THE FOLLOWERS OF THE STARS: ON THE EARLY SOURCES AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF INDIAN ASTROLOGY

This article sets itself a goal to explore the early historical development of the traditional astrological sciences (jyoti~aSastra, jyoti~avidyiiJ in India, tracing its relationship to the astrology developed in Mesopotamia and in the Hellenistic period by the Greeks, as well as discussing some of its amplifications in South Asia, and the direct intercourse between India and the Arabs. Some attention is paid to the transformation and re-interpretation of foreign astral and divinatory sciences in India. The primarily sources of the present study are the early Sanskrit texts (mainly those of Sphujidhvaja's and Variihamihira'sJ, and the study itself is grounded on the critical analysis of contemporary discussions carried on by D. Pingree, O. Neugebauer, P. V. Kane, A. M. Shastri, and others scholars in the field.


Audrius Beinorius
Astrological texts bear testimony to the profound and illustrious culture of Indian divination traditions in ancient times. That is, because astrology in one form or another provided a common ground for the encounter of meteorology and architecture, medicine and jewellery-making, iconology and town-planning, agriculture and historiography. India, owing to her preeminent geographical position, had always been a meeting place of many nations and cultures. This enabled her from the very beginning to play an important role in the transmission and diffusion of ideas. To a historian of civilization, astrology is not only one of the significant phenomena of the ancient world's culture but a very helpful tool for the investigation of the transmission of ideas. The purpose of this study is the investigation of Indian astrology in the crucial period from about 500 B.c. to 1000 A.c. in order to obtain a more comprehensive and more plausible picture of ancient Indian astrological history than had previously been presented. The emphasis is placed on the ascertainment of socio-religious dynamics that brought about the change in conceptual basis of ancient Indian astrology during this period, which saw the transition from Vedic VediiJiga Jyoti$a, anchored in a magicreligious ideology to practical applied astrology PhaJita Jyoti$a. The methodology requires a historical and philological investigation of a variety of Indian and non-Indian sources and study itself is based on the analysis of contemporary discussions carried on by D. Pingree, O. Neugebauer, P. V. Kane, A. M. Shastri, and others scholars in this field.
We know equally little about the origin of astrology and astronomy and the relative influence of these two disciplines upon one another is largely a matter of conjuncture. Our attempt here is to explore the development of classical astrology (jyoti$asiistra) in India, tracing its relationship to the astrology developed in Mesopotamia and in the Hellenistic period by the Greeks, as well as discussing some of its amplification in the South Asia, and direct intercourse between India and the Arabs. 3 Knowledge of the processes by which Brahmanism integrated elements of Hellenistic astrology into its religious doctrines and practices not only helps to deepen the understanding of Indian astrological history, but also sheds abundant light on the social and cultural history of Hinduism through the centuries.

Origins of Astral Divinatory Practices: Mesopotamia and Greece
The reading of celestial omens was a relatively late development within the Mesopotamian sciences of omens, following after extispicy, oneiromancy, teratology, and physiognomy, and with systematic observational reports of astronomers. 7 The documents concerning astrology in Mesopotamia belong to the Seleucid period. A letter written by the priest of Assur, Akkullanu, to Assurbanipal in 657 B.c. shows that in c. 1100 B.c. the Babylonian king employed observers who reported to him on celestial phenomena. 8 At the end of the 5 th century B.C., the earliest examples of what has been called Babylonian horoscopes are attested. We have less than ten horoscopes from cuneiform tablets, and still fewer texts concern astrological doctrines as they are known to us in such enormous amounts from Greek sources. Sufficient indications exist that at least in the 3rd century B.C. in Asia Minor something was known about Mesopotamian birth omens. By the 1 SI century B.c. horoscopes begin to appear in Greek and to be mentioned in Latin literature. The earliest datable example is for a nativity on 21 January 72 B.C. 9 In Egypt the earliest horoscopes, Demotic or Greek, are from the reign of Augustus. The earliest astrological doctrines belong to the same period. The rapid spread and enormous development of astrological doctrine during the first Roman imperial period is paralleled in the spread of Christianity, Mithraism, and related creeds.
The astrology which is known to us from the Assyrian period is quite different from the Hellenistic personal astrology. The predictions concern like the king and the country as a whole and are based on observed astronomical appearances, not on computation and not on the moment of birth. The science of planetary astrology was developed in, most probably, the late 2 nd or early 1 sI century B.C. as a means to predict, draw up from horoscopic themata the moment of an individual's birth (or conception), the fate of the native, and depend upon the computed position of the seven celestial bodies and of the zodiacal signs in their relation to the given horizon. This form of astrology, called genethlialogy, is rooted in Aristotelian physics and Hellenistic astronomy, but also borrowed much from Mesopotamia and some elements from Egypt as well as developing many theories of its own. 10 The adaptation of this form of astrology to determine the best time for initiating actions is termed catarchic astrology. All these types of astrology depend on the notion that the planets in their eternal rotations about the earth, transmit motion to the four elements and to the assemblages of elements, animate and inanimate in the sublunar world. As Neugebauer states it clearly: "The main structure of the astrological theory is undoubtedly Hellenistic. [ ... ] Though it is quite possible that the original impetus for horoscopic astrology came from Babylonia as a new development from the old astronomical omens, it seems to me, that its actual development must be considered as an important component of Hellenistic science."ll The closest Babylonian parallels to Greek astrology are the so-called 'horoscopes', which record planetary positions and other data at the time of a native's birth and, sometimes, computed conception, and the texts which inform the diviner about the interpretation of these omens. The astronomy of Mesopotamian omen-literature was purely descriptive, and all concern the nation as a whole, or the king and royal princess. None of those omens that reached our times is concerned with the fate of individual men. Description of omens clearly presuppose that there is some relationship between what happens in the sky and what happens on the earth, though they do not suggest that the relationship is one of cause and effect.
