PARASHAR HORA

About PARASHAR HORA

Parasara Hora by Maharishi Parasara is of prime importance in Vedic astrology. All the Acharyas following Rishi traditions like Varahamihira, Kalyan Varma, Nrisingh, Daivagya, Vaidyanath Dixit, Manteshwar, Balbhadra Mishra, Mahadev Pathak, etc., have quoted Parasara in their books. The tradition of giving names started from ‘Jatak Sar Deep’. ‘Hora Ratna’ of Bal Bhadra Mishra has quoted a few Shalokas from ‘Parasara Hora’ and ‘Parasara Jataka’, which are found in the currently published versions of texts designated as ‘Brihat Parasara Hora Shastra’. Why ‘Parasara Hora’ was named as ‘Brihat Parasara Hora Shastra’, Shri Shridhar Sharma is silent on the subject. Shri Sitaram Jha has stated this in the preface of his book: as two books by the names of ‘Laghu Parashari’ and ‘Madhya Parashari’ were already published and available, this book was designated as ‘Brihat Parasara Hora Shastra’. But this argument is not of much essence as the book which he calls ‘Laghu Parashari’ is actually ‘Ududai Pradeep’ as he has also stated and also mentioned in that book in the following verse: o;a ijk'kjh gksjkeuqlR; ;Fkk efrA mMqnk; iznhik[;a dq;ksZ nSo fonka eqnsAA We, following ‘Parasara Hora’ present ‘Ududai Pradeep’ for the benefit of the astrologers. ‘Ududai’ means ‘Nakshatra Dasa’. Hence this text should be on Nakshatra Dasa. But in the next Shloka, they accept Vimshottari Dasa and not Astottari Dasa for prognostication. Thus this book was limited only to Vimshottari Dasa.