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ज्येष्ठा Jyeṣṭhā

Antares · α Scorpii · Scorpius

nakshatraidentification certainattestations 5 Antares α ScoHIP 80763mag 1.06
LibraJyeṣṭhā
Jyeṣṭhā sits at right ascension 16.5h, declination -26°. Stars to magnitude 4.8, north up and east to the left, with the IAU constellation figures.

In the living languages

Antares (6 names), Scorpius (12 names)

Attestations

Sūrya Siddhānta
ज्येष्ठाश्रवणमैत्राणाम् बार्हस्पत्यस्य मध्यमा / भरण्याग्नेयपित्र्याणाम् रेवत्याश् चैव दक्षिणा //
18. Of Jyeshtha, Çravana, Anuradha (maitra), and Pushya (barhaspatya), it is the middle star: of Bharani, Krttika (agneya), and Magha (pitrya), and likewise of Revati, it is the southern: — E. Burgess (1860)

Burgess: the central of three (with σ and τ Scorpionis) is 'the brilliant star of the first magnitude α Scorpionis, or Antares'.

Sūrya Siddhānta 8.18 · text · translation
Lexicons, Nirukta & Buddhist · c. 2nd–4th century CE
jyeṣṭhā-nakṣatraṃ tritāraṃ yavamadhya-saṃsthānaṃ pañca-daśa-muhūrta-yogaṃ śāliyavāgubhojanam indradaivataṃ dīrghakātyāyanīyaṃ gotreṇa/
Literal rendering: 'The Jyeṣṭhā asterism has three stars, is shaped like the middle of a barleycorn, has a fifteen-muhūrta conjunction, rice gruel for its food, Indra for its deity, Dīrghakātyāyanīya by gotra.' — Literal rendering by the compiler

THREE stars, shaped like a barleycorn's middle (yavamadhya-saṃsthāna, a lens/fusiform figure), deity Indra, gotra Dīrghakātyāyanīya. Three stars in a fusiform = σ, α, τ Scorpii, exactly Burgess's group. Indra lordship agrees with the Vedic lists and with Jyeṣṭhaghnī already on file.

Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna (Divyāvadāna 33), nakṣatra-vaṃśa, p. 49 · text · translation
Vaṭeśvara & Sāmanta · composed 1869 CE (Śaka 1791); edited by Joges Chandra Ray, Calcutta 1899
अर्धोना(१८)२२५।३० … सपादक्षताः(१८)४।१५

Devanagari transcribed by the compiler from the page FACSIMILE of the Ray edition (Calcutta 1899), scan leaf n216 = printed p. 114–115: https://archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.292705/page/n216.jpg . The archive.org OCR of this volume is unusable for Devanagari, so no verse here is taken from the OCR text; every figure was re-read at full scan resolution and cross-checked against a second independent scan of the same edition (https://archive.org/download/siddhantadarpanachandrashekarsimha1897_252_Z/page/n217.jpg). Round brackets and the figures in them are the PRINTED EDITION'S own: (n) is the serial number of the asterism/star and the figure following it is the edition's decoding of the bhūtasaṅkhyā word-numeral that precedes it. These are the two printed segments of the dhruva list (vv. 2–6) and the śara list (vv. 7–10) that carry this asterism's own figures; the complete verses are given under db_id 'yogatara-catalog'.

'…(18) 225 30…' and '…(18) 4 15…' — the polar longitude of asterism no. 18 is 225°30' and its polar latitude 4°15', south. — Literal rendering by the compiler

SIDDHĀNTA DARPAṆA XII (Sāmanta, 1869): dhruva (polar longitude) 225°30', śara (polar latitude) 4°15' south. The direction comes from XII.11, which makes the śara southern for the asterisms numbered 4, 5, 6, 9, 13, 14, 16–21 and 24 and northern for all the rest; XII.12–13 give the asterism 3 star(s). TRUE VALUES for 1870 CE, reduced to Sāmanta's OWN sidereal zero (his Citrā = 179°, i.e. Spica; implied ayanāṃśa 22°12'), as polar longitude / polar latitude: α Sco 224°59' / -4°37'. VAṬEŚVARA-SIDDHĀNTA VIII.2.1–2 (904 CE) puts the same junction star at Alin 19° (= 229°00' measured from the sidereal origin) with a śara of 4°00' south (VIII.2.5–6, direction by VIII.2.8).

