22

Appendix 22

A survival, vague as it is, and evidently mistaking a chariot for a wain, we find in India. The Sūrya-Siddhānta states: “In Taurus, the 17th degree, a planet of which the latitude is a little more than two degrees, south, will split the wain of Rohini.” [1]

According to Burgess (p. 214), Rohini’s (= Aldebaran) wain “contains five stars, in the grouping of which Hindu fancy has seen the figure of a wain,” i.e., the Hyades, containing epsilon, delta, gamma, nu, alpha Tauri. Burgess continues (p. 249): “The Siddhanta does not inform us what would be the consequences of such an occurrence; that belongs rather to the domain of astrology than of astronomy. We cite from the Pancatantra (vv. 238-241) the following description of these consequences, derived from the astrological writings of Varahamihira:

‘When Saturn splits the wain of Rohini here in the world, the Mādhava rains not upon the earth for 12 years.

When the wain of Prajāpati’s asterism is split, the earth, having as it were committed a sin, performs, in a manner, her surface being strewn with ashes and bones, the Kāpālika penance.

If Saturn, Mars, or the descending node splits the wain of Rohini, why need I say that, in a sea of misfortune, destruction befalls the world?

When the moon is stationed in the midst of Rohini’s wain, the men wander recklessly about, deprived of shelter, eating the cooked flesh of children, drinking water from vessels burnt by the sun.’

By what conception this curious feature of the ancient Hindu astrology is founded, we are entirely ignorant.”

The bad experiences which Saturn had with Auriga’s vehicle — whether beta zeta Tauri, or the Hyades — seem to have left a trace in the memory of Indian astrologers.

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1. Sūrya-Siddhānta, trans. by E. Burgess (1860; repro 1935), 8.13, pp. 248ff.