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Hi Martin,

Good to see you back on the forum. Hope you had a good research trip in India

Martin wrote:
The other system is the prevalent one in India, as Mark says, though both systems have actually found their way into Sanskrit texts (and, if memory serves, both go back to Babylonian sources). It can be described as:

(c) Multiply the longitude of a planet by 12 and count the result from the beginning of the sign occupied by the planet.
So this system reproduces results that coincide with the dwadasamsa? Or is Deb right that no table can coincide with a multiplication system like this? I was concerned that the system laid out by Deb wasn't quite matching up to the dwads in the table.

Is your view that the Babylonian micro-zodiac, Indian dwadasamsa and the system laid out by Firmicus Maternus in his Mathesis, I.XIII are effectively one and the same?

Amongst a few issues I have raised by PM with Deb was whether we should do calculations using degrees and minutes or just whole degrees?

I see Konrad favours the former approach while Deb seems sympathetic to the latter approach. Do we have any texts actually clarifying this? One thought I have is that the Greeks at least had planetary rulers for each degree (monomoiria) so I do wonder if they would have wanted to divide up zodiac degrees like this.

Thanks

Mark
Last edited by Mark on Fri Jan 15, 2016 1:51 pm, edited 5 times in total.
As thou conversest with the heavens, so instruct and inform thy minde according to the image of Divinity William Lilly

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Konrad - I amended the text to make my meaning clearer in that earlier post - the amendment is emboldened below:

but this approach simply doesn?t give reliable results for multiplication of the degree point by 12, or show the method described in the Babylonian source Rochberg refers to, or the intention of authors such as Paulus and Firmicus to identify extended points in the zodiac to which planetary connections could be made.

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Mark wrote:Good to see you back on the forum. Hope you had a good research trip in India
Thanks. :) It wasn't bad.
So this system reproduces results that coincide with the dwadasamsa? Or is Deb right that no table can coincide with a multiplication system like this? I was concerned that the system laid out by Deb wasn't quite matching up to the dwads in the table.

So far as I can see, the method I gave as (c) gives exactly the same results as the commonly used Indian tables (although they typically don't include degrees in the dv?da????as).
Is your view that the Babylonian micro-zodiac, Indian dwadasamsa and the system laid out by Firmicus Maternus in his Mathesis, I.XIII are effectively one and the same?

One of the Babylonian methods, yes. (I'm going to have to chase that source down at some point -- I know I've read that both systems are Babylonian.) And one of the Indian methods, namely, the more common one -- the 'thirteenth-harmonic' one is present in India too (given in the S?r?val?, if I recall correctly).
Amongst a few issues I have raised by PM with Deb was whether we should do calculations using degrees and minutes or just whole degrees?

It seems counter-intuitive to me not to use minutes of arc, as the dividing lines between the twelfth- (or thirteenth-) parts of a sign don't coincide with degree boundaries.
https://astrology.martingansten.com/

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Well Martin, somehow in replying to your post I managed to remove your original post to me (don't ask me how, I have no idea). All I have been able to retain is this remark that I quoted:
Martin wrote:I was referring to your original link, which explicitly describes (in text and image) 12 two-and-a-half-degree segments to a sign, each segment representing one 'micro-sign'. That is not the result you get by multiplying by 13 (that is, 12+1).

The other quotation you give from Rochberg does support the method you prefer.


I replied to point out that where I give the link in the glossary it is accompanied with the recommendation to see pages 156-160, and to let you know that I am still looking at this with a view to revising the entry to include reference to the system you describe too.

So sorry for screwing up your post. I can't remember if there were other other comments - if there were, would you repost?

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mark:

Q. am I using 12th parts in mundane?

A. No for dynamic purposes, e.g., directing significators through the 12th parts in fashion like the egyptian bounds, though in theory I would not be opposed to it.

Yes in terms of delineation. For example, American is Born: Introducing the Regulus USA National Horosopce, pp. 253-254 for my delineation of Jupiter/Cancer/8th, specifically 5CA56. 12th part is in Virgo, specifically 11VI12.

So how does the 12th part position of Virgo influence Jupiter's behavior?

Jupiter/Cancer/8th itself I delineate as consumer debt including real estate lending, facilitated by the banking industry.

Now we add the Virgo. "Jupiter in the dwad of Virgo is best delineated as not being able to see the forest through the trees. In financial affairs, it adds a level of bureaucratic red tape bristling with legalese and excessive paperwork."

If anyone has ever participated in a real estate closing in the United States, one will leave with a stack of paperwork which will include at least 20 documents and perhaps as many as 80-100 physical pages. This is the dwad of Virgo at work.

Best,
Dr. H.
World Class Research in Medieval Predictive Astrology
www.regulus-astrology.com

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a stack of paperwork which will include at least 20 documents and perhaps as many as 80-100 physical pages. This is the dwad of Virgo at work.
:D

An update with regard to the glossary entry. I am going to tweak a few points (to remove any suggestion that only one way of making the calculation is valid) but as I personally don't feel able to show the merits of the calculation that Firmicus employs, Konrad has kindly agreed to add to my text to show the merits of that system too. I am really pleased Konrad is willing to do this, as I want the entry to be something that any astrologer can refer to, to get better informed on how the technique has and is being employed. I anticipate the update being online early next week, and I'll add news when it is.