From the seventh century onwards an exact observation becomes increasingly important, and still later arithmetical computation plays a part in this sort of proto-astrology. The names of the constellations, including those, which lie along the ecliptic, are frequently used, but there is no sign of the zodiac as such. Many of the names were taken over by the Greeks, and the combined Greco-Babylonian description of the heavens was later given the name sphaera graecanica, to distinguish it from the spa era barbarica, the non-Greek and usually Egyptian description. Alongside these omens there are a few which give predictions about a child according to the month of birth, but these may be derived from list of lucky and unlucky months rather than from any astronomical data.
After the conquest of Alexander the Great, the Egypt of the Ptolemies was part of the Greek world, and Alexandria became and remained for centuries the intellectual capital of the ancient world. Nevertheless, the ancient Egypt produced no astrology of its own. The Greeks themselves believed that their astronomy was derived from the east, from Babylonia, and that astrology was brought into Greece by the 'Chaldaean' Berosus. Four books of Ptolemey's Tetrabiblos became for centuries the most influential textbook of astrology in the West.
12 He himself was an Alexandrian Greek of the mid-second century A.D., and Alexandria was the home of Greek astrology. As Franz Cumont has made it clear, the new cities and academies of the Hellenistic world spurred the fusion of Zoroastrian, Babylonian, Jewish, Syrian, and Greek currents, and astrology came to function as nothing less than a universal and syncretistic religious perspective that underlay or influenced all the religions of late antiquity. Astrology appealed to the educated Greeks precisely because they were rational, and because it was a rational system, or could be made to look like one. Its acceptance as a learned and 124 Audrius Beinorius scientific study was the common, if not the nonnal, attitude to it, and it is not an accident that the greatest of the Greek astronomer (Hipparchus, Ptolemy) were also astrologers. In that sense George Sarton has justly pointed: "One might almost claim that Greek astrology was the fruit of Greek rationalism. At any rate, it received some kind of justification from the notion of cosmos, a cosmos which is so well arranged that no part is independent of the other parts and the whole.,,13

Early Astrological Beliefs in Vedic India
But let's take a look now at India. 14 The history of astrological beliefs in India goes back to a hoary antiquity. of muhiirta strongly influenced, many treatises of dhannasiistras which are entirely or partially devoted to this kind of prediction.
Traditionally jyoti$a, according to the medieval Indian astrological treatises, was originally promulgated by the eighteen sages: Brahmacarya, Vasi~ta, Atri, Manu, Paulastya, Romasa, Marici, Angiras, Vyasa, Narada, Saunaka, Bhrgu, Cyavana, Yavana, Garga, Kasyapa, Parasara and Siirya. The VediiIiga Jyoti$a is a general name by which one generally refers to the treatises called the Sgveda-jyoti$a (RJ), the Yajurveda-jyoti$a (YJ) and the Atharvaveda-jyoti$a (AJ). The former two are ascribed to Lagadha, while the last one is anonymous. The VediiIiga Jyoti$a is traditionally known to be one of the six auxiliary sciences (aIigas) of the Vedas and its purpose was to provide Vedic priests with a means of computing the times for which the performances of sacrifices are prescribed, primarily new and full moons. In the following verse the purpose of the VediiIiga Jyotl$a is clearly stated: "The Vedas arouse for the purpose of use in sacrifices; sacrifices are enjoined according to the order of times; therefore he who knows fyoti$a which is the science lay in down the proper times knows sacrifices. Just as a tuft of hair stands on the head of peacocks or a jewel in the heads of cobras, so astronomical calculations (gaIJita) stand at the head of all the sciences that are spoken of as Vedarigas.,,17 After quoting the verse given above in his commentary on Brhajjiitaka Bhattotpala says: "Now, how it is proved that astrology is Vedliilga? It is Vedanga because auspicious times are described in terms of lunar and solar eclipses, sun's entry into a sign of the zodiac, [calculations] of vyatipata, gajacchaya, tithi, etc; because specific times are prescribed for the sacrifices, and because times are laid down for various other activities described in the Srutis, smrtis and PurliQas." It means that, according to Bhanotpala, astrology (phiilita jyoti$a) depends strongly on astronomy (galJita jyoti$a). In the PiilJiniya Sik$ii the science of the movements of heavenly bodies is said to be the eye of the Veda. (Sik$ii, 41-42) It shows that the words jyoti$a and galJita are used as synonyms in the VediiIiga Jyoti$a. From amongst these three, it is only the RJ that is the current text memorized for the Vedic recitation by the traditional Vedic reciters (vedapiithin), while the YJ and the AJ are the less known two, and hardly ever recited in the Vedic circles. 18 The Y J is a sort of enlarged and revised version of the RJ, both of which are ascribed to Lagadha, whose disciple Suci seems to have composed or corrected and preserved the knowledge codified by this celebrated teacher, sometimes between 1000 to 500 B. c. 19 The RJ consists of 36 verses, the YJ -of 43 verses and the AJ -of 162 verses divided into 14 chapters. Yajur-recention names no author, but has bhii$ya, or a commentary by one Somakara. While the RJ and the AJ have some variations in the readings, both of them have about thirty verses in common?O It is the YJ that has generally been used by modem scholars too, as it, in two of its additional verses, attempts to adjust the older system of the RJ to the familiar terms of medieval Indian astronomy.
