Part 2.5 - The Place of Jyotiṣa in the Literature

In the initial stage Jyotiṣa appears in a scattered form in the literature. Later in the Sūtra period Jyotiṣa occurs as a separate branch of study along with few others.

1. Jyotiṣa as a vedāṅga

Jyotiṣa in the literature attained the position of a limb of the Veda. It comes as one of the Vedāṅgas, the treatises which deal with the subsidiary studies of the Veda.

Amongst the six Vedāṅgas,^[1] Jyotiṣa and Kalpa constitute the studies essential for proper sacrificial employment of the Vedas. Jyotiṣa thus comes from the very beginning with a purely practical purpose of conveying the knowledge of the heavenly bodies essential for fixing of proper times for sacrifices. The earliest text on Jyotiṣa, the Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa does not profess to be a treatise on Astronomy instead it supplies the information of Astronomy essential to fulfill the practical aim of the culture of the Veda. To study the practical aim of the Veda fulfilled by the Jyotiṣa as a Vedāṅga,the Brāhmaṇas and the Sūtras were to be looked into.^[2]

2. The quality: As a Cakṣu of the Veda

Amongst the limbs Jyotiṣa is termed as the cakṣu (eye) of the Veda.^[3] Cakṣu is evidently connected with the quality of Perception and Perception in relation with Jyotiṣa in the literature in its very fundamental form is the Perception or vision of the future of man.

The ideology related to future in Veda has a comprehensive compass and extends from simple ideas related to next life and heaven up to a definite explanation of the ultimate form of future prescribed by the culture. Thereby future in Veda appears in two forms, one as a part of time and the other beyond time. Jyotiṣa is labeled as Kālavidhānśāstra and though the Muṇḍakopaniṣad (I. 1.4-5) labels Jyotiṣa as one of the aparā vidyās (science connected to inferior exoteric knowledge.), yet with this concept of the ‘time’ and the ‘timeless form’, Jyotiṣa known as an aparā science perhaps also subserves as a bridge to the parā world connected with the superior exoteric knowledge. With such an interpretation Jyotiṣa labeled as a Cakṣu of the Veda along with the vision of future provided on the physical perceptive basis of the units of time formed by the days, nights and years also connects itself to perception in the sense of insight about the ultimate form of human termed as ‘Release’.

The post-Vedic development of Jyotiṣa as a cakṣu provided by the culture for a vision of the past actions is chiefly through the Jātaka branch. Such a backward glance into the past of human from a certain point of time can be said to be a purposeful one on part of the Jīva heading towards an ultimate goal prescribed by the Veda to get an idea about the past actions amongst the cycle of rebirths and their inevitable outcome.

The concept of rebirths of man reflects in a broader sense in the idea of creation and recreation of the universe adding an extensive angle to Jyotiṣa as a Cakṣu building up the theories of Kalpa, Yuga and Manvantaras.

3. The practical utility: As a Vedāṅga

The practical utility of Jyotiṣa in the culture of the Veda is inevitable and reflects from the very beginning. Providing times for the performance of ritual works for a certain future render Gaṇita as a secondary development. Jyotiṣa shows a primordial emergence from the Astrological quarter,^[4] calculations thereby seem to be a requirement of astrology. The idea of proper times for sacrifices itself comes from a conceptualized quarter related to the ideas about future and efforts to attain such an accuracy as to acquire such a future was the basic intention behind the calculation of times. This appears to be the base of Jyotiṣagaṇita in the initial stages in contrast to the later development of the Siddhāntas which worked for Astronomy proper.

The practical utility of Jyotiṣa in the Veda displayed in the system of the Nakṣatras and their order clearly deemed to be ritualistic or astrological and not astronomical.^[5] Though Colebrooke hints to a common quarter of origin of the prior developed Astrology and the later Astronomy erupted there from.^[6]

Thereby Jyotiṣa in its practical utility is instrumental to the body of the Veda and as a functional unit of the working body of the Veda provide a vision of human as well as cosmic future equally providing proper times for performance of actions for the formulation of a specific future.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Āpastamba-dharma-sūtra II. 4.8.11.

[2]:

History of Ancient Sanskrit literature, p. 56.

[3]:

Pāṇinīya Śikṣā.41.

[4]:

History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature, p. 263.

[5]:

Hindu Astronomy, p. 24.

[6]:

Colebrooke Essays, ii, p. 373.