---
type: Concept
bundle: jyotisha-kala
bundle_version: 0.12.0
id: vedanga-jyotisha
title: Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa
iast: Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa
devanagari: वेदाङ्गज्योतिष
description: 'Jyotiṣa as the sixth limb of the Veda, the “eye of the Veda”: Lagadha’s treatise on the five-year yuga calendar that fixes the times of ritual, the oldest extant Indian astronomical text; NOT astrology, NOT a horoscope manual, NOT a minor appendix.'
darshana:
- Jyotiṣa
text_source: Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa (Lagadha)
tags:
- vedanga
- jyotisha
- lagadha
- calendrics
- history
not:
- term: 'astrology'
  why: 'Lagadha’s text contains no horoscopy at all: no rāśis, no houses, no predictions, and no grahas beyond Sun and Moon. Its content is calendar arithmetic, tithis, parvans, and nakṣatra positions inside a five-year yuga of 1,830 days, built so sacrifices fall on the right day. Calling the Vedāṅga “Vedic astrology” backfills a later discipline into an older text.'
  instead: 'Render Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa as the Vedic calendrical treatise and keep the Sanskrit name.'
- term: 'a horoscope manual'
  why: 'The horoscopic apparatus arrives in India centuries later, with Hellenistic contact, and lives in the horā literature. The Vedāṅga stratum is ritual timekeeping; the two are treated as distinct layers in this bundle.'
- term: 'a minor appendix'
  why: 'The tradition’s own verse ranks Jyotiṣa as the eye among the six Vedāṅgas: the limb by which the ritual system sees when to act. For a sacrifice-centered culture the calendar was not auxiliary; it was enabling.'
related:
- /concepts/kala-jyotisha.md
- /concepts/tithi.md
- /concepts/nakshatra.md
- /concepts/ganita.md
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa -- वेदाङ्गज्योतिष

**Not:** astrology, a horoscope manual, a minor appendix

## What It Actually Means

The Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa, attributed to Lagadha and preserved in Ṛk and Yajus recensions, is the oldest extant Indian astronomical text, with an internal astronomical dating in the second millennium BCE. Its scope is exactly what the Vedāṅga institution implies: auxiliary science in service of ritual, here the arithmetic of a five-year yuga containing 1,830 civil days, 62 synodic months, and 1,860 tithis, with rules for locating Sun and Moon by nakṣatra and fixing the parvans. It contains no horoscopy. The famous self-description makes Jyotiṣa the eye of the Veda: the limb that lets ritual see its times.

## Audience Metaphor

The Veda’s wristwatch: a limb whose entire job is telling ritual when. Lagadha’s manual holds no fortunes, only the arithmetic of a five-year calendar cycle, which is precisely what the eye of the Veda was praised for seeing.

## Citations

1. Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa on the five-year yuga and its counts -- see [references/lagadha-vedanga-jyotisha.md](../references/lagadha-vedanga-jyotisha.md)
2. Sūrya Siddhānta as the later siddhāntic development of the same calendrical program -- see [references/surya-siddhanta.md](../references/surya-siddhanta.md)
