David Pingree, Catalogue of Jyoti⋅a manuscripts in the Wellcome Library: Sanskrit astral and mathematical literature, Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Studies, vol. 2Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2004, pp. xix, 472, €89.00, US$106.00 (hardback 90-04-13152-3).

Abstract

This is a catalogue of manuscripts of texts of Jyotih˙śāstra, that is, of the Indian learned traditions of astronomy, mathematics, divination and astrology. The catalogue provides descriptions of 959 of the Wellcome Library's Indic language manuscripts (primarily in Sanskrit), representing more than 500 different texts, by at least 250 authors. The catalogue by David Pingree represents the completion of an effort begun more than thirty years ago. It is doubtful that anyone other than Pingree could have accomplished it; certainly no one could have done so at this high standard. The work of cataloguing the Wellcome collection's Indian manuscripts was unusually difficult. Indic manuscripts, especially of Sanskrit texts, were acquired by various agents and dealers in India beginning in 1911. Over time, the collection in the Wellcome, for which a full handlist was not made, became disorganized. Bundles of manuscripts were stored in different places; leaves of individual manuscripts got out of order; sections of the same manuscript became separated, and so on. To complicate matters further, there were composite manuscripts with multiple titles; and many of the manuscripts were of texts on topics so specialized that only a few would be able to identify them. In the summer of 1954, V Raghavan made a significant advance in organizing knowledge of the Indic collection by creating a list of about 3000 titles. Dominik Wujastyk began to work on the collection in 1977, putting the Indic manuscripts into a rational order and creating handlists. David Pingree had begun to work on the Jyotis˙a portion of the collection beginning in 1969. Further visits, extensive correspondence, and examination of many microfilms continued in subsequent decades. Over the past three decades Pingree has created standardized schemes for classifying Jyotis˙a texts, and for creating descriptive catalogues of Sanskrit manuscripts. He has also compiled and published the Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit (CESS), which provides a comprehensive description of authors of Jyotis˙a texts and the texts attributed to them, together with a list of all known manuscripts of the texts. The Wellcome catalogue follows Pingree's classificatory scheme, being divided into the three main divisions of Jyotis˙: astronomy and mathematics (gan˙ita), divination (sam˙hitā), and astrology (horā), with further subdivisions of each. The descriptions of manuscripts also follow Pingree's standard format: first providing information about the text (title, author, date, location, incipit, and its reference in CESS) and then about the individual manuscripts (physical features, details of numbering and previous cataloguing marks, gaps, colophons and post-colophons, scribes and owners, diagrams, etc.). A notable feature of Pingree's cataloguing scheme is the systematic inclusion of peculiarities of the individual manuscript, especially of peripheral or marginal material not found in the main text. The collection contains a number of rare texts in each subdiscipline. Most of the Jyotis˙a manuscripts are written in the Devanāgarī script, and most come from the northwestern region of India, centring on the Panjāb, though acquisitions were made over a wide geographical range. The close historical relationship of Indian medicine and astrology, in theory and in practice, was recognized by Wellcome's early collectors. As a result, a sizable fraction of the Wellcome Indic collection is made up of Jyotis˙a manuscripts. Of these, about a third are of texts concerning birth horoscopes. Users will find two features of this catalogue especially helpful: the indices and the datings. The indices are extensive—thirteen in all: authors and interlocutors; titles and topics; scribes, their relatives and gurus; owners; other persons; social and religious organizations; languages other than Sanskrit; toponyms; dated manuscripts; horoscopes; numbering concordances; shelf location concordances; and locations of composite manuscripts. Pingree has also provided the CE datings for all manuscripts that include a śaka or other Indian luni-solar calendar date in their colophon or post-colophon. In addition he has been able to reconstruct a date for all horoscopes that are found in the manuscripts. In addition to providing reliable knowledge of the manuscripts in the Wellcome collection, the information that has been gathered in this catalogue provides a specificity of knowledge about the lives of pre-modern Indian intellectuals that is barely available to us through other sources. It will enable reconstructions of the history of Indian Jyotis˙īs: their places and families, their affiliations and associations, their networks of communication. The catalogue represents a significant achievement. Its readers will be grateful.