Brihat Jataka

The Brihat Jataka is a classical Sanskrit primary text of Hindu horoscopic astrology, jyotisha, composed by the sixth century astronomer and astrologer Varahamihira, and this record holds it at the tier appropriate to a tradition's own foundational treatise rather than to independent outside verification of its methods. It is authoritative for the rules of natal chart interpretation this specific text prescribes, checkable against the translation, and it is widely cited within the later Hindu astrological tradition as one of its foundational sources. Use it for the content of classical Hindu astrological doctrine as this text itself states it; it is not a modern scholarly analysis of jyotisha's history, which needs a source such as David Pingree's work on Indian astral science alongside it, and it is not evidence that the methods it prescribes predict anything.