1
About Shabayana Samhita (Appendix of Romaka Siddhanta) (Witten
by Veneent Kumar & Sreenadh)
The front page of the manuscript gives the name Khavanayan
samhita to this text. But
actually the name of the text is given in some places within the
text as Shabayan Samhita
( ). It is written as a conversation between Sage Romaka and
Dhumra. Dhumra is the son of Romaka. MW dictionary states that this
text is a "part of the
spurious Romaka Siddhanta", or in other words MW dictionary
neither accepts Romaka
Siddhanta nor this Shabayana Samhita ( ) as original texts, but
as spurious/fraudulent texts/manuscripts. MW dictionary do not
state why it considers
Shabayana Samhita and Romaka Siddhanta as spurious/fraudulent
texts. The dictionary
meaning of the word spurious is
1. Not being what it purports to be; false or fake: "spurious
claims".
2. (of a line of reasoning) Apparently but not actually valid:
"this spurious reasoning
results in nonsense".
3. Lacking authenticity or validity in essence or origin; not
genuine; false.
4. Of illegitimate birth.
etc and the this word is the Antonym of words like authentic,
genuine, real, true and is
synonymous with counterfeit, fake.
(Ref: http://www.answers.com/topic/spurious)
Why this text is considered spurious by MW dictionary? One of
the reasons I could
imagine is that on page 4 there is a word Hindustan (
), which is a word of comparatively newer origin. As per
Wikipedia During the Turkic-Afghan invasions of
11th-13th centuries, Muslims started to call Northern part of
sub-continent as 'Hindustan',
because they encountered people who were 'hindus. (Ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustan). Thus possibly this
Shabayana Samhita is a text
that can be of 11th to 13
th century or of later origin, one could argue. There could be
other
reasoning and internal evidences as well for such a
claim/argument. It is also possible
that Shabayana Samhita is a text written based on earlier Romaka
Siddhanta and Romaka
School of astrology by some later day scholar who belongs to the
same school of
astrology. As evident from texts like Hayana Ratna (written by
18th century scholar
Acharya Balabhadra), Romaka has Tajik connection too making him
a scholar revered in
the Russian Tajik School of astrology too. There are several
possiblities about
geographical connection or location of Sage Romaka
Romaka could be an ancient scholar of Russian (Tajikstan), since
his name is
mentioned and quotes referred to Tajik astrology texts.
One can argue that he is of Persian (Iran) origin, since it is
trough Persia and
Persian scholars that the name of Romaka and the Tajik system of
astrology came
to us.
One can argue that he had a Rome (Italy) connection based on the
sound
similarity between the words Romaka and Rome.
One can argue that since the books ascribed to him are in
Sanskrit he is a sage of
Indian origin.
2
Further study based on Siddhanta, Hora and Samhita quotes
ascribed to Sage Romaka is
required to confirm his geographical connection and
location.
Anyway, coming back to the text Shabayana Samhita -
It contains transit results like when two planets are in same
sign then what is the
mundane result).
Page 5,6 contain list of which places are represented by which
signs - something
like that is available in Skanda Hora (which is considered as
the first book of
astrology or Jyotishmati Upanishad).
Page 4 ,5 is about which places correspond to which planets.
Then there is samvatsara phala from page 8.
Last parts contain Prasha kind of stuff - like , , etc).
This rare find, and the available Romaka Siddhanta and available
fragments of info
related to Romaka School of Astrology and Sage Romakas Tajika
system connection, all
demands a detailed study about this school of astrology. Let us
hope that someone will
come forward to do such a study in near future.
Note: The manuscript of this book Shabayana Samhita (Appendix of
Romaka Siddhanta)
is available for download in AIA-DL at:
http://www.ancientindianastrology.com/cmsa/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemi
d=86&view=view.download&catid=53&cid=1714
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