Some snippets from early

Source: here.

Some snippets from early Indo-Sinitic probabilistic prognostication texts

The below is the barest sketch of a topic that has already been treated in multiple book-length works by learned scholars of the Orient. However, none of these works were entirely familiar with the Hindu side of the tradition leaving lacunae in their analyses. We have long studied this material and wanted to write a brief note on it. This may be seen as a sampler or a precursor of such.

Views of life

At least since the Neolithic, humans can be seen as having two complementary (even if implicit) views of life:

The first is probabilistic.
In this view, there are certain probabilities with which future events will happen to a person.
The person tries to estimate those probabilities and tailor his actions accordingly.
Built into this idea is the subjective updating of probabilities (called by some as Bayesian inference after the eponymous theorem).
Thus, one starts off with a certain prior probability distribution, which might be very crude, but as one encounters events in life, one acquires an intuitive sense of likelihood of those events.
One then computes a distribution of the likelihood across the probability interval. Then by multiplying these two distributions and normalizing by their sum, one gets a new probability distribution, the posterior, which updates our probability of the event occurring.
While this formal method might not appear straightforward to the majority of people, they carry out such updating intuitively.(5)
The only problem in real life is accurately computing the likelihood distribution for doing the update.

The second view of life is deterministic.
In this, one sees oneself as inexorably drawn towards a pre-determined fate.
Whatever one does is already determined, and all actions and the sense of free action are merely an illusion.

With some introspection, one may arrive at the conclusion that these two views are ultimately complementary.
Because one cannot infer one’s fate though it is predetermined,
one acts as though it is probabilistic
and the estimation of probabilities is merely a technical attempt to determine the course it would take.

Given this, not surprisingly, over the ages, humans have sought prognostication methods.
Interestingly, those methods show a comparable bifurcation along the lines of probabilistic and deterministic approaches.

Hindu prognostication

This is well illustrated in the Hindu prognostication.
Strong determinism is exhibited in the texts of astrological prognostication (partly influenced by Greek tradition) — uranomancy (prediction by celestial phenomena) and hemerology (calendrical prognosis, with muhūrta-s, śubhadina-s, etc.).
Here, it is held that the future may be predicted by reading celestial patterns at birth and the subsequent, entirely predictable, movement of celestial bodies.

In contrast, a probabilistic approach is encoded in the cleromantic traditions (prognostication by dice or lottery) that were once common in old India.

Bower manuscript

Evidence for the early spread of cleromancy across Asia from India
is suggested by parts of the enigmatic Bower manuscript.
This manuscript has a colorful history.
It was purchased in 1890 CE by the English soldier Bower, who was chasing down a Mohammedan murderer all the way from Kashmir to the ancient oasis town of Kucha in central Asia. Its seller was a local treasure-hunter, and his agents had found the manuscript at a supposed bauddha ruin.

The decipherment of the Bower manuscript by the German scholar Buhler and its eventual editing and translation by another German scholar, Hoernle, finally brought it to the public between 1893-1897 CE.(5)
While modern “mainstream” white indologists date the texts to the 500s of the Common Era, the text itself is written a late Brāhmī script that was used in India during the early Gupta age.
This would suggest an earlier date for the manuscript.
The language of the manuscript is a grammatically degraded register of Sanskrit, forms of which are often termed “Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit.”
Parts 4 and 5 of this manuscript contain two distinct cleromantic texts. The first of these, part 4, opens with a remarkable set of mantra-s:

