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About Shabayana Samhita (Appendix of Romaka Siddhanta)

(Witten by Veneent Kumar & Sreenadh)
The front page of the manuscript gives the name Khavanayan samhita to this text. But
actually the name of the text is given in some places within the text as Shabayan Samhita
(
 
). It is written as a conversation between Sage Romaka and Dhumra.
Dhumra is the son of Romaka. MW dictionary states that this text is a "part of the
spurious Romaka Siddhanta", or in other words MW dictionary neither accepts Romaka
Siddhanta nor this Shabayana Samhita (
 
) as original texts, but as
spurious/fraudulent texts/manuscripts. MW dictionary do not state why it considers
Shabayana Samhita and Romaka Siddhanta as spurious/fraudulent texts. The dictionary
meaning of the word spurious is
1. Not being what it purports to be; false or fake: "spurious claims".
2. (of a line of reasoning) Apparently but not actually valid: "this spurious reasoning
results in nonsense".
3. Lacking authenticity or validity in essence or origin; not genuine; false.
4. Of illegitimate birth.
etc and the this word is the Antonym of words like authentic, genuine, real, true and is
synonymous with counterfeit, fake.
(Ref: http://www.answers.com/topic/spurious)
Why this text is considered spurious by MW dictionary? One of the reasons I could
imagine is that on page 4 there is a word Hindustan (

), which is a word of

comparatively newer origin. As per Wikipedia During the Turkic-Afghan invasions of
11th-13th centuries, Muslims started to call Northern part of sub-continent as 'Hindustan',
because
they
encountered
people
who
were
'hindus.
(Ref:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustan). Thus possibly this Shabayana Samhita is a text
that can be of 11th to 13th century or of later origin, one could argue. There could be other
reasoning and internal evidences as well for such a claim/argument. It is also possible
that Shabayana Samhita is a text written based on earlier Romaka Siddhanta and Romaka
School of astrology by some later day scholar who belongs to the same school of
astrology. As evident from texts like Hayana Ratna (written by 18th century scholar
Acharya Balabhadra), Romaka has Tajik connection too making him a scholar revered in
the Russian Tajik School of astrology too. There are several possiblities about
geographical connection or location of Sage Romaka
Romaka could be an ancient scholar of Russian (Tajikstan), since his name is
mentioned and quotes referred to Tajik astrology texts.
One can argue that he is of Persian (Iran) origin, since it is trough Persia and
Persian scholars that the name of Romaka and the Tajik system of astrology came
to us.
One can argue that he had a Rome (Italy) connection based on the sound
similarity between the words Romaka and Rome.
One can argue that since the books ascribed to him are in Sanskrit he is a sage of
Indian origin.

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Further study based on Siddhanta, Hora and Samhita quotes ascribed to Sage Romaka is
required to confirm his geographical connection and location.
Anyway, coming back to the text Shabayana Samhita It contains transit results like when two planets are in same sign then what is the
mundane result).
Page 5,6 contain list of which places are represented by which signs - something
like that is available in Skanda Hora (which is considered as the first book of
astrology or Jyotishmati Upanishad).
Page 4 ,5 is about which places correspond to which planets.
Then there is samvatsara phala from page 8.
Last parts contain Prasha kind of stuff - like 
 , 
 ,  etc).
 
This rare find, and the available Romaka Siddhanta and available fragments of info
related to Romaka School of Astrology and Sage Romakas Tajika system connection, all
demands a detailed study about this school of astrology. Let us hope that someone will
come forward to do such a study in near future.
Note: The manuscript of this book Shabayana Samhita (Appendix of Romaka Siddhanta)
is available for download in AIA-DL at:
http://www.ancientindianastrology.com/cmsa/index.php?option=com_jdownloads&Itemi
d=86&view=view.download&catid=53&cid=1714
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