Greek Loanwords in Sanskrit Astrology

Sanskrit horoscopic astrology uses a set of technical terms that are Greek words in Sanskrit dress. This is the least disputed evidence in a field where a good deal is disputed, and unlike the dating of any particular text it does not depend on an editor’s emendations.

The words

Horā, the hour and by extension the branch of astrology concerned with the horoscope, is ὥρα. Drekkāṇa, the third of a sign, is δεκανός, the decan. Dvādaśāṃśa, the twelfth-part, is δωδεκατημόριον. Kendra, the angle of a chart, is κέντρον. Jāmitra, the opposition, is διάμετρον. The word yavana itself, used of the source of the material, derives from the name of the Ionians ¹.

What this establishes

Loanwords establish contact, and they establish direction for the specific vocabulary they cover: these particular technical terms travelled from Greek into Sanskrit rather than the reverse.

The traffic in the other direction

The borrowing was repeated, and ran in both directions. Sanskrit astronomical material reached Baghdad in the eighth century and entered the Arabic tradition, from which Latin Europe later drew; see The Zīj al-Sindhind. From the thirteenth century onward Sanskrit authors absorbed Perso-Arabic technique in turn, under the name tājika ^{2 pp. 79-132}. Balabhadra’s Hāyanaratna of 1649 is that later synthesis in a critically edited text ³.

A tradition that borrowed a Greek vocabulary, exported its astronomy westward, and then re-imported a Persianate technical apparatus is not well described as either derivative or self-contained. Martin Gansten has said in print that the division between South Asian astrology and what is commonly called western astrology is a false dichotomy, since the second category counter-intuitively takes in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Sasanian Persia and the Arabic-speaking world ^{2 p. 79}.