Sources

The classical texts behind AstroPal

Every interpretation AstroPal gives is grounded in one of two things: a computed engine fact or a retrieved excerpt from one of the indexed Jyotish texts listed below. Sixteen texts in total — thirteen classical Sanskrit śāstras plus three modern reference works — are indexed into roughly thirty-five thousand searchable passages, each with its citation and source edition.

Texts are grouped by their traditional role in the Jyotish syllabus. For background on how these sources flow into a chat answer, see /methodology.

Foundational scripture

The four texts a serious student of Vedic astrology must engage with. BPHS in particular is treated as the canonical authority and the Mnemonic Graph routes most house- and planet-level questions through it first.

  • Brihat Parasara Hora Sastra (BPHS)
    by Maharshi Parashara
  • Brihat Samhita
    by Varahamihira
  • Saravali
    by Kalyana Varma
  • Phala Dipika
    by Mantresvara

Jataka (natal-chart) literature

Classical works focused specifically on natal-chart interpretation — character, life path, dasha unfoldment, planetary period effects.

  • Jataka Parijata
    by Vaidyanatha Dikshita
  • Jataka Chandrika
  • Hora Sara
    by Prithuyasas (son of Varahamihira)
  • Uttara Kalamrita
    by Kalidasa

Yogas and combinational principles

Reference works that catalogue the planetary combinations (yogas) and their classical interpretations. AstroPal’s yoga auto-detector pulls citations preferentially from these texts.

  • Bhavartha Ratnakara
    by Ramanuja
  • Jaimini Sutras
    by Maharshi Jaimini

Specialised branches

Texts focused on Muhurta (electional astrology), Prashna (horary), and ancillary techniques. The Muhurta module routes through Muhurtha Chintamani; compatibility and timing answers draw from these as needed.

  • Muhurtha Chintamani
  • Prasna Tantra
    classical Prashna (horary) treatise
  • Bhrigu Samhita
    attributed to Maharshi Bhrigu

Modern reference works

Three modern compendia by leading 20th-century Vedic-astrology scholars (Dr. B. V. Raman and Dr. K. S. Charak) are indexed alongside the classical śāstras. They synthesise classical principles into modern English and are particularly useful for combinations (yogas) and applied technique. They are not cited in place of a classical primary source where one exists.

  • Hindu Predictive Astrology
    by Dr. B. V. Raman (1938 / 1955 reprint)
  • Three Hundred Important Combinations
    by Dr. B. V. Raman (1947)

Indexing details

Each text was processed through an OCR + translation engine (all Sanskrit texts are translated), then cleaned up and randomly checked for accuracy + chunking pipeline. The output is a passage database queryable by hybrid retrieval (FAISS dense vectors plus SQLite FTS5 lexical search), with cross-encoder reranking. Every retrieved passage carries:

  • Citation — human-readable reference such as “Saravali 38:14”.
  • OCR confidence score — low-confidence passages are filtered out before they reach an answer.
  • Relevance score — the combined hybrid + reranker score used to rank candidates.

The pipeline source code, OCR cleanup heuristics, and corpus output directory are kept in our internal repository and can be inspected by serious collaborators on request.

What we do not index

  • Modern internet horoscope content, blog posts, or Wikipedia-derived material.
  • Western tropical astrology texts. AstroPal is strictly sidereal Vedic.
  • Living-author popular astrology books outside the explicitly-listed reference above.

Keeping the corpus narrow is the point: it forces every interpretation through a classical lens.

Corpus expansion

New classical texts are added carefully. Each candidate text goes through translation and OCR quality checks, cleanup, manual sample review against the printed source, and a grounding-quality test before being released into the live retrieval index. We prefer fewer, well-indexed texts over a bloated corpus with poor passage quality.

Last updated: 28 May 2026. Sixteen indexed texts (thirteen classical śāstras plus three modern reference works) totalling around 6,500 indexed pages.