Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra


The Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra is the most comprehensive extant Śāstra on Vedic natal astrology, in particular the Horā branch. Ascribed to Maharṣi Parāśara, the most popular version of the BPHS consists of 97 chapters, translated by R. Santhanam.

Nomenclature

'bṛhat parāśara horā śāstra' can be loosely translated to examples such as 'the great book on horoscopy by Parashara' or 'Great Parashara's manual on Horoscopic astrology':
The Jyotiṣa - Vedic Astrology - is one of the Vedāṅga or six disciplines linked with the Vedas to support Vedic rituals. The three branches of Jyotiṣa are:
The Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra is concerned with the predictive branch of Horā, used, for example, to determine the appropriate and most auspicious times for various events and ceremonies.

Origin and Authenticity

J. Gonda states that at 'some time after 600 was written the purva-khanda of what was to become known as the Brhatparasarahora , ascribed to Parasa... is deeply indebted to the ; it has also borrowed two verses from Sphujidhvaja... and its existence is presupposed by the author of the uttara-khanda, which was commented on by Govindasvamin in ca. 850 . Therefore, the purva-khanda must have been written between ca. 600 and 750... but before 800'.
Additionally Bhaṭṭotpala was a Vedic astrologer that 'in his commentaries he wrote that though he had heard of Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra, he had never seen it. Thus we know it was lost for at least nine hundred years, until new manuscripts emerged from the early 20th century.
As such, there are doubts in regards to the authenticity of various manuscripts of the Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra that emerged centuries later. One concern raised is the apparent admission by Sitram Jha in his 1944 publication of the BPHS that he changed and removed elements of the manuscript. Another concern raised by Vedic Astrologers such as Shyamasundara Dasa 'that casts doubt on the veracity of the modern BPHS is the complete lack of any ancient commentary on the text. The oldest commentary known to me is that of Devacandra Jha's Hindi commentary from the first half of the 20th century, that is, less than 100 years old'.

Editions and Translations

According to R. Santhanam and J. Gonda, the following are the modern translations of the Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra :
No.Editors / TranslatorsEdition NameChaptersVersesFirst PublishedDescription
1Giridhara Lala Sarma and Govinda Sarma 57811905First printed version of the BPHS. Partial Hindi, mostly Sanskrit commentary. reprinted by Khemraj Press in 1961.
2Thakuradasa Cudamana 1926Bengali translation
3Sitram JhaVaranasi7151001944translated to Hindi. Apparently admitted tampering with his published version of the BPHS manuscript.
4Devachandra Jha Chaukambhatranslated to Hindi; similar to the Varanasi edition.
5Ganesa Datta PathakThakur Prasad1972translated to Hindi
6C.G. Rajan36Tamil translation; without Sanskrit verses
7N.N.K. Rao and V.B. Choudhari251963English translation ; without Sanskrit slokas
8R. Santhanam 971984English translation. 97 chapters with Sanskrit slokas.

Content and Structure

The first full 97-chapter English translation of the Bṛhat Parāśara Horā Śāstra was translated by R. Santhanam in 1984. Based on the Varanasi edition, it is in two volumes and contains the following chapters: