[INDOLOGY] Symbolic Forms of the Navagrahas

[Jean-Luc Chevillard]

Dear list,

for the record, the image which I sent to Jacob yesterday is as follows

I was not sure the image would make it through the mailing list server, 
which is why I sent it privately

This is from the inside cover of a 2025-2026 பஞ்சாங்கம் (pañcāṅkam), 
published by
மனோன்மணி விலாசம் பிரஸ் பிரைவேட் லிட் (சென்னை)

Best wishes to all

-- Jean-Luc

On 3/20/2026 12:23 AM, jacob--- via INDOLOGY wrote:
> Dear Martin,
>
> Many thanks for your comments and suggestions. I am surprised that the 
> symbols are not referenced in the astrological literature as I often 
> see them in contemporary navagraha yantras (also thanks to Jean-Luc 
> Chevillard for sharing an image of them in a Tamil pañcāṅga). Perhaps 
> they belong to a comparatively late tradition or perhaps, as you 
> suggest, they appear in a different genre of texts. The context I am 
> seeing them in now is gameboards, playing pieces, knight's tours, and 
> ganjifa cards from early to mid-19th-century Mysore.
>
> Your suggestion that the symbolic shape of Venus might refer to the 
> pattern of its orbit was echoed by a colleague in Berlin who shared 
> the following illustration of Kepler's ideas on the subject:
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