[INDOLOGY] Yamanaka Jyotiṣa Siddhānta?

[David and Nancy Reigle]

Thank you, Bill, for your very helpful reply. The fact that no Yamana is
found in the traditional list of the names of the eighteen jyotiṣa sages,
occurring in the *Nāradasaṃhitā*, is significant. The fact that the last
chapter of the *Yavanajātaka* could count as a *siddhānta* because of its
astronomical content is equally significant. Thank you also to Matthew
Kapstein for replying off-list, agreeing that Yamanaka is most likely just
a variant for Yavanaka. This does make the most sense. Even so, before
concluding that this is most likely the case, I would like to exhaust all
other possibilities.

The oldest available dated manuscript of the *Vimalaprabhā*, from 1112 CE,
was scribed less than a hundred years after the *Vimalaprabhā* appeared in
India. All known manuscripts have yamanaka, and in two different places
(1.26 and 1.86). The Tibetan translations go back even further. The first
one to be made was by Gyi jo, working with the Indian teacher Bhadrabodhi.
>From what we can gather from the lineage lists, Bhadrabodhi was one of the
very first disciples of the person who wrote the *Vimalaprabhā*. The Shong
ston and Jonang Tibetan translations are revisions of the initial one made
by 'Bro lotsawa, working with the Indian teacher Somanātha. Somanātha, too,
was in the first generation of disciples of the originator of the
*Vimalaprabhā* in India. The Sanskrit manuscripts, then, would indicate
that if Yamanaka is a corruption of Yavanaka, the variant form Yamanaka was
in vogue in eleventh century India; and the Tibetan translations would
indicate that Yamanaka was understood to mean a "naked one" rather than a
Greek or foreigner.

There is one more possible piece of evidence, which I did not cite earlier,
because later Tibetan sources are indeed suspect. While Tibetan gcer bu pa
for yamanaka likely derives from the very early Indian teachers
Bhadrabodhi and Somanātha, we do not know the source for annotations by
Jonang Phyogs las rNam rgyal, written in Tibet about three centuries after
the *Vimalaprabhā* appeared in India. The Tibetan teacher Bu ston does not
have any annotations on these names, but Phyogs las rNam rgyal does. The
Sanskrit at 1.26 from the Sarnath edition of the *Vimalaprabhāṭīkā*, vol.
1, 1986, p. 77, is:

siddhāntānāṃ vināśa iti | siddhāntaṃ(nto) brahma2 sauraṃ yama(va)nakaṃ
romakamiti3, . . .

The footnote thereon is:

2-3. atra bhoṭānuvāde catvāraḥ siddhāntāḥ 'brahmadevavādinaḥ,
sūryadevavādinaḥ, acelakāḥ (śaivāḥ), rāhudevavādinaḥ' iti likhitam—gCer Bu
Pa Daṅ sGra Can |

We note that, although the Sarnath editors suggested yavanaka for yamanaka
by the "(va)" they added for "ma" in the name, yet in their footnote they
suggested śaivāḥ for the naked ones, which they retranslated from Tibetan
as acelakāḥ. As with the Jaina, I do not know of a Śaiva jyotiṣa siddhānta.

The Jonang translation of this line from *Vimalaprabhā* 1.26, with the
annotations in parentheses by Phyogs las rNam rgyal (Jonang Publication
Series, vol. 18, p. 199), is:

grub pa'i mtha' rnams rnam par nyams pa zhes pa ni (tshangs pa la ltar
'dzin pa'i) tshangs pa ba dang (nyi ma la ltar 'dzin pa'i) nyi ma pa dang
(drang srong rgyal ba dam pa la ltar 'dzin pa'i) gcer bu pa dang (dbang
phyug la ltar 'dzin pa'i) skra can gyi (byed rtsis kyi) grub pa'i mtha' ste
. . .


We see that for *brahma* and *saura*, he annotates *tshangs pa* and *nyi ma*,
respectively, the same as the Tibetan translations in the text of the
*Vimalaprabh**ā*. For *yamanaka*, *gcer bu pa*, he annotates *drang srong
rgyal ba dam pa*. Of these words, *drang srong* normally translates *ṛṣ**i*,
*rgyal ba* normally translates *jina*, and *dam pa* can translate *vara* or
*parama*, etc. I cite this annotation in case something like *ṛṣi-jina-vara*
may ring a bell as the epithet of any jyotiṣa teacher.


Best regards,


David Reigle

Colorado, U.S.A.


On Fri, Dec 12, 2025 at 4:15 AM Bill Mak <bill.m.mak at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>
> --
> Bill M. Mak, PhD
>
> Professor of History of Science
>
> University of Science and Technology of China
> Room A304, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, East Campus,
> University of Science and Technology of China,
> 96 Jinzhai Road, Baohe District, Hefei, Anhui,
> China CN-230026
>
> Tel.: +86 183 5614 9163 / +852 9466 6472
> E-Mail: bmpmak at gmail.com
>
> Research Associate
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>
> Tel:+44-1223768229
> Email: bm574 at cam.ac.uk
>
> Copies of my publications may be found at:
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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 *Vimalaprabh**ā* again names these same four at 1.86, only saying S
> ūrya 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 *Vimalaprabh**ā* 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 *S*ūryapraj*ñapti* 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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