In the multilingual environment of early modern North India, Sanskrit and Islamicate astral sciences were engaged in an ongoing cross-cultural dialogue. Both imperial and regional courts employed Muslim munajjims and Hindu jyotiṣas, fostering collaboration that generated textual translations and shared practices. Astrological practices in the Persian-speaking courts of North India, particularly in Delhi, the main Mughal imperial capital, were notably syncretic, combining elements from both Islamicate and Sanskrit traditions. While Persianate scholars were commenting and revising the astronomical data and mathematical tools inherited from the Maragha and Samarqand schools, they also cultivated a sustained interest in the Indic occult-scientifical traditions. By adapting their methodologies, they produced improved horoscopes and almanacs for patrons and clients seeking comprehensive astrological expertise.
Through extensive philological research, the SITARA project seeks to examine the practice of Indic astrology (jyotiṣa) amongst Indian Persian-speaking astronomers-astrologers in North India between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Persian manuscripts on Hindu astrology include almanacs, theoretical treatises, and translations from Sanskrit. Together, these texts reveal that Indian experts in the astral sciences operated within a shared cultural space where Arabic-Persian and Sanskrit knowledge systems were fluid and practiced side by side. As Indic astral sciences were reinterpreted and adapted by Persian-speaking astronomers, Persianate astral sciences became deeply embedded in the intellectual and cultural landscape of early modern India.