We have no clue for ascertaining whether there were any works more ancient than the VediiIiga Jyoti$a and the Sarilhitiis of Garga and others. None of these are available at present. The first Sanihitii branch dealed with the movement of planets in the zodiac and their mutual conflicts, etc., the consideration of benefic or malefic effects of meteors, comets, eclipses and omens on the world. The second branch is devoted to the selection or consideration of auspicious moments for starting on a journey, the celebration of a marriage, etc. Varahamihira's works show that in his time both branches enjoyed equal importance, but from Snpati's time (around 1050 A.D.), the first part began to lose its importance and from about 1500 A.D., the second part gained so much importance that only the chapter on muhiirta began to pass to the fore the third branch. 21 References to named stars or constellations are extremely rare in the earliest levels of Vedic literature, written before 1000 B.C. Vedas and BrahmaI).as provide us with some elements of observational astronomy. For marking the sideral positions of the Sun and the Moon, ancient Indians divide the ecliptic circle in 27 or 28 (depending on the particular list) divisions nak$atras or constellations associated with the Moon's course through the sky, and this tradition seems to have been subject to Babylonian influence. The earliest text, Taittiriya sanihitii (IV.4.10. 1-3) gives the names of twenty-seven nak$atras in sequence and of the presiding deity of each; this information with further mythological references is found also in two passages of the Taittiriya briihmaIJa (I. 5 and Ill. 1. 4-5). The other early lists of nak$atras are those of the Atharvaveda (XIX. 7, 2-5) Kiithaka sanihitii (XXXIX.l3) and 19 The common points in astronomy and cosmography discussed by W. Kirfel include Vedic evidence, but can be explained as reminiscences from the Indus culture. However, according to P. V. Kane, they at least do not prove any direct contact between Vedic India and Mesopotamia. See Maia-aYaIJi sarilhitii (11. 13, 20). The nak~atras are named after a prominent star or asterism in the respective portion of the Zodiac, but these names differ in the various lists. 22 In this list, which is always headed by the Krttikas (the Pleiades) in the East, each nak~atra is associated with a ruling deity, gotra, food and number of muhilrtas in the unequal-space nak~atra system.
What is important is that almost all of the Indian names of nak~atras are significant or have ancient legends connected with them: However, it does not appear that in these early times any rules had been arrived at about the influence of planets in certain nak$atras or about horoscopes with planets in nak$atras or rasis, or in certain 'houses' (bhavas). Prognostications in those days were confined mainly to nak$atras, days and natural phenomena, bodily marks and from the sight, flight or cries of birds and other animals (siikunas)?3 As a part of divination Indians had for long predicted the characteristics of a native on the basis of the nak$atra occupied by the Moon at his birth. The result of the dependence on ideas of lucky and unlucky days and nak$atras was that some people began to make observations and deduce conclusion and a lore called nak$atra-vidya arose.
For example, in the Chandogya Upani$ad (VII. 1.2.4), daiva and nak$atra-vidya, meaning the knowledge of the utpatas or natural disturbances and jyauti$a respectively, are included in the list of the sciences studied by Nfu-ada. PaQini refers to the belief in divination from bodily signs and to fortune-telling by soothsayers, while the inclusion in the ~gayanadigana of utpata, siiIilvatsara, muhilrta and nimitta as subjects of study indicates the study of astrology and omens in his days. 24 After analyzing the main early Indian astronomical texts on the identification of the coordinates of star (yogatarii), Pingree comes to the conclusion that the Indians did not observe the positions of the stars and planets with accuracy. The idea that the star-coordinates, like the polar coordinate system itself and so much else of the astronomy of medieval India, came from Greece seems more plausible to him. 25 But concerning the question of the units of time, there are famous verses in this connection in ~gveda: "The wheel of {1a has twelve spokes; it revolves round the heavens; it does never wear out. 0 Agni, in this (wheel) seven hundred and twenty sons in pairs abide. Some say that the father (Sun) who sends down water has five feet and twelve forms and remains endowed with fullness in the disant half of heavens while others say that he, all-seeing, is placed in a lower (place) that has seven wheels and six spokes; all the worlds abide in the revolving wheel and five spokes; on wheel and twelve rims (of the wheel) and three naves -who is there that knew these (thoroughly)? In that (wheel, i.e. year) are placed together three hundred and sixty very unstable nails. ',26 In these passages a riddle is passed by sages in a very metaphorical and mystic language about a year divided into three, five or six seasons, twelve months, 360 days and 720 days and nights. It is possible also to hold that the wheel of {la means the zodiacal belt divided into twelve parts (dvadasara). 23 Various references to an ominous bird (siikunas) are found in the ~gveda (H. 42-43 and X. 165) and in the Atharvaveda (VI. 27-29 and VH.64). But the earliest attempts to list and classify omens and to provide their ritual countermeasures (i>'finti) occur in the Kausikasiitra  Hardly anything can be said about the astrological significance of planets in the ancient Vedic literature. The study of planets appears in late astronomical-astrological works and the Vedas do not mention them. Unlike the Babylonians, the ancient Indians were not particularly interested in the study of stars as such and in the preparation of star catalogues. They were primarily interested in the study of the motions of the sun and the moon with a view to developing a workable calendar?? Yet it is impossible to deny the knowledge of the planets to the Vedic Indians, even if we have to agree that the cult of the worship of planet that we find well developed in the Purfu:iic texts had not yet arisen in Vedic times. At least Brhaspati (Jupiter) and U~as (Venus) appear to be clearly meant in some Vedic verses. (RV. IV.5004; X.123.1; X.123.5; At. XX. 88. 4) There are also many verses mentioning in an enigmatic form the main seven planets as "seven priests" (sapta vipriil), "five oxen" (adhvaryubhiiJ paiicabhil), "five gods" (paiicadeviim) and so on.  30 The very remarkable feature of the Indian Epics is that while they put forward dozens of times the positions of the Sun, the Moon and planets in reference to nak$atras, not a single passage gives the position of the planets in relation to riiSis, the signs of the Zodiac, or weekday.3!

