Astrological vedism: Varahamihira in light of the later rituals of the Atharvaveda.

AuthorGeslani, Marko
PositionEssay

INTRODUCTION

In the introduction to their edition of the Atharvavedaparisista (AVPS), (1) Bolling and von Negelein noted the "valuable assistance" of Varahamihira's Brhatsamhita (BS), and its commentator Bhattotpala, in editing the astrological portions of the text (1909: xvi). Elsewhere Bolling expressed the opinion that the astrological chapters of the AVPS represent "one of the sources upon which Varaha Mihira drew directly or indirectly" (1910: 125). (2) The editors proposed to discuss the matter further in a subsequent volume, which, however, never appeared. The two texts were not taken up together until recently, when Yano and Maejima compared some of the astronomical portions of the AVPS (50-57) with material from the BS, concluding that the latest parts of these appendices were prior to the sixth-century Jyotihsastric work. (3) Shingo Einoo (2005: 13) has posed a similar hypothesis, suggesting that we may provisionally view the BS as posting a terminus ad quem for the composition of a large group of Grhyasutraparisistas, including the Atharvaveda Santikalpa (SK) and AVPS. (4) Given Varahamihira's potential relevance for dating the Grhyaparisista genre as a whole, and in light of Bolling's suggestion that the AVPS preserves source material for Varahamihira, I propose here to pursue further the possible relationship between these two bodies of literature, focusing on their ritual contents.

The SK was edited by G. M. Bolling in two parts (1904 and 1913). A relatively concise text, it lays out the paradigm for a ritual known as the mahasanti, along with instructions for its thirty variants, and a series of preliminary ceremonies. (5) The mahasanti and its variants are frequently referenced in a much longer, and more eclectic work, the AVPS, (6) which, among other topics, describes the multiple ritual duties of the king's purohita. In his well-known BS--a text otherwise dedicated to cataloguing omens--Varahamihira mentions a number of these royal rites, and describes three of them (nirajana, indradhvaja, and pusyasnana) in detail.

While some of the ritual texts of the BS have been explored in the context of temple Hinduism and Vedic consecration rites, (7) the present paper aims to present a fuller portrait of Varahamihira as a ritualist by examining the organization and potential sources of his ritual framework. My primary argument is that the two above-mentioned texts of the Atharvaveda--the SK and AVPS--represent the best available sources for reconstructing Varahamihira's ritual system. I base my analysis especially on his lesser-known texts dealing with the topic of yatra or military expedition (the Yogayatra [YY] and Brhadyatra [BY]), in addition to the BS. By cross-referencing ritual instructions in these texts with practices surviving in the SK and AVPS, I present evidence that Varahamihira's system was deeply informed by Atharvan ritual norms. Most conclusive, as we will see, is his reference to mantras in the form of five ganas, or groups of mantras, named in Atharvan sources. The use of these mantraganas is crucial to rituals of sand ('appeasement'), which developed gradually in the Atharvan corpus, and thus their occurrence raises the possibility of at least partial Atharvan influence in Varahamihira's case. On the other hand, I also explore the possibility that the Atharvan sources themselves reflect an interest in divination and may have been influenced by Jyotihsastric practices. In fact, as we will see, the evidence I present suggests multiple episodes of mutual influence between the late Atharvan school and the astrological tradition preserved by Varahamihira. Thus I tentatively suggest that these texts preserve traces of the formation of some sort of professional relationship between Atharvans and astrologers by the mid first millennium c.E. The ritual structures produced by this relationship are what I intend by the term "Astrological Vedism."

To be clear, the evidence I present does not amount to specific text-parallels, but rather parallel rituals and ritual techniques. Rather than constructing an absolute text chronology, I prefer to envision the two traditions as participating in the same "system" of ritual practice--or perhaps the same ritual "economy"--in which purohitas (8) and astrologers interacted with relative mutual independence. I take Varahamihira and the Atharvan tradition presented here as "contemporary" in this rather practical sense of co-participation in a single ritual system.9

While some details of my argument may be taken to support the prevailing hypothesis about the priority of the AVPS (and SK) relative to the BS, I note that this does not entirely preclude the possibility that parts of the Atharvan texts, in their current form, were composed or redacted after Varahamihira's time. Since, as I argue, there was likely considerable interchange between these two traditions, this argument may complicate further investigations into the internal chronology of the SK and AVPS.

