From: Thomas Hockey et al. (eds.). The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer Reference. New York: Springer, 2007, pp. 1251-1252


Courtesy of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_1514


Yavaneśvara

Setsuro Ikeyama


Flourished(western India), 149/150

Yavaneśvara translated a Greek astrological text (probably composed in Alexandria in the 1st half of the 2nd century BCE) into Sanskrit prose in 149/150 at Ujjayinī, the capital of the Western Katrapas, during the reign of Rudradāman I. (Yavaneśvara, literally “lord of the Greeks,” was probably a title for leaders of Greek merchants in Western India, circa 78–390, and not a proper name.) This translation, which is no longer extant, was versified and titled Yavanajātaka by Sphujidhvaja in 269/270. Verse 61 of Chapter 79 of this work runs:

Yavaneśvara, who sees the truth coming from the brightness of the sun and speaks unblamable words, conveyed this treatise on horoscopy for the local authority in primitive words.

The work of Yavaneśvara became one of the major sources for Indian horoscopy.


Selected References

Pingree, David (1976). “Yavaneśvara.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 14, p. 549. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

——— (1981). Jyotihśāstra. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, pp. 89, 109.

——— (1994). Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit. Series A. Vol. 5, p. 330b. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.

——— (ed. and trans.) (1978). The Yavanajātaka of Sphujidhvaja. 2 Vols. Harvard Oriental Series, Vol. 48. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.