Reference

Phaladeepika

Phaladeepika — what it is, what it added, and what we retired from it.

Phaladeepika — Mantreswara, translated by V. Subrahmanya Sastri.

Edition consulted: 2nd ed. 1950, Adhyayas I-XXVIII.

What kind of text this is

Signed, dated, located work. Prior editions incomplete - Adhyaya XXVIII (the contents chapter) was unavailable and had to be traced; sloka III.16 circulated with two metres. Milder instability than BPHS: author enumerates his own 27 chapters.

What it contributed

sun-is-atman — restatement. Sun = soul, restated (1.26).

Restatement is not nothing here - it is independent attestation roughly nine centuries later, which is what raises this from ‘a text says’ to ‘the tradition holds’.

moon-essence — contradiction. Moon = body (1.26), against BPHS Moon = manas/mind.

First genuine cross-text disagreement found. Say so on a call; do not pick silently.

transits-with-mechanism — novel. Adhyaya 26 argues transit effects from cause and effect rather than asserting them.

Most texts assert transit results. An argued account is rarer and more usable.

sarvatobhadra-chakra — novel. Fully explained, where other texts only name it.

Fills a gap the JHora capture never provided (X-list). Text supplies what software did not.

karakas-before-strength — refinement. Chapter order places karakas second - before divisions, strengths and yogas.

Method instruction: read what a planet signifies before reading how strong it is.

planetary-castes — restatement. The castes of the planets, restated (2.24).

Zero new information, nine centuries later. This is authority-stacking, and the persistence of the appended layer across texts is itself the finding.

What we do not carry from it

• 2.24 — Same appended caste layer as BPHS 3.21, reappearing in a text roughly nine centuries later. The persistence across texts is itself the finding.
• 11 — Sex-differentiated reading rules. K. N. Rao’s own instruction is to read a woman’s chart as a man’s; the classical rules described a social arrangement that has changed.

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.