namo nandi-rudreśvarāya । namo ācāryebhyaḥ । nama īśvarāya । namo maṇibhadrāya । namaḥ sarvayakṣebhyaḥ । namaḥ sarva-devebhyaḥ । śivāya namaḥ । ṣaṣṭhyai namaḥ । prajāpataye namaḥ । rudrāya namaḥ । namo vaiśravaṇaya । namo marudbhyo namaḥ । prāsakāḥ patantu imā asya+arthasya kāraṇā hili hili kumbhakārī-mātaṅga-yuktā patantu ।
yat satyaṃ sarva-siddhānāṃ yat satyaṃ sarva-vādināṃ tena satyena satya-samayena naṣṭaṃ vinaṣṭam kṣemākṣemaṃ lābhālabhaṃ jayājayaṃ śivānudarśaya svāhā ।
satya-nārāyaṇe caiva devate ṛṣiṣu caiva satyam mantraṃ vṛtiḥ satyaṃ samakṣāḥ patantu svāhā ।
satyaṃ caiva tu draṣṭavyaṃ …
ni——–[maṇi?]-mantrauṣadhīnāṃ ca nimitta-balam anantaram mṛṣatāyāṃ devatāyāṃ viṣṇu navikāyāṃ caṇṭayāṇṭa ।
namaḥ puruṣa-siṃhasya prasannas te janārdanaḥ nihatāḥ śatravaḥ sarve…

Obeisance to Nandirudreśvara. Obeisance to the ācāryas. Obeisance to Īśvara. Obeisance to Māṇibhadra. Obeisance to all the yakṣas. Obeisance to all the devas. To Śiva obeisance. To Ṣaṣṭhī obeisance. To Prajāpati obeisance. To Rudra obeisance! Obeisance to Vaiśravaṇa. Obeisance to the Marut-s. Obeisance.
May these dice fall for this [prognostic] objective! hili! hili! May they fall set to work by Kumbhakārī, the Mātanga woman!
That truth which is of all the Siddha-s, that truth which is of the professors of all paths; by that truth and by that true consensus, what is lost and preserved, welfare and lack thereof, gain and loss, victory and defeat, may Śiva make that apparent svāhā!
In the true Nārāyana, and in the deity, and also in the ṛṣi-s lies the truth of the incantation, the choosing (i.e., the choice of prognosis by dice fall). Truth! May the dice fall together! svāhā! And may the truth be seen!
…the strength of [amulets?], incantations, medical herbs, and augury are uninterrupted by error. The deity Viṣṇu [unclear]. Obeisance of the the Man-lion; be you pleased. Janārdana has slain all enemies…

In the above text, we have not reproduced Hoernle’s transcription but have attempted to restore, where possible, the original mantra-s. A reader can compare it with his transcription, which is close, though in parts, displays its characteristic tumbled-down Sanskrit. Hoernle also provided a translation with his transcription, which was well done given the state of the text. We provide our own, which we believe sometimes hews closer to the intention of the text. Notwithstanding specific objections one may have to this translation or restoration, the mantra-s are rather striking for the following reasons:

1. The opening salutation is to the deity Nandirudreśvara. This name is rare in the śaiva literature and thus serves as a rather specific marker. The name is used for the tetracephalic Rudra worshiped in Kashmir at the Nandīśa-kṣetra associated with the Sodara spring. Indeed, the Nandi-kṣetra-māhātyma specifically mentions Nandirudra as one of the four faces of the Rudra associated with the bhūtagaṇeśvara Nandin:

śarva-nandi-mahākāla-devī-vadana-maṇḍitam ।
bhūteśvaraṃ bhūtapatiṃ ḍṛṣṭvā martyo vimucyate ॥
paścime vadane vīra mama vatsyasi yatsahe ।
bhūteśvaraḥ sarvabhūtaḥ sutīrthāntargato vibhuḥ ॥
śrīkaṇṭhaḥ pūrvavadane mahākālo ’tha dakṣiṇe ।
paścime nandirudras tu devī saumye pratiṣṭhitā ॥

Adorned by Śarva-, Nandin-, Mahākāla- and goddess- faces,
having seen [that] Bhūteśvara, the lord of ghosts, mortals are liberated.
The mighty Bhūteśvara [who] is all beings resides in this holy ford.
I permit you, o hero [Nandin], to reside in my western face.
Śrīkaṇṭha is established in the eastern face, Mahākāla in the southern face,
Nandirudra in the western face and the goddess in the direction of Soma (northern face).

