Jaimini and Parashara

In a response to a post by Sanjay Rath on a Jaimini Sutra commentary by Shanmukha, someone wrote "Way advanced, gave me a headache".

I replied:

It is supposed to give you a headache; that means it is working. The numbers, letter conversions, reversals, multiple interpretations in the unfolding of the 'sutra' is the path of Jaimini (which activates Ketu) and rearranges the mind to think in a certain way that allows one to understand the manifold mitigating factors from multiple perspectives in reading an astrological chart- I like to call it multi-dimensional thinking.

Some people think that charakarkas (improperly called jaimini karakas), rashi aspects, sign dashas are ‘Jaimini astrology’, but all these are all part of Parashara (BPHS). [There is a lot of bad nomenclature presently- most people confuse the Varahamihira stream of Jyotish with Parashara and don’t even understand the difference]. This article is true 'Jaimini Astrology'. It is not about the techniques as much as it is about the approach, the way the astrologer learns and therefore the perspective on the chart. The two main views are from Sanjay Rath and Shri Iranganti Rangacharya who are the main two living lineage holders of Jaimini that are openly taught today.

Someone misunderstood something I said and replied:

The distinction of Parashar and Jaiminis' systems as two different ones is not right. BPHS starts with what Jaimini has detailed in his Sutra. Different commentaries on Sutra have created 'headache' and confusion which was handled by me by paying more attention to how Shri K N Rao has handled who has been following Parashar and Jamini since longer time. My first meeting in his Telegraph Lane residence took place in 1991 and few months later I met David Frawley who was recommended to Rao by none other than late Shri B V Raman.

I replied:

There are people who distinguish Parashari astrology and Jaimini astrology as two different systems (which I disagree with), as Jaimini is an Upadesha (a commentary) not a system, and his commentary is not complete without Parashara. They are a single system, with techniques different than the Varahamihira line/system (which is very similar to Greek astrology).

The distinction between Parashara and Jaimini is not in system or technique but in the teaching: Parashara is shloka and Jaimini is sutra; this becomes very important in traditional learning which is directly from the texts. As the above article makes clear, Sutra requires much more interpretation (and Jaimini put his magic in them).

And then someone added:

I think people distinguish them because they are more useful for different things, but are still meant to be used together of course. Jaimini is more Solar, objective, and rasi based, Parashara is more Lunar, subjective and nakshatra based.

That inspired me to write:

I get that what you are saying is something you have read or heard, but I believe that such a statement is continuing to spread a misunderstanding about Jaimini. Having spent the last fifteen years studying Parashara and Jaimini, I can say that what you are saying is something that many people have repeated- second hand knowledge with no textual validity. In the conversation above, I referenced Varahamihira because he doesn’t use sign aspects or charakarakas…; what most people call Parashari astrology is just Varahamihira’s astrology with vimshottari dasha (as Varahamihira didn’t use Vimshotarri). This misnomer has created a large amount of confusion, and most people repeat it without actually studying the texts.

If you disagree, please show me where in BPHS there is something more lunar than Jaimini and where in Jaimini Upadesha Sutra is there something more solar than Parashara. [In general, as a sage, the limping Parashara is associated with Saturn and Jaimini is associated with Ketu]. As regards objective and subjective, they have the same basic techniques, so where is the difference? I am requesting the difference based upon the texts, not some second hand opinion. Parashara teaches rashi aspects and uses them in the yoga chapters, the strength calculations, and the dasha calculations. Please compare the shlokas where Parashara teaches multiple rashi dasha with the sutras of Jaimini and see who spends more time with rashi. Nakshatra based or Rashi based is not a difference, Jaimini tradition teaches so many more nakshatra techniques then anything we have available in English presently. If you look at the Jyotish in Mahabharata, there you see a ‘nakshatra based’ system of Jyotish, and the Sarvatobhadra chakra, Kota chakra, Kalachakra, etc systems are nakshatra based systems which are not being used in Parashara.

Until the nineties, many chapters in Parashara made no sense to many astrologers. I once even saw a reference to Argala as being a ‘side technique that no one understands’ (and that author went on to write a book on Jaimini…). Parashara has a whole chapter on Argala and Jaimini has five verses on it, but Varahamihira and his line does not reference Argala. So the astrology that had originally made itself available in English did not understand Argala. The two lineages that I mentioned above carried those techniques and started teaching argala (in English) in the nineties and now that knowledge is available and that chapter of Parashara can be understood to have a huge weight on yogas and dasha interpretation. Previously, most of what was in Parashara that was not understood was found to be understood by some previous translations of Jaimini and so those techniques became known as Jaimini techniques, even though it existed in Parashara. We are now in a time where the knowledge to understand the majority of Parashara is available (which it wasn’t 20 years ago). The statement that Jaimini is rashi based comes from the early days of Jyotish in the West/ in English, and it is an outdated understanding.

The real difference between the two texts is how they present the information, as the article above shows (all terminology used in that verse of Jaimini is defined and used by Parashara). Some sections in Jaimini are directly the same information as chapters in Parashara, but highly condensed. The actual difference in the texts is that Jaimini has a huge amount of Ayurjyotish not found in Parashara and he adds in the use of additional varga charts and more yogas.

Update April 2015: A note to varying traditions- Sri Iranganti Rangacharya of Hydrabad is a guru of an official Jaimini Parampara recognized and respected by our lineage. According to his student Shanmukha, he taught to not mix Parashara and Jaimini techniques. That is not the Rath family Parampara.

Update June 2016: Here is a comparison of Jaimini Upadesha Sutras to the corresponding verses in Brihat Parashara Hora Shastra