Reference

Brihat Jataka

Brihat Jataka — what it is, what it added, and what we retired from it.

Brihat Jataka — Varahamihira, translated by N. Chidambaram Iyer.

Edition consulted: 1885/1905.

What kind of text this is

stable

What it contributed

greek-transmission — novel. Greek sign-names and house terms preserved in the Sanskrit; Yavanas cited as the fuller authority on yogas.

Strongest transmission evidence in the corpus - checkable etymology rather than a single verse. The house categories every practitioner uses daily are Greek loanwords.

graha-essences — restatement. The essence verse (2.1), near-identical to BPHS, in the earliest securely-dated text.

Removes the essence frame’s dependence on BPHS, whose extent and date are both unstable.

planetary-social-rank — novel. Court hierarchy - kings, general, prince, ministers, servant - stated right after the essence verse.

Dates the appended social layer to the 6th century. The ‘pure wisdom later corrupted’ story is false; structure and social machinery were interleaved from the start.

What we do not carry from it

• 2.1 — A court hierarchy stated immediately after the essence verse, in the 6th century. Proves the appended layer is NOT a late corruption - ‘appended’ is a logical relation to the essence, not a chronological one.
• 1.7 note — A division reserved for judging women. Same layer as BPHS stri-jataka and Phaladeepika Adhyaya 11.

Reading the text yourself

We quote and cite; we do not republish. Most translations in this corpus are in copyright, and the public-domain ones are better served by the Internet Archive than by a copy here. Citations give chapter and verse so any claim can be checked against your own edition.