The same deity is worshiped in several other Kashmirian texts like the Nīlamatapurāṇa and the Haracaritacintāmaṇi. This establishes that the compound Nandirudreśvara is specifically the Śiva of Nandikṣetra — he who is the Īśvara of Nandirudra. Hence, we can say with confidence that Part 4 of the Bower manuscript had its provenance in a Kashmirian text composed in the vicinity of this kṣetra. Thus, it finding its way to Kucha almost mirrors the journey of Bower in quest of the Mohammedan criminal.

Figure 1. An image based on Nandirudreśvara installed by a bauddha sarvādhikārin. The first picture shows the western Nandin face.

2. It shows some archaisms, such as the worship of the Kaumāra goddess Ṣaṣṭhī, the prominence of the Kaubera cult, the use of the name Prajāpati, importantly, the worship of the Marut-s. Contra Hoernle, we believe that the term Puruṣa-siṃha is an archaic version of the popular vibhava of Viṣṇu, Nṛsiṃha. In the actual prognostications associated with the dice falls, we find the invocation of the Aśvin-s and repeated invocation of the deity Maruta — it is not clear if this meant the singular deity with an akārānta name or vulgar plural of Marut. As we shall see below, Rudra, Marut-s and Viṣṇu had a persistent connection to dice prognostication.

3. This is perhaps the earliest attestation of the Viṣṇu devatā Satya-nārāyaṇa.

The second cleromantic text from the Bower manuscript, part 5, is attested in India in the form of later-day variants going under the name Pāśaka-kevalī. However, part 5 is again marked by interesting opening mantra-s. These mantra-s are more lacunose than those in part 4. Hence, we again provide a restoration based on Hoernle’s transcription with a separation of the mantra-s:

—- namasyāmi lokanāthaṃ janārdanaṃ yena satyam idaṃ dṛṣṭaṃ ya divya —————————- ।
prāhu tat sadbhi ha dṛṣā । tālā bhālā kā sukhaṃ duḥkhaṃ jīvitam maraṇaṃ tathā । iha sarvam manuṣyānām marudbhiḥ samudīritam । ṛṣibhir nirmitā — ।
meru-vāsam prayojitā – । imā vidyā tatas teṣāṃ hṛṣṭā vai marut-ādayaḥ । tad yathā । vimale vimale nirmale devi devi va– yat satyaṃ yat su-…
taṃ tat sarva darśaya apetu mānuṣaṃ cakṣu divyaṃ cakṣu pravartatu । apetu mānuṣa-śrotraṃ divya-śrotam pravartatu । apetu mānuṣaṃ gandhaṃ divyaṃ gandhaṃ pravartatu । apetu mānuṣā jihvā divyā jihvā pravartatu । māli māli svāhā ।

The terms tālā and bhālā, which Hoernle saw as implying the palm and forehead augury, are also noteworthy — it might be one of the earliest hints of palmistry in the Indosphere — suggesting that links between the disparate mantic traditions were already emerging. As one can see, it shares certain key features with the text of Kashmirian provenance in part 4. Both texts invoke the Marut-s and Viṣṇu. The consistent invocation of the Marut-s, who were prominent in the Vedic register of the religion, along with the other archaisms in part 4, raises the possibility that this cleromantic text had deep roots going back to the Vedic period. Indeed, it is conceivable that the Marut-s, who were seen as the force moving the planets or as metabolic forces in the body, were also conceived as the forces moving “luck” in the form of the dice throws. While the text in part 4 invokes Kumbhakārī-mātaṅga-yuktā, the part 5 text invokes the goddess Vimala, who in the Bodhāyana-mantrapāṭha appears as one of the goddesses in the Kaumāra circle. Again the deity Māli could be a variant of the name of the goddess Mālinī of the Pūrvāṃnāya. Notably, the later Pāśaka-kevalī recensions from different parts of India contain an archaic prognostic incantation to Kūṣmāṇḍinī Durgā, who is remarkably also termed Mātaṅginī in the mantra:

oṃ namo bhagavati kūṣmāṇḍinī sarva-kārya-prasādhinīi sarva-nimitta-prakāśini ehy ehi tvara tvara varade hili hili mili mili mātaṅginī satyam brūhi svāhā ॥

This suggests that the invocation of a Kaumāra goddess and/or Mātaṅginī was a likely part of the old cleromantic tradition. Further, the prognostications in part 5 invoke Maheśvara Mahādeva — those who worship him have a good prognosis; those who do not, fail to receive the desired goods. This links these cleromantic traditions to the Maheśvara divination, which was recovered in a manuscript from Cave 17 at Mogao.