Assimilation of the Greco-Roman Traditions
From the time of Indo-European dispersal in the 4th and 3 Td millennium, no contact of great significance could have taken place between Greeks and Indians before Alexander's penetration into Bactria. Socrates and Aristotle. Even if such journeys did take place, these sages are more likely to have brought back with them philosophical rather than scientific ideas. 32 And it is much likely that iconographic material would have reached Greece through merchants or through conscripted Indian soldiers in the Persian armies in the 6 th (in Ionia in the eastern Aegean) and early 5 th centuries (mainland Greece).33 In the 5 th and early 4th century B.c. much of Mesopotamian omen literature, perhaps from Aramaic versions 34 , was translated into an Indian language, and these translations, though undoubtedly considerably altered to fit with Indian intellectual traditions and with Indian society which the diviners had to serve, form the basis of the rich Sanskrit and Prakrit literatures on terrestrial and celestial omens. Thus the Babylonian astral sciences, in a form that they had reached in the Achaemenid period, became the foundations of Indian jyotiiJsiistra. According to Pingree, even the mathematical astronomy of the VediiIiga Jyoti~a heavily depends on Mesopotamian science of the Achaemenid period and cannot be dated earlier than 400 B.C.
"It is my suggestion that some knowledge reached India, along with the specific astronomical material in the fifth or fourth century B.C. through Iranian intermediaries, whose influence is probably discernible in the year-length selected by Lagadha for the Jyotj~avedanga [ ... ]. Iranian influence in the early fifth century was sufficient strong to make possible the safe completion of Scylax's exploratory voyage down the Indus and Tak~asi1a, in the region where Pfu:lini seems to have worked, was certainly a city where cross-cultural contacts were frequent. And it is arguable that the enormous and often-studied Iranian influence discerned in Maurian polity, architecture, sculpture, epigraphy, and the like in the third century B.C. was an inheritance from the pre-Mauryan Nandas' rather than from the post-Alexandrian Greeks' adaptations of Achaemenid forms. And paralIel to the suggested Mesopotamian-Iranian influence on Indian mathematical astronomy is the influence of the same cultural complex on Indian omens, which first are mentioned in the Upani~ads and Buddhist canonical texts of the pre-Mauryan period, though the oldest codifications of these omens available to us were compiled in the early centuries A.D. I believe, to see the origins of mathematical astronomy in India as just one element in a general transmission of Mesopotamian-Iranian cultural forms to northen India during the two centuries that antedated Alexsander's conquest of the Achaemenid empire.,,35 The history of the traditional zodiacal and planetary symbols is virtually unknown. The general outline of the development of the idea of the zodiac is summed up by Rupert Gleadow: "The zodiac grew up, and must have grown up, as a device for measuring time.
Only later did it come to be used for divination, and later still for the analysis of character.,,36 Since Assyriologists began to reveal the astronomical knowledge in the valley of the Euphrates, the Babylonian origin of the Zodiac has been taken for granted by almost all scholars.
37 In the Hellenistic period the Greeco-Babylonian iconography of the signs became known to all areas dominated by Greek dynasties, but some regional peculiarities developed which persisted for many centuries. It is quite possible, that planetary astrology was introduced into India from Greece in conjunction with astronomy as it was essential to possess some means of determining planetary positions in order to be able to cast horoscopes. The form of planetary disscusion on this subject between B. L. van der Warden and D. Pingree, "Two Treatises in Indian Astronomy", Journal for the History of Astronomy, 1980 In the Seleucid period the standard arrangement of planets in cuneiform texts was: lupiter-Venus-Mercury-Saturn-Mars, and the reason for this arrangement is unknown. An ordinary arrangement in Greek horoscopes is: Sun-Moon-Saturn-lupiter-Mars-Venus-Mercury. Professor O. Neugebauer thinks that Hindu arrangement of planets is obviously Greek in origin for the following two reasons: it is based on the arrangement according to distance from the earth and also on a division of days into 24 hours. The ruler of the fIrst hour is then considered to be the ruler of the day and thus one obtains for seven consecutive days the following rulers: Sun-Moon-Mars-Mercury-lupiter-Venus-Saturn, which is still our sequence of the days of the week and also the arrangement of the planets in Hindu astronomy. Such arrangement is not Babylonian but Hellenistic and ultimately of Egyptian origin. 43 It was also elsewhere suggested that the teaching that every planet has its exaltation i. e. the strongest pitch of its might and influence when in a particular sign as well as the concept of benefIc and malefIc planets also goes back to ancient Babylonia.

