[INDOLOGY] Yamanaka Jyotiṣa Siddhānta?

[Bill Mak]

Hi David,

There are various lists of authors of jyotiḥśāstra in the jyotiṣa literature. Pingree in his Jyotiḥśāstra (1981) mentioned in his intoduction names of the eighteen sages according to “medieval muhūrta treatises,” which he did not identify. Among them are Brahm(ācarya), Romaśa [sic], Yavana, Sūrya, etc. Weber was among the first to identify these eighteen sages in the Nāradasaṃhitā in his Verzeichniss der Sanskrit-Handschriften der Königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin (1853), and noticed the different kinds of authors in possibly two layers, earlier ones like Garga and Parāśara, and later ones Yavana, Romaka, etc with Hellenistic elements.  

Since the larger subsets usually include the smaller ones, an unattested Yamanaka-siddhānta in a small set of four siddhānta-s does sound suspicious. The Tibetan translation doesn’t mean much unless one could identify a text with such name, or find an explanation of the name, which does look a corruption of Yavana(jāta)ka.  Although no yavana siddhānta survived, the last chapter of the Yavanajātaka would count as one because of its astronomical content, which is indeed comprable to Romakasiddhānta, and to some extent, Brahmasiddhānta and Sūryasiddhānta in Varāhamihira’s Pañcasiddhānta in terms of astronomical concepts. All these four texts were in circulation in India.

Best regards,

Bill
   

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Bill M. Mak, PhD

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> On 12 Dec 2025, at 04:01, David and Nancy Reigle via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> 
> When the Kālacakra-tantra introduces its own astronomical calculations in chapter 1, verse 26, the Vimalaprabhā commentary thereon refers to four existing siddhāntas:1. Brahma; 2. Saura; 3. Yamanaka; and 4. Romaka. The Vimalaprabhā again names these same four at 1.86, only saying Sūrya instead of Saura. Three of these siddhāntas are of course well known: Brahma, Saura/Sūrya, and Romaka. I have not been able to determine what the Yamanaka siddhānta is.
> 
> The editors of the Vimalaprabhā suggest emending Yamanaka to Yavanaka, a reasonable assumption. However, the two very old palm-leaf manuscripts of the Vimalaprabhā confirm the spelling yamanaka. Moreover, the Tibetan translations of yamanaka do not support yavanaka. The Shong ston and Jonang Tibetan translations take yamanaka as gcer bu pa, "naked ones." Elsewhere in the Kālacakra-tantra, at 3.169 and 4.217, Tibetan gcer bu translates Sanskrit nagna, confirming the meaning, "naked." The early Gyi jo Tibetan translation also takes yamanaka as gcer bu. This may suggest a Jaina jyotiṣa siddhānta. 
> 
> However, I do not know of a Jaina jyotiṣa siddhānta, in the full sense of a jyotiṣa siddhānta; meaning giving the movements of the planets, and not just the movements of the sun and moon, as does the Sūryaprajñapti and works following it such as the Jyotiṣkaraṇḍakam. I have considered the Bhadrabāhu-saṃhitā, but at least in the form we have it, this text seems to be ruled out. 
> 
> Any suggestions would be appreciated.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> David Reigle
> Colorado, U.S.A.
> 
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