This text links the Hindu cleromancy to Cīna, Turkic and Tibetan cleromancy and will require a separate treatment. However, we believe that thematically part 5 also throws light on an interesting Cīna text that has been the topic of some debate.

China

In the mid-400s, a Cīna, Hui-Chien from Jian Kang (today Nanking), produced a multi-volume magical work that he presented as a translation of an Indian work.

It includes a volume termed the “divination by `spirit-tablets’ revealed by the god Brahman’’ and sanctioned for use by the Tathāgata. Some sinologists have claimed that it is a possible Cīna aprocryphon because no comparable Indian Sanskrit text has been found. However, it is likely that it has a Sanskrit original, as stated by the author of the Cīna volumes. This could have been composed in Central Asia, probably Kucha rather than core India. Indeed, in the past, it was suspected that these volumes were produced by the Kuchean mantravādin Śrimitra who visited Jian Kang.

In this practice, the 100 prognostications specified in the text were written bamboo tablets or silk strips and placed in a multicolored silk pouch. Then, the sādhaka abstains from alcohol, meat, and the five foul-smelling Alliums (onion, garlic, leek, etc.) and rinses his mouth before the performance. He takes out 3-7 strips and reads the prognostications on them. Below are a couple of good prognostications (all translations below are by Strickmann edited by Faure):

27. How great the strength of this person’s felicity!
In all things, he receives the god’s protection.
All he desires shall be as he wishes,
Nothing not secure and safe.
Of a certainty, no dangers will impede him
And his fame will flow forth far and wide.
Spoken by the mouths of Śakra and Brahman,
This means all happiness, without deception.

83. I am concerned for this deserted orphan,
who will spend his whole life in the army.
Far separated from his old ancestral village,
Going this way and that, in pursuit of an alien wind [or, foreign customs]
Although he may be in other, far-off regions,
Brahma and Sakra will nonetheless raise him up.
In time he will return to safety and security,
And his friends and kindred will all rejoice.

One could also get bad prognostications:

31. You are an ill-omened person
And so have been made to dwell in this place.
In it are maleficent phantoms and demons
Which are constantly coming and loitering.
Your three hun and your seven po
Are bound and fettered to a vacant mountain.
You are in confusion and unsettled
And in the end will fall into the deep abyss.

66. Earlier, when you took a wife,
You thought yourselves a pair of mandarin ducks.
In harmonious union you established a household
Which would surely endure safely for a long time.
Suddenly, in the middle of the road,
You have begun to do one another harm.
There is no truce to your wranglings and disputes,
And your goods and chattels are also all dispersed.

In our opinion, the parallels in the prognostic tenor between the part 5 Pāśaka-kevalī-related text and the Cīna divination of Brahman suggest that, indeed, there was a Sanskrit equivalent of it that was accessed by either Hui-Chien or Śrimitra and it is no aprocryphon. This is supported by multiple other circumstantial lines of evidence:

1. The discovery of the Maheśvara divination at Mogao indicates that there is a body of texts of ultimately Hindu origin that reached the Cīna-s via the bauddha medium. Most of these were lost in India itself.
2. The divination of Brahman places itself against a Hindu background: as per the text, the Tathāgata approves of it because while the Hindus have such texts and benefit from it, the tāthāgata-s are not able to avail of such benefits.
3. Further, the beneficial effects come via Hindu gods Śakra and Brahman, much like the role played by Maheśvara, Aśvin-s, and Marut(s) in the Bower texts. We have an example from Kashmir of an image of Rudra modeled after Nandirudreśvara installed by a bauddha sarvādhikārin (Figure 1). This indicates how bauddha-s were incorporating Hindu material into their fold, especially when it came to practical traditions such as medicine and prognostics.