At the court of the legendary King Vikramaditya in Ujjain, a scholar named Varahamihira once described the signs of an approaching eartquake: well water turning brackish, cattle refusing to enter stalls, and a ring around the moon at dawn. His contemporaries whispered sorcery. He called it observation. Varahamihira is best known for the Brihat Samhita, a sixth-century encyclopedia that binds astrology, omens, agriculture, architecture, gemology, and natural history into a single framework. He also authored the Pancha Siddhantika (Five Treatises), which synthesized Greek, Roman, and Indian astronomical systems into a unified practice of timekeeping and divination.
Meta: Varahamihira (505–587 CE) is celebrated for the Brihat Samhita, a comprehensive encyclopedia of Vedic astrology and natural omens, and for fusing Western astrological methods with Indian Jyotisha.
What the Brihat Samhita Actually Contains
The Brihat Samhita runs over a hundred chapters. A reader who opens a palm-leaf manu-script finds not astrology alone but a catalogue of the observable world: how to site a well (chapter 54), when yam crops need a full moon (chapter 28), which gem bears which planet’s influence (chapter 80), and the meaning of a lizard falling on your right shoulder versus your left (chapter 53). Varahamihira calls this sakuna – the art of omens. He does not mock it. He catalogues it with the same precision he uses for planetary longitudes.
His method is combinatorial. He does not separate the human from the climatic. For him, the ruling planets of an hour also govern the rain that falls in that hour, and the stone that cures the king also suits the field. The Brihat Samhita is, in effect, a unified field guide to the terrestrial and celestial, held together by the principle that what happens in the sky has a correspondent on the ground.
Where Did Varahamihira Get His Sources?
Born in 505 CE in Kapitthaka (near modern Ujjain), Varahamihira belonged to the last great generation of the Gupta period. His father, Adityadasa, was a sun-worshiper and astronmer, which gave the son an early familiarity with both ritual and theodolites. By the time Varahamihira entered the court of Vikramaditya (likely Chandragupta II, though the identification is debated), the city of Ujjain had become a crossroad for Persian, Greek, and Indian knowledge.
The Pancha Siddhantika, composed around 575 CE, names five astronomical treatises he reconciled: the Surya, Romaka, Paulisa, Vasistha, and Paitamaha Siddhantas. The Romaka and Paulisa (the latter derived from Paul of Alexandria) show direct Greek influence. Varahamihira did not reject this foreign import. He translated their terms into Sanskrit and fitted their sidereal computations into the Indian system of nakastras and lagnas. What emerges is not a pastich of sources but a deliberate synthesis: a single calendar that works for both the Greek urban mercant and the Brahmin priest timing a sacrifice.
His library, had one visited it, held palm-leaf codices, brass yantras for sighting stars, and water clocks calibrated by sun shadows. The smell of lampblack and gum arabic would have hung over the table where he compared the Romaka’s tropical year against the Surya’s sidereal one.
Why Five Treatises? The Number as a Symbol
The number five appears repeatedly in Varahamihira’s system. Five treatises, five astronomical systems, five categories of omens (celestial, atmospheric, terrestrial, animal, bodily), and five great yogas (planetary combinations) that determine character. The Brihat Jataka, his other major text on natal astrology, opens with a chapter on the five Maha-purusas – the five human types formed by each planet’s dominance.
Five, for him, is not arbitrary. It echoes the five elements of Samkya philosophy (earth, water, fire, air, ether) and the five senses through which omens are perceived. A complete reading of the world, Varahamihira implies, requires the synthesis of all five modes. No single siddhanta contains the whole truth. No single omen delivers a verdict. The astrologer must weigh the five perspectives, just as the astronomer must correct one siddhanta against another.
How Varahamihira’s Work Is Used Today
A present-day Jyotisha practitioner in Jaipur or Mumbai still opens a printed Brihat Samhita to check the muhurta (auspicious moment) for breaking ground on a house. The chapter on vastu (architecture) gives rules for orientation of doors and placement of wells that echo in modern Vastu Shastra handbooks. He also classifies gemstones by planet: ruby for the Sun, pearl for the Moon, emerald for Mercry. These recommendations still guide the purchase of astrological remedies.
Gemologists trained in the Western system sometimes note that Varahamihira’s classifications do not match modern mineralogy exactly (he lists nine gems, not twelve, and includes “vaidurya” for cat’-eye beryl). But his logic – that a stone’s color, transparency, and source correspond to planetary energies – remains the foundation of ratna shastra (gem science) in India.
His system of yogas is the backbone of natal chart interpretation. The Brihat Jataka defines combations like Gajakesari yoga (Jupiter in a kendra from the Moon) which predicts authority and learning. A practitioner can test these combations. They are not vague. They are specific conjunctions with quantifiable conditions.
How He Compares to Other Ancient Scholars
Varahamihira is often contrasted with his older contemorary Aryabatha (born 476 CE). Aryabatha’s work is almost pure math and astronomy – no omens, no gems, no lizards. Varahamihira’s is applied: he takes the numbers and turns them into divination. Where Aryabatha computed the sidereal year to incredible precision (365.258 days), Varahamihira asked what that year meant for the farmer, the king, the sick man.
The clossest Western parallel is Claudius Ptolemy, who wrote the Tetrabiblos (on astrology) and the Almagest (on astronomy). Both men produced a two-part corpus: one half celestial mechanics, the other half earthly consequence. But Ptolemy separated them. Varahamihira kept them bound in a single book. That difference matters. For him, the star’s position is the omen. There is no gap between astronomy and meaning.
What People get Wrong about Varahamihira
The Brihat Samhita is sometimes advertised as a “lost knowledge” or “secret wisdom.” It was never lost. It has been copied and commented on continuously for fourteen centuries. The 11th-century commentor Bhatttomisra produced a gloss that survives today. The text is difficult because it uses compressed sutra-style verse, not because it was hidden.
Another misconception: that Varahamihira predicted the earthquake that destroyed his own city. No source confirms this. He did describe earthquake precursors. But he never claimed to forecast a specific event.
A third: that his astrology is fatalistic. The muhurta system he outlines is explicitly elective. You can choose the moment. That is the opposite of fate. He believed the stars incline, but the muhurta corrects.
FAQ
Did Varahamihira write about earthquakes? Yes. Chapter 32 of the Brihat Samhita lists omens: unusual animal behavior, discolored water, atmospheric rings. He offers no exact prediction method, only signs to watch.
**What is the difference between his Brihat Jataka and Brihat Samhita?
The Brihat Jataka focuses on natal astrology (birth charts, yogas, planetary periods). The Samhita covers everything else: omens, architecture, agriculture, gems, weather, and divination.
**Is Varahamihira considered a “nine jewel” of Vikramaditya?
Tradition counts him among the Navaratna (nine gems) of the court, alongside Kalidasa and others. This tradition appears in medieval texts and is widely accepted, though the identification of the specific Vikramaditya is debated.
**How reliable are his planetary positions today?
His sidereal longitudes differ from modern calculations due to precession. But his muhurta rules (which depend on relative positions, not absolute coordinates) are still applied by Vedic astrologers.
Varahamihira’s work remains a living reference, not a museum piece. The Brihat Samhita still sits on the desk of Jyotisha practitioners, and its methods for timing, gem selection, and omen reading have outlasted the empire that housed him. To understand how one encyclopedia can bind sky and soil, read our guide to Vedic gemology and explore the glossary of planetary yogas. For the muhurta system he perfected, see our article on electional astrology.