The texts we cite
Each row names the edition our chapter and verse numbers follow, where you can read or find it, and which pages on this site cite it. If a verse number of ours does not land where you expect, check the edition first.
| Text | Edition | Where to find it | Cited on |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra (BPHS) | Ranjan Publications, New Delhi, 97 chapters in two volumes: vol. 1 (ch. 1–45) R. Santhanam; vol. 2 (ch. 46–97) G.S. Kapoor | Libraries and booksellers. Scans circulate online, but none we know to be licensed, so we do not link one | nakshatras; methodology reads it as a whole |
| Surya Siddhanta | Ebenezer Burgess, revised and expanded by the Society's Committee of Publication, chiefly W.D. Whitney. Journal of the American Oriental Society vol. 6 (1858–1860), pp. 141–498 | archive.org; JSTOR 592174 | nakshatras |
| Taittiriya Brahmana | Sanskrit text. Passage read in Subramania Sarma's searchable Roman transliteration (Chennai, 2005); printed edition by Rajendralala Mitra, Bibliotheca Indica, three volumes, 1859–1890 | sanskritweb.net transliteration, pp. 67–68 | nakshatras |
| Taittiriya Samhita | A.B. Keith, The Veda of the Black Yajus School entitled Taittiriya Sanhita, Harvard Oriental Series 18–19, 1914. Cited at 4.4.10 as reported in Burgess and Whitney's Surya Siddhanta notes (JAOS 6, p. 339), not yet read in Keith | archive.org: vol. 18, vol. 19 | nakshatras |
How to read our locators
| Text | Example | Means |
|---|---|---|
| BPHS | ch. 46, vv. 12–16 | chapter 46, verses 12 to 16, in the Ranjan numbering above |
| Surya Siddhanta | 8.1–8.9 | chapter 8, verses 1 to 9, as Burgess and Whitney number them |
| Taittiriya Brahmana | 1.5.2.3 | book (ashtaka) 1, chapter (prapathaka) 5, section (anuvaka) 2, paragraph 3 |
A page may also describe how it reads a text as a whole, and a reading is not a verse. The whole-sign house convention on the methodology page is one of those, and it is labelled there as our choice. The ephemeris, ayanamsha and house system are on that page too, not here.
What we use that no classical text supplies
| What | Where it is used | Its status |
|---|---|---|
| Gana, yoni and nadi for each nakshatra | the matching classifications on the nakshatras page | Convention. Read off our matching engine's tables and checked against the koota tables in the documentation of Maitreya, an open-source astrology program, hosted at saravali.github.io (gana, yoni, nadi), which themselves name no printed source. We cite no classical verse for them. |
| The night order of choghadiya | the choghadiya tool | Convention. Checked row for row against Drik Panchang's published day and night tables. A different night order has been published and attributed to Brihad Jyotish Saar; the tool page names it. |
| The Lahiri ayanamsha | every sidereal position on this site | A modern value, set out on the methodology page. It is not the Surya Siddhanta's own figure. |
Notes on each text
Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra. The two Ranjan volumes have different translators. Gouri Shankar Kapoor's own preface to volume two, dated 21 December 1987, says he took the work up because R. Santhanam was unavailable, so a citation to chapter 46 or later is to Kapoor's translation. The years are harder. Volume one's preface is dated 1984 and archive.org holds a 1992 printing of it; volume two's preface is dated 1987; catalogue records give the set different years. We name the translators and the chapter numbering, which is what our verse numbers depend on, and leave the years off the table.
Editions of the text differ in length and in chapter count, so a chapter number from another edition will not always land on the same passage. Where we quote an English rendering, Santhanam's and Kapoor's commentary is kept separate from the verse: the commentary is valuable, and it is not the text.
Surya Siddhanta. The translation appeared under Ebenezer Burgess's name, and the two accounts of who did the work differ, so we give both. Burgess's own introductory note (JAOS 6, pp. 142–143) says his "first rough draft of the translation and notes" was made in India; that the Society's Committee of Publication, "the main share of the work falling to Prof. Whitney", enriched the notes; and that his whole material was placed in their hands "for revision, expansion, and reduction". Charles Rockwell Lanman's bibliography of Whitney, in The Whitney Memorial Meeting (1897, Appendix III, entry 30), goes further: "both translation and notes are entirely by Professor Whitney". The archive.org record dates the article 1858 and Lanman files it under 1860, which is why the volume is given as 1858–1860. The nakshatras page cites chapter 8, which gives positions for the junction stars of twenty-eight asterisms within twenty-seven equal portions; Burgess and Whitney's notes to it (pp. 323–324) show that Abhijit is the asterism left without a portion. It is not the source of our ayanamsha. Its notes carry the assumptions of the 1850s.
Taittiriya Brahmana. We cite this one in Sanskrit. TB 1.5.1 lists twenty-seven nakshatras, each with its deity, beginning with Krittika and ending with Apabharani (Bharani), and the next section, 1.5.2.3, names Abhijit "above the Ashadhas and below Shrona". We read both in Subramania Sarma's transliteration, sections 1.5.1.1 to 1.5.1.5 on its pages 67 and 68, and 1.5.2.3 on page 68. We have not yet located the same passage by page in Mitra's printed edition, which is why the transliteration is named. English translations we know of are partial, such as Paul-Emile Dumont's articles in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, or recent, such as R.L. Kashyap's multi-volume edition, and we do not treat any of them as the reference translation. If you are checking us on this text, that is the harder path.
The list is evidence that the nakshatras were enumerated in Vedic literature. It is not evidence that they came before the twelve signs in India, and we do not use it that way.
Editions chosen for texts no page cites yet
These are recorded so a future citation has an edition from the start. No page on this site currently cites them.
| Text | Edition | Where to find it |
|---|---|---|
| Phaladeepika, Mantreswara | G.S. Kapoor, Ranjan Publications, ISBN 9788188230105. Records for this ISBN give different years, so we give none | booksellers, by ISBN |
| Saravali, Kalyanavarma | R. Santhanam, Ranjan Publications, New Delhi, 1983, two volumes | Wellcome Collection record |
| Jataka Parijata, Vaidyanatha Dikshita | V. Subrahmanya Sastri, V. B. Soobiah and Sons, Bangalore City, two volumes, 1932 and 1933 | archive.org, both volumes |
When the texts disagree
Our policy is that where a page depends on a point the texts dispute, it says which text it follows and what the alternative reading is, rather than presenting a contested position as settled. That makes some pages less tidy, and it is a deliberate trade.