The Brihat Jataka of Varahamihira: An Introduction

Of all the classical works on Hindu astrology, few have been studied as closely, or for as long, as the Brihat Jataka of Varahamihira. For centuries, in South India especially, a student was not considered learned in jyotish until they had mastered it. This series reads the book from the beginning, chapter by chapter, with the Sanskrit verses.

Who was Varahamihira?

Varahamihira is generally placed in the sixth century CE. We do not have to rely on legend for his life, because he tells us about himself in a verse near the end of the book (28.9):

आदित्यदासतनयस्तदवाप्तबोधः कापित्थके सवितृलब्धवरप्रसादः । आवन्तिको मुनिमतान्यवलोक्य सम्यग्घोरां वराहमिहिरो रुचिरां चकार ॥

ādityadāsatanayas tadavāptabodhaḥ kāpitthake savitṛlabdhavaraprasādaḥ | āvantiko munimatāny avalokya samyag ghorāṃ varāhamihiro rucirāṃ cakāra ||

The son of Adityadasa, who received his learning from him, who was blessed with a boon from the Sun at Kapitthaka, a man of Avanti: Varahamihira, having carefully studied the views of the sages, composed this graceful work on hora.

So his father, Adityadasa, was also his teacher. His family name honours the Sun, and he credits the Sun with his knowledge. He came from Avanti, the region around Ujjain in central India, one of the great centres of Indian astronomy.

Varahamihira wrote across the whole of jyotish. In the closing chapter of this book he notes his other works: on astronomy (the Panchasiddhantika), on omens and collective events (the Brihat Samhita), on the timing of journeys, and on the timing of marriage. With these, he says, he has covered all three branches of the science: astronomy, horoscopy and samhita.

A small boat for a vast ocean

Varahamihira opens the book with a prayer to the Sun, and then states why he is writing (1.2):

भूयोभिः पटुबुद्धिभिः पटुधियां होराफलज्ञप्तये शब्दन्यायसमन्वितेषु बहुशः शास्त्रेषु दृष्टेष्वपि । होरातन्त्रमहार्णवप्रतरणे भग्नोद्यमानामहं स्वल्पं वृत्तविचित्रमर्थबहुलं शास्त्रप्लवं प्रारभे ॥

bhūyobhiḥ paṭubuddhibhiḥ paṭudhiyāṃ horāphalajñaptaye śabdanyāyasamanviteṣu bahuśaḥ śāstreṣu dṛṣṭeṣv api | horātantramahārṇavaprataraṇe bhagnodyamānām ahaṃ svalpaṃ vṛttavicitram arthabahulaṃ śāstraplavaṃ prārabhe ||

Many treatises, sound in language and reasoning, have been written by many able minds to teach the results of hora to the able. Even so, for those whose efforts have broken down in crossing the great ocean of hora, I begin this small boat of a treatise, varied in its metres and rich in meaning.

The image is worth keeping in mind as we read. The Brihat Jataka is short: a little over 400 verses. It is not an encyclopaedia. It is a compact vessel, written for students who had found the older, larger works too much to cross. Its verses are dense, and many carry more than one layer of meaning. Later commentators devoted whole books to unpacking them.

The Sun as the lamp of the three worlds

The book's first verse (1.1) is a prayer, but it also sets the spiritual tone of everything that follows:

मूर्तित्वे परिकल्पितः शशभृतो वर्त्माऽपुनर्जन्मनामात्मेत्यात्मविदां क्रतुश्च यजतां भर्तामरज्योतिषाम् । लोकानां प्रलयोद्भवस्थितिविभुश्चानेकधा यः श्रुतौ वाचं नः स ददात्वनेककिरणस्त्रैलोक्यदीपो रविः ॥

mūrtitve parikalpitaḥ śaśabhṛto vartmāpunarjanmanām ātmety ātmavidāṃ kratuś ca yajatāṃ bhartāmarajyotiṣām | lokānāṃ pralayodbhavasthitivibhuś cānekadhā yaḥ śrutau vācaṃ naḥ sa dadātv anekakiraṇas trailokyadīpo raviḥ ||

He who is conceived as the very form of the Moon; the path of those who are not born again; the Self, for those who know the Self; the sacrifice, for those who sacrifice; the lord of the gods and of the lights of the sky; the master of the origin, preservation and dissolution of the worlds, praised in many ways in the Veda: may that many-rayed Sun, the lamp of the three worlds, grant us speech.