Siddhānta Darpaṇa of Candraśekhara Sāmanta, Grahagaṇita, Tripraśnādhikāra, 12th prakāśa (Bhagrahayogavarṇana) 2–13 · text · translation
Vaṭeśvara & Sāmanta · 904 CE
द्वी[२]न्द्रा[१४]तिधृति[१९भि]रलिनि

This is the printed segment of the continuous dhruvaka list (VIII.2.1–2) that carries this star's own figure; the star's kṣepa is item no. 18 of the unbroken numeral run of VIII.2.5–6, which cannot be split, so the whole passage is also given verbatim under db_id 'yogatara-catalog'. Devanagari transcribed by the compiler from the page FACSIMILE of K. S. Shukla's INSA edition of the Sanskrit text, scan leaf n317 = printed p. 293: https://archive.org/download/VatesvaraSiddhantaSanskritText/page/n317.jpg . The archive.org OCR is unusable for Devanagari. The SQUARE brackets and the figures inside them are the EDITION'S own decoding of the bhūtasaṅkhyā word-numerals, reproduced here so that no numeral is silently converted. Shukla's English translation and notes are in copyright: they are neither quoted nor relied on here — only the constituted mūla text and the edition's numeric glosses.

Vaṭeśvara names no asterism individually in these verses: he gives, sign by sign, the degrees at which the junction stars stand. This star falls at Alin 19°, with polar latitude 4°00' south. — Literal rendering by the compiler

VAṬEŚVARA-SIDDHĀNTA VIII.2 (904 CE) gives the junction star's dhruvaka (polar longitude) as Alin 19° — Vaṭeśvara states the dhruvakas as degrees WITHIN each zodiacal sign, not as absolute longitudes, so this is 229°00' from the sidereal origin — and its kṣepa (polar latitude, VIII.2.5–6) as 4°00', south by the rule of VIII.2.8 (a verse the edition notes is identical with Brahmagupta's Khaṇḍakhādyaka I.9.13). TRUE VALUES for 904 CE reduced to Vaṭeśvara's own sidereal zero (his Citrā = 3° of Libra = 183°), as polar longitude / polar latitude: α Sco 228°37' / -4°34'. For comparison Sāmanta (1869) gives 225°30' / 4°15' south. Vaṭeśvara's list is essentially the inherited Sūrya-Siddhānta/Brahmagupta set: it is a fourth independent witness to those values rather than a fresh observation.

Vaṭeśvara-siddhānta VIII (Samāgamādhikāra), section 2 (Bhagrahayutyādividhiḥ) 1–2 (dhruvakas) and 4–8 (kṣepas) · text · translation
Chinese Buddhist witnesses · Xiuyao jing 759 CE (revised recension 764 CE); Modengqie jing (T1300) attributed to Zhu Lüyan and Zhi Qian, 230 CE; Shetoujian jing (T1301) Dharmarakṣa, c. 307 CE
心圖。心三星,形如階,因陀羅神也,姓僧訖利底耶那,食粳米蔬乳。

Verbatim parallels from the two earlier Chinese versions of the same Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna material, and the Tang commentator's note on the Chinese star-count: 摩登伽經 (Mātaṅga-sūtra) T21n1300, T21.0405a06: 「心宿三星,其形如鳥,一日及月,粳米祭之,屬天地神,姓迦旃延。」 | 舍頭諫太子二十八宿經 T21n1301, T21.0415c07: 「尊長宿者,有三要星,其形類麥,邊小中大,行十五須臾而侍從矣,粳米為食,主因帝天,姓長所乘。」 | Yang Jingfeng's interlinear note in T21n1299 at T21.0389c24: 「景風曰:中國天文,心三星,主明堂印政,東方之宿也」

Xiuyao jing: "Chart of Xin. Xin has three stars; its form is like a flight of steps. Its deity is Indra (因陀羅); its clan is Sāṃkṛtyāyana (僧訖利底耶那); its food is rice, vegetables and milk." — Modengqie jing (T1300, c. 230 CE): "The Xin asterism has three stars, its form like a bird; a day with the moon; rice is its offering; it belongs to the deity of heaven and earth; its clan is Kātyāyana (迦旃延)." — Shetoujian jing (T1301, c. 307 CE): "The asterism The-Eldest has three principal stars, their form of the barley kind, small at the edges and large in the middle; it travels fifteen muhūrta in attendance; rice is its food; the deva Indra presides; its clan-name is 'Long-borne'." — Literal rendering by the compiler

Chinese lunar lodge (xiu) 心 Xin; T1301 renders the name semantically as 尊長 ('The Eldest'). THREE stars in all three witnesses; INDRA as deity in T1299 (因陀羅) and T1301; KĀTYĀYANA as gotra in T1300 (迦旃延); rice as food — all matching the Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna's tritāraṃ yavamadhya-saṃsthānaṃ … śāliyavāgubhojanam indradaivataṃ dīrghakātyāyanīyaṃ gotreṇa. T1301 is the prize: 其形類麥,邊小中大 'of the barley kind, small at the edges and large in the middle' is the best gloss anywhere on yavamadhya-saṃsthāna, and it confirms the fusiform σ–α–τ Scorpii reading. The 15-muhūrta value matches. T1301's name 尊長 'the eldest' is a semantic translation of jyeṣṭhā.

Taishō T21n1299 fasc. 1 (T21.0389c18), with T21n1300 fasc. 1 and T21n1301 · text · translation

See also

Rohiṇī (second; = Jyeṣṭhā)