44
With the spread of Buddhism under Asoka to the north-west India, the confrontation with Greco-Roman astrology begins with the break-up of the Mauryan empire. P. V. Kane stresses, that India's contacts with Mesopotamia became very close after Alexander's invasion of India about 325 B.C. and in the 3 rd century B.c. To him probably appears that Indians, who had already the nak~atra astrology, saw the signs of the Zodiac on Babylonian monuments and boundary stones and adapted them to their own astrological purposes just about the time when the Greeks derived their inspiration for individual astrology from Babylonians. However, both O. Neugebauer and D. Pingree are tempting to assume the way through the Greek and Persian civilization of the Sasanian period rather than through a direct contact between India and Mesopotamia: "Much seems to point toward astrology as a real carrier of astronomical knowledge -specifically, astrology in a form which has definitely gone through the Hellenistic medium. This is confirmed by the use in loan words of Greek terminology and by explicit references in the Hindu sources to the Greek (or Byzantines) as their authorities for the science of astronomy. ,,45 But let's take a look at the earliest Sanskrit astrological text. "the greater part of the Yavanajiitaka was directly transmitted (with some necessary adjustments) from Roman Egypt to Western India, and this text is one of the principle sources for the long tradition of horoscopic astrology in India.,,46 P. V. Kane does attach due importance to the fact that a vast literature in Sanskrit has perished beyond recovery, as it is admitted was the case in Greece after Ptolemy composed his Almagest, and that what we now have is a mere fraction of what once existed. But the Yavanajiitaka is the earliest surviving Sanskrit text concerned with horiiskandha, and together with another, lost translation of a Greek text on astrology known to Satya, constitutes the basis of all later Indian developments in horoscopy before the injection of Islamic theories through translations from Persian into Sanskrit of tiijika works in the 13 th and the following centuries. A large number of later commentators and compilers have preserved verses of the Yavanajiitaka, and other astrologers -Minaraja, KalyaJ)avarman, Govindasviimin, Utpala, Vi~J)usarman, Kamalakara and Nrsimha -have depended directly on Sphujidhvaja. There exist other horoscopic treatises in Sanskrit that are attributed to Yavanas. D. Pingree mentiones more than sixteen identified works, but they all seem to be posterior to the Yavanajiitaka. The most important of these texts is Vrddhayavanajiitaka, a long treatise in 71 chapters written in Western India by Minaraja, a Yavanadhiraja of the early fourth century.47 Probably Yavanesvara and Sphujidhvaja, who gives himself the title of riijii, both were "the lord of the Greeks", that is to say, men exercising some sort of authority over Greeks settled in the domains of the Western ~atrapas in those areas of India later known as Gujarat, Malwa and Rajasthan. According to Klaus Karttunen, "The word [yavanas] was used in both of the Bactrian Greeks living in the Northwest ofIndia, and those living in the Hellenistic West, and even, as in Tamil  We have ample evidence that Greeks settled in India, composed inscriptions in Sanskrit and wrote extensive works on astrology in Sanskrit. 49 The Yavanas appear to have had some sort of political organization within the state, of which Yavanesvara, Raja Sphujidhvaja, and MInaraja the Yavanadhiraja, Yavanacarya were all leaders. As the evidence of these early Yavana scholars seems to be concentrated in Gujarat of interpreting horoscopes; but basically all of jiitakas before the introduction of tiijika texts in the thirteenth century, and even most jiitakas after that, can be traced back to the Yavanajiitaka."S2 It seems that an Indian zodiac has not existed before Yavandvara. S3 Sphujidhvaja's zodiac is the common Hellenistic one with certain features indicating an Egyptian origin. The most common terms of zodiacal signs (rasis) that were used in early Indian astrological texts are as follows: Greek indeed an offshoot of Hellenistic astrology, though it is true that the nature of the predictions has been extensively modified to suit a Hindu audience. Many of the Saiva elements in the descriptions of planets, decans and horas can be found in the Greco-Egyptian material.
"So it may fairly be concluded that the figures described in the Yavanajiitaka are, for the most part, based on iJJustrations which adorned the Greek manuscript utilized by Yavanesvara, but that their interpretation has been colored by an attempt to understand them in Hindu, especially Saiva, terms. But it must be added that they have also been subject to additions reflecting social conditions in Western India in the second, third and fourth centuries A.D."s4 It seems that among the other things, Sphujidhvaja was the first to use a symbol for zero It is in Sphujidhvaja's work that interrogational astrology (prasna) was introduced to India from the Hellenistic world. Interrogational astrology was developed in India in the 2 nd and 3rd centuries A.D. on the basis of Greek catarchic astrology, and historical astrology in Sasanian Iran in perhaps the 5 1lt or 6 th century A.D. on the basis of continuous forms of Greek genethlialogy Uataka). In catarchic astrology the jyoti$i determines for his client the moment (muhurta) at which it is most propitious for him to undertake a specific act. In interrogational astrology (prasna) he responds to a query about some aspect of the client's life on the basis of the horoscope of the moment of the query. The amount of detail in prasna texts was enlarged in the poem Vidvajjanavallabha written by the Paramara Bhojaraja of Dhara in the first half of the eleventh century.55 The Concept of Astrology in the Texts ofVarahamihira One of the greatest Jyoti~a writers of ancient India indeed was Varahamihira and his fairly numerous writings on the subject truly depict the exuberant life, spirit and culture of the Gupta age, justifiably treated as the classical age of early Indian history. The combination of astronomical-astrological erudition coupled with his keen observation and literary talent made his works supplant most of the earlier writings on the subject. As Ajay Mitra Shastri has remarked: "He is among the writers on jyoti$ii what PaQini is among vaiyiikaraIJa5, Manu among dhannasiistrakiiras, Kautilya among writers on political science and Bharata among dramaturgists.,,56 Varahamihira, the son of Adityadasa ("slave of the Sun") was a Maga BrahmaI:la -that is, descendent of one of those Persian Zoroastrians who entered India toward the begining of the Christian era. We learn from the penultimate verse of Varahamihiras Brhajjataka (XXVIII, 9) that he was a native of Avanti or Western Malwa and resided in the village called Kapitthaka. His date is delimined by his use of Latadeva's epoch, 505 A.D., in the Paiicasiddhiintika and by the fact that Brahmagupta was familiar with his work when he wrote the Brahmasphuta siddhiinta in A.D. 628. 57 It has further been suggested that he was connected with the Aulikara court at Dasapura (modem Mandasor), and in particular with Yasodharman who is known to have been ruling in Samvat 589 = A.D. 532, though, according to D. Pingree, no definitive assertion can be made with regard to this hypotesis. 