The Jain Nakshatras

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I found this intriguing article on the Jain attitude to the nakshatras. Unlike the Hindu tradition the Jains seem to have retained (or at least proposed) the nakshtras as unequal divisions within the 12 sign zodiac:

http://www.dli.gov.in/rawdataupload/upl ... 16d_31.pdf

Up to now I had only come across the more common Jytosha notion of dividing the nakhatras into 27 equal 13 1/2 degree sectors. Could this Jain approach give us an insight into how the ancient nakshtras may have been organised? Or was this simply an idiosyncratic notion of Jain astronomy that has no astrological relevance?

Its not an especially well written article, but the author seems to assume that the Ved??ga Jyoti?a dates from around 1400 BCE and attributes the removal of the nakshatra Abhijit to then. Not everyone would accept that the the Ved??ga Jyoti?a is that old. For example, David Pingree dated the text to around 500 BCE or later to make it plausible it was influenced by Babylonian astrology. I find it intriguing the author thinks the zodiac imported from Babylonia (presumably through Achaemenid Persia) was itself unequal. If this tradition dates from around the 5th century BCE that would be roughly when an equal size zodiac signs were adopted in Mesopotamia itself.

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