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

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: