Jataka Parijata

Name of the book	Jataka Parijata
Author	Dr. Sureshchandra Mishra
Publisher	Ranjan Publications, New Delhi
Amazon Link	Jataka Parijata Volumne 1 and Jataka Parijata Vol. 2

Jataka Parijata is one of the oft quoted works on Vedic Astrology and predictive analysis. I have a Hindi edition published by Ranjan Publications and the above links in Amazon are different ones. Dr. Mishra has done a lot of research and has come out with many astrology books and Jataka Parijata is one of them. Hardbound books are worth purchasing.

Jataka Parijata is required to be read in conjunction with Brihat Jatakam and Saravali. The recommendation is to read this book after finish the other two books on Vedic astrology. The original astrological work is said to be composed by Shri Vaidyanath Dixit about 600 years back.

There are two volumes – volume 1 and volume 2. Volume 1 explains the importance of planets and rashis. Volume 2 deals with various bhavas. In the first volume, there are various chapters on birth time, conception, twin/multiple births etc. There is a section that talks about times that do not correspond to human births and it would be helpful for rectification of birth time for a janma kundali. A chapter is dedicated to “arishta”, harmful yogas in a horoscope that affect children at birth and to his/her parents and other relatives. Another good chapter describes illness, diseases, accidents and surgery. This chapter is the basis and main source of knowledge for lot of other books written on medical astrology. The chapters on raja yogas, yogas for riches and penury complement BPHS very well. Volume 2 talks about ashtakavarga, various bhavas in a jamna kundali, female astrology and vimshottari dasha.

The translation from Sanskrit to Hindi is pretty intuitive and as I have mentioned earlier in other book reviews, it is pretty straightforward to follow if one has knowledge of basic Sanskrit grammar as taught in high school. Apart from merely translating the Sanskrit shlokas, the author has provided a lot of cross references to other astrology books. This provides good context and pointers to astrology students like myself to read other astrology books. It is important because incomplete information from one book could be referenced from other one.