This project examines the exchange of astrological knowledge between Imperial Rome, India, and the late Hellenistic world through the lens of zodiacal melothesia, the correlation between zodiac signs and body parts between 1st–4th centuries CE. By analyzing two early sources, Manilius' first-century CE Latin Astronomica and the second-century CE Sanskrit Yavana Jātaka, this research challenges Eurocentric narratives that position Greek rationalism as the sole driver of Eastern scientific advancement.
The project comprises three integrated sections exploring transmission, translocation, and transcreation of astral science. First, it examines how astrology gained cultural legitimacy by embedding itself within existing Vedic and Roman sacrificial-religious frameworks, preserving its mathematical core while adapting to local metaphysical systems. Second, it investigates astrological medicine's role in Galenic, Hippocratic, and Ayurvedic traditions, including therapeutic gemstone use, while reconsidering the "Yavana" ethnonym beyond simplistic "Indo-Greek" interpretations to incorporate Kuṣāṇa influence and trade routes facilitating knowledge transmission between the Mediterranean, India, and China. Finally, it analyzes "technical science" (śāstra/ars) as a category in both cultures, examining why foreign origins were deliberately marked as Chaldean and Yavana respectively, to distinguish imported zodiacal systems from indigenous astral sciences.
By focusing on cultural and linguistic contextualization rather than chronology, this research contributes to decolonizing South Asian history of science, demonstrating how scientific transcreation enabled sustainable integration of foreign knowledge systems while challenging assumptions about unidirectional Greek-to-Eastern knowledge transfer. This is part of Tejas’ ongoing first monograph project titled, “Cosmic Embodiment: Astrological Melothesia in the Ancient Mediterranean and India.”