My method follows the line of inquiry recently employed by Shingo Einoo (2005), who (among others) has attempted to trace the formation of "Hindu" practice by seeking out relevant ritual markers in the Grhyasutraparisistas, the so-called "appendices" to the domestic ritual manuals of the Vedic schools, which marked a significant shift in Vedic practice during the first millennium C.E. This approach may lead to a broader understanding of the formation and character of Hinduism in relation to the late- or post-Vedic priesthood. I hope to contribute to this agenda by proposing with greater specificity Varahamihira's ritual sources in this "Grhyaparisista-level" of texts (Einoo 2005: 9).

In what follows I will describe the ritual sequence of the yatra texts (section 1) and explore their correspondences with the SK and AVPS (sections 2-4). A summary of these correspondences is given in section 5.

  1. VARAHAMIHIRA THE RITUALIST

    Although the earliest ritual manual of the Atharvan corpus, the Kaus'ikasutra, experiments with omens, (10) the emergence in the SK and AVPS of discrete santi ('appeasement') rites--designed specifically to counteract inauspicious omens--seems to mark a new era of professional engagement between Atharvans and astrologers. The interaction appears to emerge gradually: the SK does not mention astrologers per se, yet it classifies portents according to the standard astrological scheme (11) of "earth, atmosphere, and heavens" (SK 1.1.3; 2.17.1), while claiming that the mahasanti remedies all such portents (SK 1.1.3). The subsequent AVPS, however, more openly advocates collaboration with astrologers. It prescribes the king's selection of an astrologer and purohita (samvatsarapurohitau) who are, respectively, "expert in fate and ritual" (daivakarmavidau) (AVPS 2.1.4). The text also includes an extensive series of omen catalogues (AVPS 50-72) attributed to astrological authorities. (12) By itself this information gives significant indication of a professional interchange between astrologers and Atharvans. This testimony is further corroborated by Varahamihira, who, as we shall see, also depicts significant ritual cooperation between purohitas and astrologers.

    Parallel with this late-Atharvan adoption of astrological data, we also find ritual instructions (vidhi) embedded in astrological sources. Varahamihira's well-known astrological work, the BS, contains fairly detailed prescriptions for various rituals, including the indradhvaja (BS 42), nirajana (BS 43), pusyasnana (BS 47), and pratistha (BS 59). These discrete instructions are interconnected--more or less systematically--in that they each refer to additional ritual matters found in another text, which Varahamihira simply calls the 'Taira." (13) For instance, during the fire offering required as part of the indradhvaja (the "[Festival of] Indra's Banner") the text instructs the astrologer to observe the omens (nimittani) derived from the condition of the fire (e.g., its fragrance, thickness, and shape), as has been "described extensively in the Yatra" (yatrayam vistaro 'bhihitah | BS 42.31). (14) Elsewhere, in the nirajana ceremony, when, following the main action of the rite, the king is seated with his officers in front of the fire, the text reads,

    yatrayam yad abhihitam grahayajnavidhau mahendraketau ca | vedipurohitanilalaksanam asmims tad avadharyam || 14 || BS 43 || Those characteristics of the altar, purohita, and fire described by me in the Yatra, in the instruction for the Planetary Sacrifice, and in the [chapter] on Indra's Banner, should be applied in this [ritual as well]. Again, in the pusyasnana (the "Bath of Prosperity"):

    avahitesu krtva pujam tam sarvarim vaseyus te | sadasatsvapnanimittam yatrayam svapnavidhir uktah || 22 || BS 47 || Having performed puja for those [deities] that have been invoked, they should spend the night [there], [observing] the good and bad omens in their dreams. The instruction for dreams has been mentioned in the Yatra. In these BS passages, Varahamihira organizes his ritual prescriptions according to conventions already laid out in the earlier "Yatra" text. Thus the disparate ceremonies described in the BS would appear to share a common and perhaps specifiable ritual basis. Accordingly, we may take the yatra texts as a starting point for a deeper investigation into Varahamihira's ritual program.

    Although Varahamihira compiled three treatises concerning the royal military march, or yatra, (15) there are indications that the text he had in mind by the term "Yatra" in the above passages should be identified with the 'great' (brhad) yatra text, or BY. Such appears to be the opinion of the commentator Bhattotpala, who at BS 2.18 (16) glosses yatrayam with yajnesvamedhikayam--likely a misreading of yakysesvamedhikayam, an alternative name for the BY. Furthermore, the word grahayajnavidhau mentioned at BS 43.14 seems to refer to BY 18, which is titled "grahayaga"; no such chapter...

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