---
type: Reference
bundle: jyotisha-kala
bundle_version: 0.12.0
id: panchasiddhantika
title: Pañcasiddhāntikā
description: 'Varāhamihira’s sixth-century comparative summary of five earlier siddhāntas (Paitāmaha, Vāsiṣṭha, Pauliśa, Romaka, Saura), the key witness to the genre’s plurality and to pre-Sūrya-Siddhānta astronomy.'
tags:
- reference
- varahamihira
- siddhanta
- history
timestamp: '2026-07-09'
okf_version: '0.2'
license: CC BY-SA 4.0
---

# Pañcasiddhāntikā

Varāhamihira’s Pañcasiddhāntikā (mid-sixth century CE) summarizes and compares five siddhāntas current in his day, ranking the Saura (an earlier Sūrya Siddhānta) most accurate, and preserving systems otherwise lost, including the Romaka with its Hellenistic affiliations. The work is this bundle’s witness for two claims: that the siddhānta genre was plural and self-comparing rather than a fixed canon, and that Indian astronomy in the period openly assimilated and evaluated foreign parameters. Varāhamihira wrote across all three skandhas, which makes him the tradition’s own proof that computation, horoscopy, and omen-reading were distinct undertakings.
