पूर्वभाद्रपदा Pūrva-Bhādrapadā

Part of the Square of Pegasus. Burgess: 'The junction-star of the former half-asterism is, by its defined position, clearly shown to be α Pegasi', though the 'northern' designation of v. 16 conflicts (α is the southern of the pair with β).

TWO stars, padaka-shaped, deity Ahirbudhnya, gotra Jātūkarṇya. Two stars = α and β Pegasi; the Ahirbudhnya lordship agrees with the Vedic lists.

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'.

SIDDHĀNTA DARPAṆA XII (Sāmanta, 1869): dhruva (polar longitude) 322°00', śara (polar latitude) 32°00' north. 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 2 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: β Peg 320°50' / 34°03'; α Peg 321°04' / 21°05'. VAṬEŚVARA-SIDDHĀNTA VIII.2.1–2 (904 CE) puts the same junction star at Ghaṭa 27° (= 327°00' measured from the sidereal origin) with a śara of 24°00' north (VIII.2.5–6, direction by VIII.2.8). ★ SĀMANTA DISAGREES WITH THE STANDARD IDENTIFICATION. His 322° / 32° N matches β Pegasi (Scheat: 320°50' / 34°03') and NOT α Pegasi (Markab: 321°04' / 21°05'), whose latitude is 11° too small. The two candidates are almost identical in longitude, so the latitude decides, and Sāmanta's 32° decides for β Pegasi. He is consistent with his own rule at XII.19, which makes the NORTHERN star of the pair the yogatārā — β Pegasi is the northern one. The Sūrya Siddhānta's 24° N sits between the two and is what allows the usual α Pegasi identification; Vaṭeśvara repeats that 24°.

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. 26 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-SIDDHĀNTA VIII.2 (904 CE) gives the junction star's dhruvaka (polar longitude) as Ghaṭa 27° — Vaṭeśvara states the dhruvakas as degrees WITHIN each zodiacal sign, not as absolute longitudes, so this is 327°00' from the sidereal origin — and its kṣepa (polar latitude, VIII.2.5–6) as 24°00', north 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: β Peg 326°05' / 33°35'; α Peg 325°49' / 20°51'. For comparison Sāmanta (1869) gives 322°00' / 32°00' north. 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.

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, T21.0405a20: 「室有二星，形如人步，一日一夜與月共行，血肉祠祀，其宿屬在富單那神，姓闍罽那。」 | 舍頭諫太子二十八宿經 T21n1301, T21.0415c26: 「前賢迹宿者，有二要星，相遠對立，行三十須臾而侍從矣，餅肉為食，主人是天，姓生耳。」 | Yang Jingfeng's interlinear note in T21n1299 at T21.0390b17: 「景風曰：中國天文，室二星，主宗廟，北方之宿也」

Chinese lunar lodge (xiu) 室 Shi; T1301 renders the name semantically as 前賢迹 ('Former Worthy's Footprint'). TWO stars in all three witnesses, matching dvitāraṃ padaka-saṃsthānam, with T1300's 形如人步 again rendering padaka and T1301's 相遠對立 'standing far apart and opposite' describing the wide pair α–β Pegasi. T1300's blood-and-flesh offering matches māṃsa-rudhirāhāram. THE GOTRA IS DECISIVE AND DOUBLY ATTESTED: T1300 transcribes it 闍罽那 = Jātūkarṇa and T1301 TRANSLATES it 生耳 'Born-Ear' — jātū-karṇa literally — matching jātūkarṇyaṃ gotreṇa. T1299's deity 阿醯多陀難 answers to Ahirbudhnya, agreeing with the Śārdūlakarṇāvadāna and the Vedic lists.