58 As a Maga BrahmaI).a, Varahamihira was subject not only to Greek influence, but to Iranian. The Magas were the Sun-worshiping Magi priests who were originally inhabitants of Medea which came to be included in the Achaemenid empire after Cyrus 1 sI conquest. Thereafter they gradually spread over the whole of the Achmaemenian world, particularly Iran. Some of them found a foothold in Zoroastrianism at some time in the fifth century B.C. They appear to have entered India when it passed on to the Achaemenids in the sixth-fifth century B.c. and the second wave in the wake of Scytho-Parthian invasion in the second-first century B.c. 59 The second wave appears to have been a much more powerful and probably The story of migration of the Magi priests of ancient Iran at some early date is found, in the shape of an elaborate legend, in the Bhavi$ya PuriiIJa (Brahma-parva, 127-149). According to most scholars Sakadvipa, from where the eighteen families of a Maga-BrahmaQ.a priests came to Jambudvlpa (India), has been after the Sakas or the ancient Scythians and its geographical position was the same as that of ancient Sakasthana or modem Seistan in Iran. 62 After the fall of the Maurya empire the north-western region ofIndia fell an easy prey to foreign invaders. These consisted chiefly of the Yavanas (the Greeks), the Sakas (The Scythians), and the Pahlavas (the Parthians). In spite of their foreign origin, these invaders gradually succeded in settling down in this country as permanent inhabitants and in the course of time acquired a place in the contemporary Indian society. The Magas were probably responsible for popularizing the anthropomorphic representation of the Sun-god, who was earlier worshipped in the symbolic fonn, and the emergence of the Saura sect. 63 The opening verse of the Hora$atpaiicasikii, astrological work by Prthuyasas, the son of Varahamihira, also shows that the latter like his father, was a devotee of the Sun. The fact that the Magas were Iranian magi priests was known even as late as the first half of the eleventh century AD. when al-Blriini wrote: "There are some Magians up to the present time in India where they are called Maga.,,64 According to A M. Shastri, the Magas are referred to in numerous inscriptions and literature up to the twelfth century AD. The influence ofVarahamihira's Iranian ancestors, which perhaps reached him through his father and teacher Adityadasa, is found mentioned in Paiicasiddhiintikii (I. 23-25). His own name-ending Mihira being a sanskritised fonn of Mihr, which itself is corrupted fonn Mithra, the Iranian Sun-god, his obtaining the boon from the Sun, his obeisance to the Sun in the beginning of all his works, except the Viviibapatala (which opens with an invocation to Kama, the Indian god of love) and his devoting a comparatively larger number of verses to the description of Surya icons (BS. LVII. 46-52), all indicate that the Sun was his family deity. As his commentator Bhanotpala tell us, he himself was regarded even as an incarnation of the Sun who descended to this world in the Kali age in order to rescue Jyotib siistra from wholesale destruction. 66 The name Varahamihira is also highly significant in this connection inasmuch as it leaves no doubt that even though the Magi priests were throroughly Indianised and absorbed in the BrahmaQical fold enjoying the status of the Brahmal).as, the highest class in the BrahmaQical social order, their Iranian origins were not altogether forgotten. Varahamihira was an encyclopaedic writer and naturally he refers to a host of earlier or contemporary authors not only on astronomy and astrology but also on various other subjects. From the point of a study of the history of astrological ideas in India, it is important that Varahamihira's main source for his knowledge of Hellenistic genethialogy, aside from Yavanajiitaka, was the lost poem of Satya. 67 For that reason Bhanotpala persistently styled him as 'the writer on entire jyotibsiistra" Uyotibsiistra saIigraha 1qt).
Varahamihira states that the science of Jyoti~a is divisible into three departments (skandas); the first branch called Tantra, or Gal).ita, deals with the determination by mathematical calculation of the heavenly bodies; the second known as Hora treats the horoscopy or the casting of the horoscope; and the last is natural astrology called Aogaviniscaya or Siikha and that the treatment of the whole course of Jyoti~a is named Samhita. The reasons, why the third branch was called Siikha is not satisfactorily explained. 68 Hora again had three sub-sections, viz jataka or janmathat is judicial astrology, predictions from the situations of the zodiacal signs and planets at a person's birth; yatra or yatrikathat deals with prognostications on starting on a journey or on a king's marching against an enemy derived from the tithi, nak$atra, the week-day and muhOrta, the moon's position, dreams, cries of birds; and vivaiJaexamining the horoscopes of the parties to a marriage.
A clear-cut distinction between these three branches of jyoti~a cannot be drawn. He tells us that a real astrologer is one who 'knows both text and meaning of the works on mathematical astronomy, natural astrology, and horoscopy (graha gaJ}ita hora sarilhit arthavett etl)'. It is said in another place that only a person fully accomplished in natural astrology can be an efficient diviner (sarilhira paragas ca daiva cintako bhavatJ). Varahamihira said a famous sentence about a high position of astrologer in society: "The twice-born one who knows this entire [science] both in word and in meaning, should be the first to eat at an ancestors ceremony (sriiddha), an honoured purifier of the row of guest. For although the Greeks are barbarians, they have brought this science to perfection and so are honored as sages; how much more [honorable], then is an astrologer who is a twice born! [ ... However,] he who assumes the role of astrologer without knowing the science should be known as a wretched 69 defiler of the row, a mere gazer at the stars." Moreover, as already Weber has remarked, Varahamihira uses as many as thirthy-four Sanskritised Greek words as technical astrological terms 70, and among his authorities on works. See P. V. Kane, "Varahamihira and Utpala", Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1948Society, -1949 According to P. V. Kane, it was so called probably because it had to deal with numerous circumstances, such as the fruits of the simple and retrograde movements, the conjunctions and oppositions of planets, haloes, meteors, earthquakes, lore about the movements and cries of birds, and so on. See Varahamihira holds a unique posltIon in the history of astronomical and astrological literature in India. He was a prolific author in the three traditional skandhas (branches) of jyotibsiistra which reflects the amalgamation of Indo-Iranian traditions in socio-religious spheres. On gaI:tita he composed only the Paiicasiddhiintikii; on hora he wrote the Brhajjiitaka and the Laghujiitaka; and on samhita the BrhatsaJiJhitii and the SamiisasaJiJhitii. He also composed three works on military astrology -the Brhadyiitrii, the Tikanikiiyiitrii, and the Yogayiitrii as well as a Viviihapatala on the astrology of marriages. Military astrology (yiitral is based on a combination of omens with catarchic astrology. Several other works have been attributed to him, but their authenticity is doubtful. 72 Of the relative chronology of the works of Varahamihira some notion may be derived from his cross-referencess. In Brhajjiitaka (XXVIII. 4-6) he seems to indicate that his karaQa, the Paiicasiddhiintikii, as well as treatises on interrogations, on military astrology, on omens (saJiJhitii), and on the time of marriage had already been written. Varahamihira in BrhatsaJiJhitii (11) states that there are five siddhiintikiis, which he urges an astrologer to study: the Paulisa, the Romaka, the Vasi~ta, the Surya and the Paitamaha. Moreover, Paiicasiddhiintikii (1.22) seems to refer to the fact that he had not yet composed his books on horii, which include the Brhajjiitaka. The Brhajjiitaka, then, was written after the Paiicasiddhiintikii. Furthermore, BrhatsaJiJhim (11) lists the subjects to be covered by a work on horoscopy, but this is not a table of contents to either the Brhajjiitaka or the Laghujiitaka. According to Pingree, the Paiicasiddhiintikii and Brhatsar:iJhitii were composed simultaneously towards the beginning of his writing career, the Brhajjiitaka towards its end, and at least one work on military astrology and the Viviihapata1a in between.

