[INDOLOGY] bhakti/Vedic astrology

Tue Nov 15 17:09:28 UTC 2016

Dear Bill,

My statement was :

That was just a model of solution I was trying to offer to get out of this
'problematic' (?) word 'Vedic' in the name of Vedic Astrology. My point was
that some method indicating name might solve the problem of source-claims.

Let me elaborate the word 'source-claims':

The whole discussion started with objections to a certain strand of
astrology being called 'Vedic'. The objection is rooted in the objections
to the assumed or actual *claim* by the users of the word 'Vedic' that
the *source
*of present horoscopic astrology that is being called 'Vedic Astrology' is
Vedas or some other Vedic text. This is an example of a source-claim. The
objection is to this source-claim. What I did is, I neither agreed nor
disagreed with this source-claim. My above statement was a clarification
that I was only suggesting that method indicate name can avoid the
controversy about such source-claims.

That is my clarification about my statement.

But please go ahead discussing your objections to source-claims after
noting that none of those claims are mine.

On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 5:16 PM, Bill Mak <bill.m.mak at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Nagaraj,
>
> I am very curious about your claim about the “source-claims”. Is there any
> jyotiṣa text other than *Vedāṅgajyotiṣa* of Lagadha that claims itself to
> be vaidika?
>
> I don’t think the topic of “source-claims” within the jyotiṣa texts had
> been treated seriously. The Greco-Indian texts of Sphujidhavaja and
> Mīnarāja or even Varāhamihira all make interesting claims and referred to
> authors which had been speculated to be foreign, e.g., Maya > Ptolemy,
> Maṇittha > Manethos, beside all the “Yavanarāja”-s including “Yavaneśvara"
> etc.
>
> Bill
>
> --
> Bill M. Mak, PhD
>
> Visiting research scholar
> Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW)
> New York University
> 15 East 84th Street
> New York, NY 10028
> US
>
> Associate Professor
> Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University
> Yoshidahonmachi, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan 606-8501
> 〒606-8501 京都市左京区吉田本町
> 京都大学人文科学研究所
>
> email: mak at zinbun.kyoto-u.ac.jp
> Tel:+81-75-753-6961
> Fax:+81-75-753-6903
>
> copies of my publications may be found at:
> http://www.billmak.com
>
> On Nov 15, 2016, at 2:55 AM, Nagaraj Paturi <nagarajpaturi at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Luis and Martin,
>
> That was just a model of solution I was trying to offer to get out of this
> 'problematic' (?) word 'Vedic' in the name of Vedic Astrology. My point was
> that some method indicating name might solve the problem of source-claims.
>
> Also, even if some such solution is ironed out, languages and names in
> them are such tricky entities that they may not come fully under the
> control of a group of scholars.
>
> Best,
>
> -N
>
> On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Martin Gansten <martin.gansten at pbhome.se
> > wrote:
>
>> This is getting off the topic a bit, but just to clarify: both Babylonian
>> and early Greek-language astrology was explicitly sidereal in the sense
>> that it defined the vernal equinoctial point as falling somewhere within
>> the sign Aries rather than Aries commencing from it. The same seems to have
>> been true of pre-Islamic Persian astrology. So I agree with Luis that
>> 'sidereal' won't do as a synonym of 'Indian'. Indian astrology differs in
>> many other technical respects from its cousin traditions further west: some
>> aspects of the Hellenistic system never made it to India, or only did so a
>> millennium later with the Perso-Arabic transmission, and new methods were
>> developed in India, some on the basis of indigenous lore such as the
>> nakṣatras.
>>
>> Martin
>>
>>
>>
>> Den 2016-11-14 kl. 23:19, skrev Luis Gonzalez-Reimann:
>>
>> Nagaraj,
>>
>> It may also be a good idea to use 'Tropical' , 'Sidereal'  in the names
>> of the two traditions since that indicates the method difference rather
>> than giving scope for questions such as which part of the world Mesopotamia
>> or Greece is the origin of western Astrology or whether the so called Vedic
>> Astrology has got to do with the Vedas (alone) or not etc.
>>
>>
>> There is also sidereal astrology in the " West," so that is not really a
>> good marker of the difference. Also, at the time of Greek influence on
>> Indian astronomy the two zodiacs more or less coincided, so there was no
>> difference between sidereal and tropical (this applies to both Indian/South
>> Asian astrology and to "Mediterranean" astrology). The date of when that
>> happened will depend of exactly where one considers the beginning of Aries
>> (the constellation) to be.
>>
>> Horoscopic astrology was mainly imported into India and then adapted, as
>> shown by the *Yāvana Jataka*.
>>
>> Luis
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> INDOLOGY mailing list
>> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
>> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
>> committee)
>> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or
>> unsubscribe)
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Nagaraj Paturi
>
> Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.
>
> Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies
>
> FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,
>
> (Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> indology-owner at list.indology.info (messages to the list's managing
> committee)
> http://listinfo.indology.info (where you can change your list options or
> unsubscribe)
>
>
>

-- 
Nagaraj Paturi

Hyderabad, Telangana, INDIA.

Former Senior Professor of Cultural Studies

FLAME School of Communication and FLAME School of  Liberal Education,

(Pune, Maharashtra, INDIA )

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20161115/e4b870ad/attachment.htm>