The Sanskrit and Arabic Sources of the Praśnatantra Attributed to Nīlakaṇṭha

Abstract

The highly popular Praśnatantra attributed to Nīlakaṇṭha of Kāśī (fl. late 16th century) and sometimes regarded as the third volume of his Tājikanīlakaṇṭhī is shown to depend for its basic structure on an abridged Sanskrit version of the Kitāb fi l-masāʾil wa-l-aḥkām by Sahl ibn Bishr (early 9th century), apparently authored by Samarasiṃha in the 13th century, to which quotations primarily from Sanskrit astrological works in the classical Indian style have been added, resulting in a hybrid of Indian and Perso-Arabic interrogational astrology.

The Jewel of Annual Astrology

“…Much of Sahl's writings in turn depends on Hellenistic sources, most importantly on Dorotheus of Sidon; see Stegemann 1942;Pingree 1997: 39-50, 63-78. For Dorotheus, see also Pingree 1976, to which Dykes 2017 offers some necessary corrections; for Sahl, see also Dykes 2008 and2019a. 19 See Gansten 2014Gansten , 2019. For the Arabic authors themselves, see Sezgin 1979. The word Tājika denotes the treatise (śāstra) composed by Yavanācārya in the Persian language (pārasyā bhāṣayā), comprising one area of astrology and having for its outcome the prediction of the various kinds of results of annual [horoscopy] and so on.…”

Origins of the Tājika System of Astrological Aspects and Dignities

“…24 Hāyanaratna 2.2. For the fictitious authority "Hillāja," see Gansten 2012. of forming (an applying aspect) and of dissolving (a separating aspect). The standard margin given for this by Sahl is twelve degrees, a figure repeated by Samarasiṃha:…”

“…The printed edition consulted confuses matters further by inserting the word dṛkāṇapau "the two decan rulers" immediately before yavanamate, almost certainly by mistake. Gansten 2017) is one of the earliest preserved Tājika authors. Although belonging to the same geographical area, hereditary community and social stratum as Samarasiṃha -on whose Tājikaśāstra he apparently wrote a commentary, now lost -Tejaḥsiṃha, separated from him by ap-proximately two generations, states explicitly towards the end of his Daivajñālaṃkṛti that he studied Tājika astrology from books, without the assistance of a teacher.…”

“…References to the text below refer to the numbered sections of that edition. For the date of the Hāyanaratna, see also Gansten 2017. 3 Accessible introductions are found in Barton 1994and Brennan 2017, while Beck 2006 is encumbered by its compulsion to ridicule its subject matter at every turn; the same is true of the now largely outdated Bouché-Leclercq 1899. For an erudite and in-depth account of many issues, see Heilen 2015. Aspects and dignities form the twin foundations of the so-called sixteen configurations (ṣoḍaśayoga) which are perhaps the most distinctive and ubiquitous feature of Tājika astrology.…”

Notes on Some Sanskrit Astrological Authors

“…1 See Pingree 1997;Sarma 2000;Gansten and Wikander 2011;Plofker 2011;Gansten 2012, 2014. 2 Pingree 1970-1994.…”