhiirtas each; know that the
measure of the rising-times (of the rest of the signs) in the two halves of
the zodiac, taken (respectively) in direct and reverse order, is (two
muhurtas) with a fifth (of that measure) added (successively to each).

69. Knowing that the signs are thus measured as being short, medium, or
long, they consider the lengths of journeys as being similar to the
divisions of the zodiac (and the limbs of the zodiacal man)
I am afraid maths is not my strong suit. However, might this give us any clues to what zodiac is involved? Obviously, in the tropical zodiac we have signs of short, intermediate and long rising periods. I am genuinely unclear what is involved in calculating the rising times of sidereal equal sized signs. Would the same terminology make sense there too?

Incidentally, I have only managed to download a version without David Pingree's commentary. Has anyone read his commentary? What view did Pingree take on the text and the type of zodiac involved?

Mark
Pingree's Translation
http://www.ancientindianastrology.com/c ... 2&cid=1979

Not everything Pingree translated as is correct(check the errata and re-interpret):

http://www.new.dli.ernet.in/rawdatauplo ... 60_211.pdf[/url]
Last edited by pankajdubey on Sun Nov 11, 2012 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

Antiscia, contra-antiscia with equal-sign 'sidereal' zodiacs

36
Good day,

Based only on the English translations presented above, it seems to me that they refer to a tropical zodiac unless the vernal point coincided with a sign boundary of an equal-sign 'sidereal' zodiac when the book was written and / or for the period described.

As the equinoxes and solstices rarely (and depending on which of the many proposed 'sidereal' zodiacs is used) coincide with sign borders, astrologers working with such zodiacs are apparently quite rare (have yet to encounter even one) who avail themselves of various symmetries familiar to those working with the tropical zodiac of the Northern hemisphere in the framework of Hellenistic and / or Mediaeval astrologies, ex. gr.:

- antiscia and contra-antiscia
- seeing and hearing signs
- commanding and obeying signs.

To what extent, if at all, have these symmetries been applied in Indian astrology?

On the other hand, perhaps there are other techniques available to astrologers using equal-sign 'sidereal' zodiacs that are quite difficult to apply using the tropical zodiac of the Northern hemisphere.

Best regards,

lihin
Non esse nihil non est.

37
Lithin wrote:
Based only on the English translations presented above, it seems to me that they refer to a tropical zodiac unless the vernal point coincided with a sign boundary of an equal-sign 'sidereal' zodiac when the book was written and / or for the period described.
That is our basic problem here. As this is a 3rd century CE text it seems the two zodiacs did coincide very closely at this point.

To quote Martin Gansten:
The text as we have it is date by Pingree (from text-internal evidence) to 269/270 CE. It is said to be based on an earlier text from 149/150 CE, but we can't really know what was in the original. It's a bit like the Dorotheus situation.
The ayanamsa of the following popular sidereal zodiacs were all around 0 in this period:

Lahiri: 285 CE

Krishnamurti: 292 CE

Fagan-Bradley 221 CE

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

38
If the original text was from 170 AD and Aries 0 co-incidence of the two Zodiacs was in 280 AD then "early Cancer" term would be sidereal term and ahead of the tropical !!

At Midnight 21/12/170 AD Greenwich.
The sidereal Sun was in Capricorn 1deg 29 min 56 sec (lahiri)
Whereas Tropical Sun was in Sagittarius 29 deg 54min 42 sec.
The precession being - 1deg 35min

So the sidereal capricorn or cancer part would indeed have been (aadi or early) if the ingress being promoted was a Tropical Cancer/Capricorn.
Sidereal ingress would have taken place earlier than the tropical ingress and not vice versa like now.
Take that for the beauty of Sanskrit.
The Yavan was covering both bases :)

39
We can only speculate here. As Martin said how can we be certain that bit of the text was relying on an older source?

And if it was I find it highly unlikely that source was proposing a tropical zodiac that early. The Tetrabiblos was probably written around 160 CE towards the end of Ptolemy's life:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrabiblos

Those ideas took a long time to disseminate and become accepted within the wider astrological community in the west. Indeed the process took centuries for the tropical zodiac based on 0 Aries to be fully accepted. Even then one can find historical exceptions into the middle ages. So I find it rather it unconvincing that a text from 170 CE would even be proposing a tropical zodiac. If the older source text really was a Greek astrological work this discussion needs to be seen in the context of what was credible in terms of western astrological understanding of precession and adoption of a 0 tropical zodiac in this period.