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Deb wrote:Well Martin, somehow in replying to your post I managed to remove your original post to me (don't ask me how, I have no idea).
Oops. :D Well, I haven't got it saved either, but I think I basically said that Rochberg's text describes one method and her note describes another, but I'm not sure if that particular note was meant to refer to that particular paragraph of text because I haven't read the book yet; and that both methods, as far as I recall, are described in Babylonian sources.

I might add that even if we resort to multiplication in order to find the positions, we are dealing with subdivisions of a sign, just like the terms (the -moria in dodekatemoria means 'parts, pieces, portions' etc). And the 'times thirteen' method does in fact lead to thirteen parts in each sign, not twelve, as the sign itself gets both the first and the last part. (That's not to say it's not valid, as I haven't really experimented a lot with it -- mainly because traditional instructions on how to use it are so scant.)
https://astrology.martingansten.com/

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The glossary item has now been updated and I?ve added extra illustrations and a table to show how the dodekatemoria are calculated by sign divisions into 2??.

Konrad has contributed a comment which explains how the use of this table leads to the same result as the Firmicus method of calculation.

Martin, as far as Babylonian sources are concerned, I am only aware of the multiplication method explained by Rochberg which shows agreement with the approach taken by Paulus Alexandrinus. If you come across reference to the other approach in Babylonian sources let me know and I?ll add it in. Currently, the glossary entry says of the two approaches to calculation:

"Both approaches have a meaningful rationale, and it is probable that they originated as two separate techniques (one emphasizing multiplication, the other emphasizing division) which became strongly associated with each other due to their shared descriptive name and symbolic dependency on the number 12."

http://www.skyscript.co.uk/gl/dodekatemorion.html

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one other point worth considering for the glossary entry.

There is a relationship between the system of 12th parts and the decan system based on triplicity rulership used in Hindu astrology.

In A Rectification Manual, p. 6, Table 2, I show the relationship between the 12th parts and the decans based on triplicity.

Using Aries an example, the decan system divides Aries into
Decan 1: Aries (0deg 0min to 9deg 59min)
Decan 2: Leo (10deg 0min to 19deg 59min)
Decan 3: Sagittarius (20deg 0min to 29deg 0min)

The point is the dwads of Aries overlap the decans of Aries for the first 2 1/2 degrees of each decan:
Dwad 1: Aries (0deg 0min to 2deg 29min)
Dwad 5: Leo (10deg 0min to 12deg 29min)
Dwad 9: Sagittarius (20deg 0min to 22deg 29min)

Both decan and dwad systems can be considered fractals of an individual sign, with the decan system defining the fractal based purely on triplicity and the dwad system based on all 12 signs.

I have no information on whether the two systems are viewed philosophically in the Hindu system as I have described just now. But from a purely practical perspective, one has to ask for planets/points in these overlapping regions which is the predominate effect: decan or dwad? It's an open question in my book.
Dr. H.
World Class Research in Medieval Predictive Astrology
www.regulus-astrology.com

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That is interesting. Rochberg also mentions (p.160) decans after the discussion of dodekatemoria, as being a "further development in Hellenistic astrology" but I couldn't see how the decans were so directly related to the "twelve parts". Your explanation ties the two together much more effectively.

I don't want to do any more edits on the page right now - I'll leave a little time to see if any more suggestions come in first, and then have one last amendment (maybe next week) where I'll try to incorporate your point through some kind of quote of what you have posted here. This glossary item seems to want to grow and grow! (My next mental project is to understand more about how and why the dodekatemoria were used along with rising times to establish the degree of the ascendant).

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Deb wrote:Martin, as far as Babylonian sources are concerned, I am only aware of the multiplication method explained by Rochberg which shows agreement with the approach taken by Paulus Alexandrinus. If you come across reference to the other approach in Babylonian sources let me know and I?ll add it in.
It's really annoying that I didn't make a more careful note when I did read that. All I have at present is a brief comment of my own, four years old and made in passing in a different context, stating without references that both methods go back to Babylonian times and are found in both Greek and Indian sources. I suppose I trusted too much to my powers of memory to bother with sources.

I'm rushed off my feet right now marking papers, etc, so I haven't the time to hunt this down. I did look briefly at an old paper of Rochberg's ('Elements of the Babylonian Contribution to Hellenistic Astrology', 1988), thinking it might be in there, but it wasn't -- just the same apparent contradiction where she correlates twelve divisions of 2? degrees with multiplication by 12+1. (By contrast, Greek Horoscopes on p. 6 has a table that correctly shows how that method leads to each sign containing two divisions -- first and last -- corresponding to itself, thus totalling 13 divisions to a sign.)

Later addendum: not an original source, but see Holden's rich footnotes on pp. 38-39 in his translation of Paul of Alexandria, as well as pp. 17-18 in his translation of Rhetorius. In the latter he cites, specifically on the topic we're discussing, Mesopotamian Astrology by Ulla Koch-Westenholz, pp. 168-169 (which I haven't got). In the former he states, among other things:
Paul's method measures the product from the point itself, which is not consistent with the original method of subdividing a sign into twelfths. The original method is followed by Dorotheus, Ptolemy, Antiochus (probably), Porphyry, Firmicus, Hephaestio, and Rhetorius.
If this is correct (I haven't checked), Firmicus was obviously in good company, irrespective of which method is the most 'original'.
https://astrology.martingansten.com/