Two phrases stand out. The Sun is "the path of those who are not born again", the way to liberation. And he is "the Self, for those who know the Self". Before a single rule of astrology is given, Varahamihira places his science under the light of the Sun understood as the highest reality. The Moon's visible form, the first phrase reminds us, is itself made by the Sun's light.

What is hora?

The third verse (1.3) gives the name of the science and states its purpose:

होरेत्यहोरात्रविकल्पमेके वाञ्छन्ति पूर्वापरवर्णलोपात् । कर्माजितं पूर्वभवे सदादि यत्तस्य पङ्क्तिं समभिव्यनक्ति ॥

horety ahorātravikalpam eke vāñchanti pūrvāparavarṇalopāt | karmājitaṃ pūrvabhave sadādi yat tasya paṅktiṃ samabhivyanakti ||

Some take hora to be a form of ahoratra, "day and night", with the first and last syllables dropped. It clearly reveals the unfolding of the karma, good and bad, that was earned in a previous life.

Take away the first syllable (a) and the last (tra) from a-ho-ra-tra, and hora remains. The science of hora is the science of day and night: of time itself.

The second line is the most important statement in the book about what astrology is. Hora reveals (samabhivyanakti, "makes clearly manifest") the working-out of past karma. The verb matters. The planets do not cause a person's fate. Astrology shows a pattern that the person's own past actions have already set in motion.

Building on those who came before

Varahamihira does not present himself as the founder of jyotish. Throughout the book, he names earlier authorities and often sets out their views beside his own. He cites Parashara, Maya, Manittha and others, and he refers openly to the Yavanas, the Greek-speaking astrologers whose work had reached India. In the very first chapter, as we will see, he even lists Sanskritised Greek names for the twelve signs.

He is also humble about his own work. In the closing chapter he says that he wrote these brief works after studying the extensive works of the ancients, and asks learned readers to forgive any important point he may have left out. If a copyist or teacher has dropped part of the text, or if errors have crept in, he asks the learned to correct them, setting aside jealousy.

How the book is organised

In its usual form, the Brihat Jataka has 28 chapters. In his closing chapter, Varahamihira lists the subjects he has covered. Two chapters, one on the nakshatras and one on the Moon in each sign (chapters 16 and 17 in the usual numbering) do not appear in his list, and some scholars regard them as later additions.

The chapters move roughly as follows:

• Foundations (chapters 1 to 2): the signs, their divisions, the houses, and the planets.
• Birth and life (chapters 3 to 9): conception and birth, the dangers of infancy, the length of life, the planetary periods (dashas) and the ashtakavarga.
• Work, status and renunciation (chapters 10 to 15): vocation, royal combinations, the nabhasa yogas, lunar and two-planet combinations, and the yogas of the renunciate.
• Character and placements (chapters 16 to 21): the nakshatras, the Moon and the planets in the signs, aspects, the houses, and the divisional charts.
• Special topics (chapters 22 to 27): further yogas, difficult combinations, the horoscope of women, death, recovering a lost horoscope, and the images of the drekkanas.
• Conclusion (chapter 28).

How this series reads the text

Each article in this series covers one chapter, or a group of short chapters. For each important verse we give:

• the Sanskrit in Devanagari,
• a transliteration, for those who want to pronounce it,
• our own English rendering, made from the Sanskrit.

We check our renderings against the public-domain English translation by N. Chidambaram Aiyar (first published 1885) and against a modern word-by-word analysis. Where they differ, we follow the original Sanskrit.

Some chapters deal with subjects that need care: the dangers of early childhood, the length of life, death, and the horoscope of women, which reflects the society of Varahamihira's time. We present these chapters fully and faithfully, with context. They belong to the history of the science, and they are best read in the spirit of the third verse: as a description of patterns, not a sentence passed on anyone.

The first article begins where the book begins: with the twelve signs, the body of Time.