Two systems in Jyotish...

Over the years, at least for the past several decades, the thinking in mainstream (tyros and pros, beginners and higher and much higher ups on the Jyotish hierarchical totem pole, has been that there are TWO SYSTEMS: Parashari and Jaimini! I had ALWAYS had significant degree of discomfort for that idea!

The fundamentals of what many categorize as Jaimini Paddhati (JP; rhyming with Krishnamurti Paddhati which is indeed separate from traditional Jyotish and a few other newer systems and paddhatis, all useful in their sectors of use, of course (this is neither a comparison nor value judgment!) -- the fundamentals of JP exist in the codex of what we call Parashari Paddhati (PP)!

When Mr. K.N. Rao arrived in my reality and realization, back a few decades ago, although he too in his writings seemed to favour keeping those two apart with no intermixing of rules, at least for jyotish research, his writings, published and those that I was fortunate to read when he graced Ben Collinses Jyotish List which later on transformed into jyotish group on Yahoo, Mr. Rao's writings spurred me on to look closely into Jaimini system as it was and still called by most!

But each planet wears many hats! Each (except the luminaries) has a lordship responsibilities over houses, yet, each also has an inherent, temporal, functional role as a good guy and a bad guy and sometimes a guy who is on the fence or neutral! And, each also has other roles (plural) as a Karaka or significator or more correctly, as an executor (sometimes EXECUTIONER!). Seen that way, Jaimini and Parashari paddhati though seemingly different with different sets of rules, represent two perspectives of studying and figuring out the Leela of Planets and houses!

Regards,

Rohiniranjan

I prefer to think of these along the lines of different streams of application/method, flowing from a single original fountain: one large stream (and the following is only my opinion as of the present time) which is now commonly known as "Parasara", I think was syncretized by Varahamihira and his son, Prithuyasas, in the 6th century, from native Indic (Parasara collegium), Magian and Hellenist traditions, and redacted a couple centuries later by King Kalyana Varma ("Saravali"), with a bit of further, even later, influence from Tajik sources (especially via Sripati with regard to house system format)...
I think another, smaller stream-uninfluenced by the Varahamihira/Prithuyasas syncretism and Varma redaction-is the Jaimini tradition, arising from the "Jaimini collegium"; and an even smaller stream, the Nadi tradition, arising from the "Bhrigu collegium". But I also believe that all of these streams had their ORIGIN in the same "fountain", and probably this original fountain flows from the time of the Vedas-possibly from the time of the Rig Veda, but certainly at least from the time of the Atharva Veda.
Such are my opinions regarding this historical matter, as of the present time...

Dear Dr. Farr,

I know this brushes some modern jyotishis a bit across the grain, but not being an indologist or an astro-historian, all I can say is that Jyotish, like many other ancient practices and thinking originally used to follow the Oral Tradition; knowledge was transmitted from Teacher to acolyte and on and on. No books etc were written. So at some point (notions about who and when vary wildly) the scriptures got documented and we probably do not have the physical whole or fragments of the original manuscript or copies if made at the same time! B.P.H.S. itself is available in different versions (containing different slokas and so on)! Some even maintain that the original document does exist, in whole or fragments in the possessions of different custodians but held in relative secrecy. So, I leave all that to scholars!

I like Mr. Rao's approach. He uses the two main technical systems (JP and PP) in parallel and cross-checks the indications, giving higher probability when events line up in both systems and possibly a few others as well.

But if we combine the two systems, seemingly confusing in the beginning and to beginners, often new insights emerge. ;-)

Regards and thanks!

Rohiniranjan