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Phaladeepika

book by Mantreswara

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionApr 3, 2024
Entity authorityQ7180226
Source-derived summary

Phaladeepika is a treatise on Hindu astrology written by Mantreswara. The text is written in lyrical Sanskrit verse comprises 865 slokas and 28 chapters. It is one of the more significant works on Hindu astrology, along with Bṛhat Parāśara Horāśāstra of Parashara, Brihat Jataka of Varahamihira, and Jataka Parijata of Vaidyanatha Dikshita. It deals in a most comprehensive and authoritative manner with almost all astrological aspects of human life. Mantreswara has equated a retrograde planet with an exalted planet in strength and effects even though it be in an inimical or its debilitation sign differing with Saravali which states that benefics are powerful when retrograde and cause Raja yoga (Hindu astrology) but malefic when retrograde do not confer favourable results.

Author

Very little is known about its author, Mantreswara, who is believed to have lived in the 13th century CE. He was born Markandeya Bhattathiri in a family of Namboodari Brahmins in Panchgiri village of Tirunelveli in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The exact date of his birth and date of death are not known, some believe that he lived in the 13th century and some believe that he lived in the 16th century.

He was a devotee of Sukuntlambika Devi. He had traveled to far-off places in India in search of knowledge. He had renounced the world and had finally died in Tirunelveli; his date of birth and his date of death are not known.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Phaladeepika” as book by Mantreswara. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Phaladeepika, book and Mantreswara.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current 237-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1946. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Phaladeepika, book and Mantreswara providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Phaladeepika”, the useful work is to connect “book by Mantreswara” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 3, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q7180226. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

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  2. Expand the search: follow Phaladeepika primary sources, Phaladeepika archive and Phaladeepika research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

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  2. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Phaladeepika” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.