73
Brhajjiitaka of Varahamihira itself became the model for much of the subsequent Sanskrit literature on jiitaka, and remains the most authoritative text-book on the subject today. Horiisiistra, or astrology, includes, according to Varahamihira the following topics: the strength or weakness of Zodiacal signs (riisl), half-signs (horii), third parts (dre$kii/Ja), ninth parts (naviimsaka), twelfth parts and degrees; determination of various kinds of power of the seven planets due to the direction, the place occupied, the moment and the orientation; the temperaments (pra/q1I), bodily elements ( In Varahamihira's Brhajjataka the twelve rasis starting from Me~a are already identified respectively with the following limbs of the Kalapuru~a, the head (Me~a), mouth (Vr~abha), chest, heart, stomach, waist, the abdomen, the private parts, the pair of thighs, the pair of knees, the two shanks, the two feet. Varahamihira adds that the words riiii, ~etra, grha, rk$a, bha and bhavana are used as synonyms in Jataka. (Brhajjataka, I. 4) In the Bl both the Lagna and Moon position are important in this natal astrology, the Sun's position to a much lesser extent.
A very popular extensive work on jataka entiteled Horasiira, which is traditionally attributed to Varahamihira's son, Prthuyasas, is known in South India. 75 However, the author has borrowed verses from KalyaIJavarman and so this text must have been written after 850 A.D. That is the reason, why Pingree refers to him as pseudo-Prthuyasas. MantreSvara (ft. c. 1550?) in his Phaladipika (adhyaya XXIV/ 6 and Vi~IJusarman quotes some verses from Horasiira, the oldest manuscript of which is dated 1583 A.D. It seems that Prthuyasas introduced a daia, or a system of "life-periods", that is quite different from the one in the Yl and Bl. This new system has set years for the planets, including Rahu and Ketu -not recognised as planets by Varahamihira -and omits Lagna. At some time after 600 and before 700 A.D. the pilrvakhaIJrja was written whicht was to become known as the Brhat Piirasara Horii Sastra ascribed to the sage Parasara,77 who was deeply indebted to the Brhajjataka, has borrowed two verses from Sphujidhvaja (Yl I. 59-60), and was extensively used by KalYii!Javarman. Parasara also puts forth serious requirements to an astrologer: "Expert in calculations, taking pains in the science of grammar, versed in logic and intelligent, studying and reflecting on the branches of judicial astrology, skilled in argumentation and refutation, conversant with time and place, controlling his senses: such an astrologer will no doubt predict t I ,,78 ru y.
The second part (uttarakh8lJr;!a) of Brhat Piirasara Horii refers to the first as already existing and was commented on by Govindasvamin (fl. c. 850), and probably can be dated in c. 650-750. Despite the questionability of the authenticity of some parts of the piirvakh8lJr;!a, the Brhat Piiriisara Horii Siistra itself represents some notable developments in the long process by which the original Hellenistic astrology that was transmitted to India in the second century, was made increasingly complex as to generate predictions more closely approximating reality.79 Perhaps from the lth century Indian astrology became dominated by the so-called Nirayana system of calculations based on the immovable zodiac that is represented in Brhat Piirasara Horii Siistra.
Another famous astrologer was Kalyax:tavarman (i h century A.D.) who enjoyed a high reputation as an astrological writer and the importance attached to his only known work, the Siiriivalfo is evident from the fact that a commentator of the eminence Bhattotpala (9 th century A.D.) has profusely quoted from it in his commentaries on Variihamihira's BrhatsariJhitii and Brhajjiitaka. Bhattotpala's relation with the Kalyax:tavarman's SiiriivaJihas been generally known to go only to the extent of his quoting largely from it, as a work of undisputed authority, in his commentary Jagaccandrikii on Varahamihira's Brhajjiitaka and other works. Sudhakara Dvivedi opines that the Siiriivali was composed in the age of Brahmagupta, i.e. about 628 A.C. 8l S. B. Dikshit is inclined, but possible not with much justification, to identify Kalyax:tavarman with Vittesvara, who is stated by AI-BIriinI to have composed the Kar8lJasiira about 900 A.C. The gross view, generally accepted and warranted by hitherto known external evidence, is that Kalyax:tavarman flourished some after 505 A.C., the date ofVarahamihira, who is mentioned in Siiriivali(I.2; XXXIX.9), and before 966 A.C., the date of Bhattotpala, who quotes profusely the Siiriivali. 82 Kalyax:tavarman certainly lived later than the piirvakh8lJr;!a, the Brhat Piirasara Horii Siistra and is quoted by Govindasvamin.
