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ब्रह्मनक्षत्रम् Brahma-nakṣatra

Vega · α Lyrae · Lyra

nakshatra aliasidentification certainattestations 1 Vega α LyrHIP 91262mag 0.03

In the living languages

Vega (5 names)

Attestations

Utpala's commentary · Utpala 966 CE; the Parāśara quoted is pre-6th c. CE
तथा च पराशरः— अथ पैतामहश्चलकेतुः पञ्चदशवर्षशतं प्रोष्योदितः पश्चिमेनाङ्गुलिपर्वमात्रां शिखां दक्षिणाभिगतां कृत्वा जलकेतोश्चारान्ते नभसस्त्रिभागमनुचरन् यथा यथा चोत्तरेण व्रजति तथा तथा शूलाग्राकारां शिखां दर्शयन् ब्रह्मनक्षत्रमुपसृत्य मनाग् ध्रुवं ब्रह्मराशिं सप्तर्षीन् स्पृशन् नभसोऽर्धमात्रं दक्षिणमनुक्रम्यास्तं व्रजति।

Transcribed from the Devanagari OCR of the printed edition at shloka_source_url (Achyuta Nand Jha ed., vol. 1) and checked word-for-word against two further independent scans of two different printed editions of the same commentary — Krishna Chandra Dvivedi's (https://archive.org/download/brihatsamhitawithbhattotpalavivrittipartidr.krishnachandradvivedi/Brihat%20Samhita%20%20with%20Bhattotpala%20Vivritti%20Part%20I%20-%20Dr.%20Krishna%20Chandra%20Dvivedi_djvu.txt) and A.V. Tripathi's (https://archive.org/download/JiUm_brihat-samhita-part-1-of-varaha-mihira-by-avadh-bihari-tripathi-saraswati-bhavan-granthamala/Brihat%20Samhita%20Part%201%20of%20Varaha%20Mihira%20by%20Avadh%20Bihari%20Tripathi%20-%20Saraswati%20Bhavan%20Granthamala_djvu.txt). Only glyph-level OCR artifacts that all three scans show to be artifacts (e.g. OCR रद्वव for रद्गव, श्व for श्च) have been normalised; every substantive reading is as scanned, and the two places where the scans genuinely differ are flagged in identification_notes. The corresponding mūla is BS 11.34, GRETIL: 'saptamunīn saṃspṛśya dhruvam abhijitam eva ca pratinivṛttaḥ / nabhaso +ardhamātram itvā yāmyena^astam samupayāti' (https://gretil.sub.uni-goettingen.de/gretil/corpustei/transformations/plaintext/sa_varAhamihira-bRhatsaMhitA.txt).

Mūla BS 11.34 (Iyer 1884, ch. XI v. 34, verbatim, OCR typos corrected): 'After touching the Ursa Major or the Pole star, or the constellation of Abhijit, it turns back and after travelling one half of the sky disappears in the South.' Utpala's Parāśara quotation (rendered by the compiler): 'And so Parāśara: Now the Paitāmaha Cala-ketu, having lain hidden fifteen hundred years, rises in the west with a tail a finger-joint long turned southward; at the end of the Jala-ketu's course it traverses a third of the sky, and the further north it goes the more it shows a spear-pointed tail; approaching the Brahma-nakṣatra and just grazing Dhruva, the Brahmarāśi and the Seven Ṛṣis, it crosses half the sky southward and sets.' — N. Chidambaram Iyer (1884) for the mūla; Parāśara quotation rendered by the compiler

'The asterism of Brahmā' = ABHIJIT. Identification is secure by direct textual substitution: Varāhamihira's mūla at BS 11.34 says the Cala-ketu comet touches 'sapta-munīn, dhruvam, abhijitam eva ca'; the Parāśara passage Utpala quotes on the same verses says it approaches 'brahma-nakṣatram', then grazes 'dhruvaṃ brahmarāśiṃ saptarṣīn'. Brahma-nakṣatra therefore stands exactly where Varāhamihira has Abhijit. Utpala confirms the equation independently in his gloss on the nakṣatra-deity list at BS 97.5: 'brahmā abhijitaḥ' — Brahmā is Abhijit's regent. Abhijit = Vega is fixed elsewhere in the database. Bears on the database's unidentified 'Brāhmaṇa' nakṣatra of Maitrāyaṇī Saṃhitā 2.13.20: that one has SOMA as its deity, not Brahmā, so the two are probably NOT the same name and Brahma-nakṣatra does not resolve it.

Utpala, Vivṛti on Bṛhat Saṃhitā 11.33–36, quoting Parāśara; cf. mūla BS 11.34 and Utpala on BS 97.5 · text · translation

See also

Abhijit, Brāhmaṇa, Brahmarāśi