The Classics of Vedic Astrology

There was a considerable gap, at least form our knowledge point of view, before any other major astrological work was produced. The next known work is Brihat Jataka by Varahamihira, who was the famous astrologer in the court of The great king Vikramaditya in the year 57BC.
He was also a great astronomer and the first one to mention in his work Pancha Siddhantika, based on our ancient Siddhantas, that the ayanamsa, or the shifting of the equinox is 50.32 seconds. He also authored the famous Brihat Samhita, Daivagyna Vallabha, Laghu Jataka and Yogayatra.

Varahamihira’s son Prithu Yasas wrote the famous classic Horasara.
Uttarakalamitra, another great work is attributed to the great poet
Kalidasa, who also belonged to the Vikramaditya period.

Sage Yavana during the Alexander period, wrote Yavana Jataka. Sage Yavana was an astrologer in the Greek court in India, and because of this a lot of western astrologers claim that Indians learned astrology from the Greeks!!

After that came several great Astro-authors. The monumental work, Saravali by Kalyana Varma, in the 10th century AD is a great classic. After that we have the great Sarvartha Chintamani by Venkatesa in the 13th century, and another magnum opus of astrology Jataka Parijata by Vidyanatha Dikshita in the 14th century. It is believed that he is the son of Venkatesa. Around the the same period came Hora Prakasha by Punja Raja and the great encyclopedic work, Hora Ratnam by Balabhadra.

Phaladeepika by Mantreswara in the 16th century is another monumental work.

Prasna Tantra by Neelakanta Daivagnya, around 1550 AD is a great classic dealing with the Prasna or Horary Astrology.

Sanketanidhi by Ramadayalu in the mid 19th century is another great classic.

Jatakatatwa by Mahadeva written in 1871 AD is another important work where the planetary effects etc., are given not in Shlokas as in the case of other works but in brief Shuktas. The author’s real name is believed to be Shri Mahadevji Revashakarji Pathak of Rutlam. He lived between 1842 AD to 1888 AD.

There are several other famous works whose dates are not known and their principles are difficult to apply from astrological point of view. For example Deva Keralam. We have just mentioned about the most important astrological classics which a student of astrology must study. The list of astrological works is a very long one and it is almost impossible for any one study all of the in ones life-time.