The details regarding Kalyiix:tavarman are found in the Siiriivali (1.5-6, and LIV.IO). From these verses we can only gather that he was a renowned, pious, liberal and learned king of a region named VyagbrapadI with his capital at the town called Devagramapura and that he wrote the Siiravali on the lines of his predecessors for the use of the students in astrology. Among a host of authors and works KalyaI).avarman mentiones not only Varaharnihira, the biggest number of these allusions go to Yavanas, mentioned variously as Yavana, Yavanarendra, Yavanapati, Yavanadhiraja, Yavanaraja, Yavanavrddha, Yavanadhipati, Yavanendra, Piirva Yavanendra, Vrddha Yavanacarya, etc, and a Yavanendradarsana, too, has been mentioned. From an important verse "yatha matam brahmapilrviiI;iim" (Siiravali, XI.2), giving an allusion to Brahmagupta himself, S. L. Katre concludes that KalyaI).avarman's exact data may be fixed somewhere about 650 AC. 83

Intercourse between India and the Arabs
The works of Greek authors such as Dorotheus of Sidon (first century AD.) and Vettius Valens of Antioch (2 nd A.D.) had been translated into PahlavI in the 3 n1 century and developed in new ways by Sasanian astrologers. The PahlavI texts that informed most of the early 'Abbasid astrologers were rooted not only in translations from the Greek, but as well from Sanskrit,.84 Portion of Indian literature and sciences reached the Arabs either through direct translations from original Sanskrit texts with the help of Indian scholars or indirectly through Persia. From the Indians the Sassanians derived the interrogational (prasna) branch of astrology, the techniques of military astrology. Combining the Dorothean idea of anniversary horoscopes with the Indian theories of vast yugas, the Sassanians invented historical astrology, which foretells the fates of nations, prophets, dynasties and individual kings.
When the province of Sindh came under the direct rule of Khalif Mansur (753-774 A. D.), there began, for a short duration, a direct intercourse between India and the Arabs, and embassies from Sindh paid regular visits to Baghdad; these included scholars who brought with them Sanskrit texts including the Brahmasphuta-siddhanta (Sindhind) and the KhaIJifakhadyaka (Arkand) of the famous Indian astronomer Brahmagupta which were translated into Arabic. These works for the first time introduced the Arabs to astronomy even before Ptolemy's system. Under Hariin (786-808 AD.) another influx ofIndian learning took place, and Sanskrit texts on medicine, pharmacology, toxicology, philosophy, astrology and other subjects were translated into Arabic, while in later times these activities continued on a limited scale. 85 Among Persians and Arabs both interrogational and catarchic astrology were popular and the latter transmitted their versions of these astrological techniques to the Byzantines through a series of translations. 86 One of the most important transmitters of a knowledge of Indian Siiravaii The Arabs attributed to him writings on the numudiir -that is, on the method of ascertaining a factitious ascendant of the nativity, on the nativities, on the conjunctions of the planets. As Pingree has remarked, Kanaka's (Kankah ai-Hindi) name became a favorite symbol used by intellectuals of the Islamic tradition to indicate the partial dependence of some of their sciences upon Sanskrit sources. But in general, Muslim astrologers cited simply 'the Indians' (ai-Hind), without particular names of authors. Some Muslim astrologers used electional astrology of Indian origin, which consists in deducing the fitting moment for action from the place which the moon then occupies in one of the 28 lunar mansions (manaziJ).
AI-BIriinI, who visited India and composed his account known as Kitab-ui-Hindin the first half of eleventh century AD., is all admiration for Varahamihira and speaks of him as an excellent astronomer who clearly spoke out the truth. From al-BIriinI's account we get valuable information on the question of Varahamihira's period as well as his works. Having translated several astrological and astronomical Sanskrit texts into Arabic around 1030 AD. (BrhatsadJhita and Laghujataka of Varahamihira, Brahmasphura-siddhanta and Pulisasiddhiinta of Brahmagupta), he regrets that others did not follow Varahamihira's example and passes strictures on Brahmagupta's (6 th _7'h centuries AD.) lack of sincerity and his support to imposture. 89 AI-BIriinI had so great admiration for him that even when he found some wrong notion in his writings, he was so much obsessed by the excellence, truthfulness and supremacy of Varahamihira that he supposed some esoteric meaning concealed behind it which he was unable to follow. (ll. 117) Among the Muslims the technical name of astrology is 'iJm (or $inii'at) abkiim annujum -'science (or art) of the decrees of the stars'; 'iJm ai-abkiim -'science of the decrees'. Another name is an-najiimah (nijiimah) or 'iJm (sinii'at) an-nujum, 'science of the stars'. 'iJm at-tanj1m, mean astronomy as well as astrology, and they also mean both of these sciences all of India, and made it one of the most common systems of genethlialogy in use in the subcontinent in the 1 i h and 18 th centuries.

Conclusions
By way of conclusion, with some generalization it can be said that horoscopy astrology in India, being itself not indigenous science but a local adaptation and development of Mesopotamian, Greco-Babylonian, and Greek texts, has passed through a complicated process of transformation and hinduization. Indian divinatory tradition was able to absorb contrasting and diverging options. Thus, while the various passages from the Yavanajiitaka were of crucial importance and continued to be reused in many subsequent texts, they obviously were unsatisfactory in fulfilling the needs of the Indians' religious needs and eventually had to be modified in order to become more culturally viable. At an early stage of the development of Indian astrological and divinatory practices, parts of Indian tradition had influenced Sasanian and Syriac science before the rise of Islam. When Sanskrit texts on medicine, pharmacology, toxicology, philosophy, astrology and other subjects were translated into Arabic, they made tremendous impact on the development of the later Islamic astrology. It is quite evident that Indians' understanding of foreign scientific systems and their elaborations thereof led to theories and methods which differ drastically from their Babylonian, Greek, and Islamic counterparts, but that nevertheless do not obscure their ultimate origins. The origin and development of the Indian astrological and divinatory systems reveals a complex interaction of numerous cultural components, both foreign and indigenous. In traditional Indian context astrology occupied a far more central position in any plausible map of ancient bodies of knowledge than one could anticipate from a modem perspective. Therefore history and sources of Indian astrology and divination should be studied in its fullest social and intellectual contexts as far as practically possible.