''Samāsa Saṃhitā'' is a
lost work on
astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...
by the 6th-century astrologer-astronomer
Varāhamihira
Varāhamihira ( 20/21 March 505 – 587), also called Varāha or Mihira, was an ancient Indian astrologer-astronomer who lived in or around Ujjain in present-day Madhya Pradesh, India.
Date
Unlike other prominent ancient Indian astronome ...
of present-day central India. An abridged version of ''
Bṛhat Saṃhitā
''Bṛhat-saṃhitā'' is a 6th-century Sanskrit-language encyclopedia compiled by Varāhamihira in present-day Ujjain, India. Besides the author's area of expertise— astrology and astronomy—the work contains a wide variety of other topics.Hi ...
'', it is known from excerpts in
Utpala
Utpala in Sanskrit is a neuter noun with two meanings, both given by ''Amarakosha, '' (a lexicon of circa. 400 AD). The first meaning is ''Nymphaea nouchali'', the "blue lotus", also known as ''kuvalaya'' in Sanskrit. The second meaning of ''utp ...
's commentary on the ''Bṛhat Saṃhitā''.
History
''Samāsa Saṃhitā'' ("Minor Collection"), also known as ''Svalpa-saṃhitā'' ("Shorter Compendium"), is an abridged version of ''Bṛhat Saṃhitā'', Varāhamihira's work on natural astrology. It is now lost, but at least 142 verses on it survive in ''Saṃhitā-vivṛti'', Utpala's commentary on the Bṛhat Saṃhitā, often identifiable by the phrase "''tatha cha Samāsa-saṃhitāyam''". The ''Samāsa Saṃhitā'' is the fourth most cited work in ''Saṃhitā-vivṛti'', after the works of
Parashara
Parashara (Sanskrit: पराशर; IAST: ) was a maharishi and the author of many ancient Hindu texts. He is accredited as the author of the first Purana, the Vishnu Purana, before his son Vyasa wrote it in its present form. He was the g ...
,
Garga, and Kāshyapa.
The ''Samāsa Saṃhitā'' definitely existed in the 9th century CE, when Utpala mentioned it. It was probably
lost by the 11th century, when
Al-Biruni
Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (; ; 973after 1050), known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously "Father of Comparative Religion", "Father of modern ...
wrote about Varāhamihira but did not mention it.
Contents
''Samāsa Saṃhitā'' was an abridged version of the ''Brihat-saṃhitā'', and borrowed some verses from it verbatim. However, it also contained some new content, as evident from the extracts from Utpala's commentary. For example, it mentions a legend about the sage
Agastya
Agastya was a revered Indian sage of Hinduism. In the Indian tradition, he is a noted recluse and an influential scholar in diverse languages of the Indian subcontinent. He is regarded in some traditions to be a Chiranjivi. He and his wife ...
devouring the demon
Vatapi
Badami, formerly known as Vātāpi (Sanskrit: from ''āpi'', ‘friend, ally’; ‘having the wind (vāta) as an ally’; Kannada script: ವಾತಾಪಿ), is a town and headquarters of a taluk by the same name, in the Bagalkot district o ...
, which is absent from the ''Brihat-saṃhitā''. Similarly, only the ''Samāsa Saṃhitā'' mentions that the Varāhamihira's method of
gauging rainfall is based on the
Magadha
Magadha was a region and kingdom in ancient India, based in the eastern Ganges Plain. It was one of the sixteen Mahajanapadas during the Second Urbanization period. The region was ruled by several dynasties, which overshadowed, conquered, and ...
system mentioned in the ''
Artha-shastra''.
Ajay Mitra Shastri
Ajay Mitra Shastri (5 March 1934 – 11 January 2002) was an Indian academic, historian and numismatist associated with the Nagpur University.
Early life and education
A. M. Shastri was born on 5 March 1934 at Guna in Central India Agency, ...
reconstructed a part of ''Samāsa Saṃhitā'' from Utpala's commentary on the ''Bṛhat Saṃhitā''. Shastri's edition was published in the journal ''Bharātīya Vidyā'' volume 23.
References
Bibliography
*
{{ref end
Works by Varāhamihira