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सक्वर (?) Sakvara

the circumpolar 14-star figure (a second name for the Śiśumāra) · — · Ursa Minor / Draco

sky figureidentification disputedattestations 1stars 15

Attestations

Later siddhāntas & al-Bīrūnī · 1030 CE

No Sanskrit text: al-Bīrūnī wrote in Arabic, and the passage survives here only in Sachau's English.

The Hindus tell rather ludicrous tales when speaking of the figure in which they represent this group of stars, viz. the figure of a four-footed aquatic animal, which they call Sakvara, and also Śiśumāra. I suppose that the latter animal is the great lizard, for in Persia it is called Susmār, which sounds much like the Indian Śiśumāra. ... The Vishnu-Dharma says: 'Fourteen of these stars he placed round the pole in the shape of a śiśumāra, which drive the other stars round the pole. One of them, north of the pole, on the uppermost chin, is Uttānapāda, on the lowest chin Yajña, on the head Dharma, on the breast Nārāyaṇa, on the two hands towards the east the two stars Aśvinī the physicians, on the two feet Varuṇa, and Aryaman towards the west, on the penis Saṃwatsara, on the back Mitra, on the tail Agni, Mahendra, Marīci, and Kaśyapa.' — E. Sachau (1910)

Al-Bīrūnī records TWO Sanskrit names for the circumpolar aquatic figure: 'a four-footed aquatic animal, which they call Sakvara, and also Śiśumāra.' Sakvara is otherwise unattested and no Sanskrit source for it could be found; the underlying form may be śākvara ('bull-like, mighty') or a corruption of śiśumāra itself — treat as unverified. The Devanagari above is a transliteration of Sachau's Latin-script form, marked (?) like Śūla's, and is NOT an attested spelling. His etymological note is the prize: 'I suppose that the latter animal is the great lizard, for in Persia it is called Susmār, which sounds much like the Indian Śiśumāra' — independent support for the Draco reading already on file. He then gives the Viṣṇu-Dharma's fourteen-star roster, which differs from the Purāṇic versions on file by putting NĀRĀYAṆA ON THE BREAST and the two Aśvins on the hands. He closes with a jab — 'How simple those people are! Among us there are scholars who know between 1020 to 1030 stars' — and a methodological admission that explains why his own nakshatra guesses are weak: 'If I had found a Hindu able to point out to me with his finger the single stars, I should have been able to identify them with the star-figures known among Greeks and Arabs.'

Al-Bīrūnī, India ch. XXII (Sachau 1910, vol. 1, pp. 241–242) · text · translation

See also

Śiśumāra