For more on that see the article Ancient Rejection and Adoption of Ptolemy?s Frame of Reference for Longitudes by Alexander Jones.In Ptolemy in Perspective, Use and Criticism of his Work from Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century Edited by Alexander Jones. Published by Springer

Mark
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

Many dates for the 'Beginning of the Piscean Age'

40
Good afternoon,

There are even more dates proposed and calculable for the 'Beginning of the Age of Pisces' than there are arcs of precession recommended by notable proponents of various 'sidereal' equal-sign zodiacs, a score or more in many astrology software programmes. More are still being added based for example on the supposed position of the 'Galactic Centre', although it is astronomically considered more a region than a point.

The problem is fraught will even more difficulties, ex. gr.:

1. Should one assume an equal-sign 'sidereal' zodiac or attempt to use the unequal astronomical constellations for measurement, implying Ages of unequal lengths expressed in years?

2. Even if one chooses the unequal constellations, where do they exactly begin and end in terms on ecliptical longitude, since they are often not precisely on the ecliptic?

3. Should one include constellations as defined by the IAU that perhaps have no bright stars, for example Ophiuchus, but are occasionally closer to the ecliptic than others, ex. gr. Scorpius? (Some astrologers have developed '13-sign' astrology.)

4. Which fixed star(s) or other astronomical items should be chosen to peg a 'sidereal' zodiac? What are the applicable selection criteria?

5. Over many years 'fixed' stars exhibit 'proper motion' and 'nutation'. How, if at all, should these be considered in the calculations?

In Appendix 10, page 488, of The Book of World Horoscopes by Nicolas Campion, 2004, one finds some 100 different dates from 1447 to 3621 CE published by various authors for the beginning of the 'Age of Aquarius' so highly regarded in 'New Age' sub-cultures. The author mentioned that, prior to the 19th century, the famous 'precession' (geocentrically a procession of the fixed stars) of the equinoxes was not used to determine astrological mundane ages.

If one really desires for whatever reasons to use an equal-length 'sidereal' zodiac pegged to fixed star(s), my humble suggestion would be Hipparchos' tropical zodiac that began the sign of Aries just after the fixed star Alrisha, Alpha Piscium. His zodiac included the alpha fixed star of each of 12 zodiacal unequal constellations in the like-named equal sign and indicated a year around 130 BCE.

Best regards,

lihin
Last edited by lihin on Sun Nov 11, 2012 5:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Non esse nihil non est.

Re: Many dates for the 'Beginning of the Piscean Age'

41
Mark,

the rising times indicated in the Yavanajataka with identical values for Aries and Pisces are tropical. However, tropical rising times were also used in sidereal systems. So, this does not help much.
Incidentally, I have only managed to download a version without David Pingree's commentary. Has anyone read his commentary? What view did Pingree take on the text and the type of zodiac involved?
Pingree is not partiuclarly interested in this question. He does not even comment on the verse 79.30 that gave rise to the controversy. But (in my opinion) his edition and commentary of the whole chapter indicate a tropical zodiac.

I have not been aware of Shukla?s article mentioned by pankajdubey. With Shukla?s "improvements" for Pingree?s edition of the Yavanajataka, the year becomes considerably longer, and even far away from the sidereal year:
tropical year 365.2422
sidereal year 365.2564
Suryasiddhanta 365.2588
YJ (Shukla) 365.284 !
However, Shukla's year length and the solar daily motion as given on p. 223 seem to be inconsistent! But both values result in a year length beyond 365.28. Can this be correct?

Without a careful study, I am not able to say more, but it is hard to imagine that Pingree was *that* wrong.

Dieter

42
I have very limited time and energy to put into this discussion, but here are some stray remarks:

I agree wholeheartedly with Mark's comment about set agendas. As for the question on rising times: yes, the rising times of Aries and Pisces are said to be equal; but so they would have been, even sidereally, around that time. (This is actually a much larger discussion, but I'll leave it at that for now.)

I also agree with Mark that there is a prima facie improbability about the suggestion that precession was known, and a tropical zodiac proposed, in India as early as the YJ. It is made even more unlikely by the fact that I have not yet seen a single Indian horoscope cast in the tropical zodiac, or an Indian text explicitly advocating the astrological use of that zodiac, prior to the late 19th century. (The various Indian calendar systems, however, generally follow the seasons of the tropical year.)

If a tropicalist outlook with respect to the zodiac is ascribed to the YJ, then (as Dieter pointed out earlier) either we must accept that the nak?atras, too, were defined tropically, or that the text is self-contradictory. Neither supposition is necessary if we accept that Indian horoscopic astrology began as it has continued; and really, the burden of proof should be on those who believe otherwise.

I haven't read the paper by Shukla which Pankaj links to, but my overall experience of Pingree's translations from Sanskrit is that he is generally sound on the mathematical parts; less so on astrological content.

I doubt I'll have much more to add on this thread, but I hope we can all keep it polite; I'd prefer not to put my moderator hat on.
https://astrology.martingansten.com/