It is a well-known fact that the treatise Brihajjataka, also known as Hora Shastra, written by Varahamihira incorporates the essence of all the Hora texts of his predecessors. Varahamihira himself states that his work, though short in size, is impregnated with multifarious information covering the entire gamut of the subject. Therefore, the Brihajjataka is very deep in meaning and difficult to comprehend clearly without the aid of commentaries.
There are more than twenty commentaries on Brihajjataka in Sanskrit, besides many in Indian vernacular languages, particularly in Malayalam. Some of the known Sanskrit commentaries include Bhattotpala's Vivruti, Chandrika, Mitakshari, Sri Sankaracharya's Jayamangala Vrivrutti, Rudra's Vivaranam, Parameshvari, Maheedhara's Vivarana, Balabhadra's Vivarana, Prakashika of Nityaprakasha Yati, Apoorvarthapradarsika, Horabhiprayanirnaya, and the present commentary Dasadhyayi. Among these, Bhattotpala's Vivruti is very widely known while the Rudra Vivaranam and Dasadhayayi are famous in the state of Kerala. Besides these three commentaries, Horabhiprayanirnaya, Prakashika and Apoorvarthapradarsika are published while the remaining commentaries are mostly unpublished or unavailable.
Brief information about some of these commentaries would not be out of place here. The commentary named as Chandrika has been referred in many texts but is neither available nor any details about the commentator are known. Another commentary called Mitakshari is referred in a Malayalam commentary named Hrudyapatha. This is also sometimes referred as Mudrakshari. The Jayamangala commentary of Sankaracharya is also still untraceable though few claim to possess it in Kerala.
The commentary named Vivarana was published in Devanagari and also in Malayalam script. The commentator's name is Rudra belonging to a place called Desamangala. He was a scholar of other branches of Hindu study like Vyakarana, Meemamsa and so on. After thoroughly referring to the texts of many Acharyas, he has made his commentary on all the chapters of Brihajjataka bringing out the deeper meanings of the Shlokas. The Sanskrit commentary named Parameshvari, which is crisp but of very high standard, was once published. Apoorvarthapradarsika by A.N. Srinivasaraghava Aiyangar is the latest among the classic Sanskrit commentaries as far as I know. Though the author has mentioned that he has commented on all the chapters of Brihajjataka, the commentary on the first ten chapters only was published. However, this commentary is also of deep insights and warrants serious study by the students of Jyotisha.
Let me quote few words of Sri A.N. Srinivasaraghava Aiyangar about the three commentaries Bhattotpala's Vivruti, Dasadhyayi and Rudra's Vivarana from the introduction to his Apoorvarthapradarsika: "Among the ordinary commentaries Bhattotpala's stands foremost. Among the few commentaries which attempt a serious interpretation, those of Govinda Somayaji and Rudra deserve special mention. Thus these three are the most popular. But Bhattotpala's great reputation is built almost entirely upon his generous quotations from previous writers. So the value of his commentary is more historical than scientific. Probably it is also the earliest. But his insight into the original is far inferior to those of the other two. The weakness of Bhattotpala is that he does not dive beneath the word (Shabda) of the original and has no perception of the hidden import of content and form. Govinda's commentary deals only with the first ten chapters of the Brhajjataka and is therefore known as Dasadhyayi. Rudra has copiously copied from Dasadhyayi and in fact he owes much to the work".
Even though Saravali of Kalyana Varma is considered as an independent work, it is only a detailed exposition of Brihajjataka. Hence, all the commentators of Brihajjataka in general have referred to Saravali in their commentaries.
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