The Thirty-Six Faces of the Sky

Chapter 27 · Part of our series on the Brihat Jataka of Varahamihira

In the second article we met the drekkanas: each sign cut into three slices of ten degrees, making thirty-six around the zodiac. Since then, the drekkanas have appeared again and again: in the birth room, in the shape of the body, in the difficult yogas, and in the reading of the end of life. This chapter finally shows what each one looks like.

Varahamihira gives every drekkana a picture: a figure, its dress, what it carries, what it is doing. These thirty-six images are among the most vivid passages in the whole book.

Where the images come from

The drekkanas are among the oldest divisions of the sky. Scholars trace them back, through Greek astrology, to the decans of ancient Egypt: thirty-six star groups that rose one after another through the night and served as a clock. Varahamihira says openly that these images come to him from the Greek teachers. The second image ends (27.2):

रक्ताम्बरा भूषणभक्ष्यचिन्ता कुम्भाकृतिर्वाजिमुखी तृषार्ता । एकेन पादेन च मेषमध्ये द्रेष्काणरूपं यवनोपदिष्टम् ॥

raktāmbarā bhūṣaṇabhakṣyacintā kumbhākṛtir vājimukhī tṛṣārtā | ekena pādena ca meṣamadhye dreṣkāṇarūpaṃ yavanopadiṣṭam ||

A woman in red garments, her thoughts on ornaments and food, pot-shaped, horse-faced and thirsty, standing on one foot: this is the form of the middle drekkana of Aries, as the Yavanas taught it.

So the images were carried from Egypt to the Greek world, and from there to India, where Varahamihira set them into Sanskrit verse.

The first image

The chapter opens with the first drekkana of Aries, the very first slice of the zodiac (27.1):

कट्यां सितवस्त्रवेष्टितः कृष्णः शक्त इवाभिरक्षितुम् । रौद्रः परशुं समुद्यतं धत्ते रक्तविलोचनः पुमान् ॥

kaṭyāṃ sitavastraveṣṭitaḥ kṛṣṇaḥ śakta ivābhirakṣitum | raudraḥ paraśuṃ samudyataṃ dhatte raktavilocanaḥ pumān ||

A dark man, a white cloth wrapped at his waist, as if strong enough to protect; fierce and red-eyed, he holds a raised axe.

It is a fitting start for Aries, the sign of Mars: a guardian, armed and ready.

The images and the signs

Many images reflect their sign or their lord. The first drekkana of Libra, the sign of the scales, is a merchant in the market (27.19):

वीथ्यन्तरापणगतः पुरुषस्तुलावानुन्मानमानकुशलः प्रतिमानहस्तः । भाण्डं विचिन्तयति तस्य च मूल्यमेतद्रूपं वदन्ति यवनाः प्रथमं तुलायाः ॥

vīthyantarāpaṇagataḥ puruṣas tulāvān unmānamānakuśalaḥ pratimānahastaḥ | bhāṇḍaṃ vicintayati tasya ca mūlyam etad rūpaṃ vadanti yavanāḥ prathamaṃ tulāyāḥ ||

A man in a market lane, holding scales, skilled in weights and measures, with weights in his hand, thinking about his goods and their price: this, say the Yavanas, is the first form of Libra.

The first drekkana of Sagittarius is a figure with a man's face and a horse's body, holding a bow: the archer-centaur. The Pisces images are full of the sea, with boats sailing for pearls and treasure. The Virgo images include a maiden going to her teacher's home, a scribe keeping accounts, and a woman going devoutly to a temple.

All thirty-six drekkanas

How the images are used

The pictures are not only decoration. Each drekkana is classified by the kinds of figures in it: human, four-footed, bird, serpent, armed, or carrying fire. Earlier chapters used these classes in many ways. A serpent or fettered drekkana rising pointed to confinement. The Moon in an armed or serpent drekkana coloured the temperament. The drekkana in the eighth house showed the nature of the end of life.

According to the commentators, Varahamihira also used these images in his work on journeys, the Yoga Yātrā. A pleasant image, carrying fruit, flowers, gems or pots and looked upon by gentle planets, promised success; a fierce, armed image looked upon by harsh planets warned of failure. His son Prithuyashas used them in his work on horary astrology to describe a thief.

Reading this chapter

The thirty-six images give the sky a population. The zodiac is no longer just a ring of twelve signs, but a gallery of figures: guardians and merchants, scribes and pilgrims, sailors and hermits, mourners and kings. Each slice of ten degrees has its own face, and a person born under it carries something of that face.

Verses are from Varahamihira's Brihat Jataka, chapter 27. English renderings are our own, made from the Sanskrit and checked against the public-domain translation by N. Chidambaram Aiyar (1885; second edition 1905) and against the word-by-word analysis in Michael D. Neely's edition.