Further information about the Greek-Indian origins debate

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Hello list,

 

I was forwarded a debate about the origins of vedic and greek astrology from another and given permission to reproduce some of the main points here in case it is of interest to SAMVA list members.

 

- Part of the debate concerns the issue if divisional charts were defined before Rasi charts or not.

- It is held that Varga charts were not first defined in Sphujidwaja's yavanajatakam (chapter 1, shlokas 30 to 58) but by Parasara Rsi them well before that.

- It is further asserted that Yavana Jatakam is from 2-3rd century AD and not 4th century BC as some have held.

- the following statement is rejected: "not only planetary astronomy in the form of Surya Sidhanta by Maya the mlechha, the first so called indigenous astronomical work to calculate planets vis-a-vis Mesha etc. rashis, that was imported from the Greeks, but even phalita jyotisha!

http://www.astrojyoti.com/yavanajatakamainpage.htm

- Moreover, the following assertion is rejected: Sage Yavana wrote Yavana Jataka and he belonged to the Alexander period.

- Rather, the book was written 500 years later and "Sage Yavana was an astrologer in the Greek court in India." Because of this he was called Yavanacharya or Greek Guru. A lot of western astrologers claim that Indians learned astrology from the Greeks but this is again wrong. All Greeks were Yavanas but not all Yavanas were Greeks.

- Western scholars say Yavana Jataka is from 2-3rd century AD, NOT 4th century BC.- Yavanacarya was not a Greek, he was a Yavana. For example in Yavanajaka it is mentioned how the old Yavanas defined Vargotamma, when rasi and navamsa are same it is vargotamma.

- the Greeks did not use NAVAMASA, even Pingree agrees to this. So these Yavanas were not Greeks.- the above site has not been hosted by David Pingree but by Pandit S.P.Tata

- Greeks didn’t have astrology at the time of Alexander.

- astrology was introduced to Greece after 280 BC by Berrossus, more than 50years after the death of Alexander.- there were no Mesha etc. rashis in Inida prior to the Surya Sidhanta in India, and that work is of a later era i.e. around first century BCE/AD, whereas Alexander was actually from Macedonia (Balkan Penninusual), who conquered Greek states and then invaded India in around 326 BCE!- The Greeks only used dodekotemoria, division by 12, equivalent to dvadasamsa. They didn’t use shodasavargas. Divisional charts and Mesha etc. rashis emanated India.-According to the Hellenistic astrologers Vettius Valens, Firmicus Maternus and Theodorus of Sidon, the Grreks didn’t have shodasavargas only rasi chart and dodekotemoria.- Below is an interesting article by a scholar in Vedic astrology (Shyamasundara Dasa) regarding the authenticity of the Brhat Parasara Hora Sastra. Its main findings

are

-- modern BPHS is not authentic

-- Jaimini astrology was not mentioned in any classical text and didn’t appear on the scene until 16th century

-- unequal house systems are recent innovations and

-- the method of remedial measure mentioned in Brhat Parasara Hora Sastra is doubtful.http://shyamasundaradasa.com/jyotish/resources/articles/bphs.html

The findings of this debate are broadly consistent with the thesis of my latest blog that care should be taken in inferring from the available literary evdidence that horoscopic astrology originated in Greece and was then transmitted to India.

 

http://cosmologer.blogspot.com/2009/10/greco-indian-astrology.html

 

A host of circumstantial evidence points to the opposite being true. I find the suggestion very interesting that the "Astrology of the Greeks" was in fact an Indian work. That said, it would be interesting to have direct evidence of this claim, as well as the existence of this astrologer Berrossus who purportedly introduced astrology to the Greeks.

 

Thor