Bṛhat Saṃhitā

What this text is

The 6th-century encyclopedia of the natural and ominous world — the single best window into what early jyotiṣa actually held.

Roughly 106 chapters: planetary courses and mundane astrology, eclipses, comets, meteorology, geography, architecture and iconography, gemmology, the transit chapters (CIV), the birth-star chapter (CI), marriage topics and ritual timing.

Its role in this app

Seats our transit doctrine’s second lineage (CIV.4 concurs with Phaladīpikā’s favourable houses — and has no vedha, proving the vedha layer is Phaladīpikā’s), the classical layer of sāḍhe-sātī (CIV.39–40, 45), the 27-star results (CI), mundane material, and two gold-standard muhūrta verses (ear-piercing 100.6; tree-planting LV.31).

Editions our research holds

• ramakrishna-bhat-part-1

  M. Ramakrishna Bhat edition, part 1 (Motilal Banarsidass).

  in copyright — read for verification only, never republished · scan quality: good

• v-subrahmanya-sastri

  V. Subrahmanya Sastri translation, vol. II (c. 1947) — the practical workhorse.

  in copyright — read for verification only, never republished · scan quality: good

• chidambaram-iyer-1884-parts-1-2

  Iyer translation 1884 — public domain but the scan’s English OCR’d as mojibake.

  public domain · scan quality: unusable

What our reading found

Findings from this project's own verification passes — recorded because a source's defects are part of citing it honestly.

Chapter CI ślokas 3–6 are physically missing from the Sastri vol-II scan (Mṛgaśirā through Pūrva-Phalgunī, including two of the gaṇḍa-mūla six) — citing "BS 101" for those stars from this corpus cites an absent page. A first-pass report that ślokas 11 and 13 were also missing was refuted on verification: they survive under OCR-mangled labels.