Thank you, Ashok, for your comments.

I see no problem with the manuscript reading 

śrīvatsa-saṃjñād dvija-puṅgavād yaṃ śrī-bhāyi-nāmnī suṣuve ca sādhvī |
śrī-yādavena vyaracīha tena sudhā-nidhis tājika-yoga-pūrvaḥ ||

I'm glad to hear it ;nor do I. I am just curious about the name.

(but I do see a problem with David Pingree, a scholar I respect very much, if there are other instances of him emending texts as in the present case).

I don't want to seem overly critical -- Pingree was a trailblazer, and every scholar working on the history of astrology owes him a debt of gratitude. But it must be conceded that he was somewhat prone to rash emendations and far-reaching interpretations. In recent years, Bill Mak has shown the problems with some of Pingree's work on the Yavanajātaka; and in another linguistic field (but still related to astrology), Stephan Heilen in his Hadriani genitura (De Gruyter 2015) similarly has some reservations about Pingree's edition of Hephaestio's Apotelesmatics. I am not competent to judge Pingree's work on texts in any language but Sanskrit, but there I do quite often find reason to disagree with his readings and/or translations. It would be interesting to learn from an Arabist what the situation is with his work in that area.

It was not unusual to write the non-Sanskrit words as one heard them or as the metre required; approximation was acceptable. Therefore the writing of (our expected) bāī as bhāyī or bhāyi need not be viewed as presenting a serious problem. (again. cf. Paturi: “Shortening of the end vowel is not a hurdle …”)

Yes, I take your point; but the situation here is the opposite: there is practically no variation across manuscripts (I have now located a third one) or metres. They all read bhāyi or bhāi -- I have not so far seen a single instance lacking the aspiration. That was what made me wonder in the first place.

The “ca” in the second quarter of the verse initially bothered me, but there could be justification for it in a preceding verse of the section, if [if the verse under discussion is not the first verse of the section].

That depends on how you define a section -- it is right towards the end of the last chapter, but the immediately preceding verse praises the work itself and says nothing of the author.

Martin