Varahamihira who is known to have lived from 505 CE to 587 CE in Ujjain was an astrologer, astronomer and polymath expert. Varahamihira lived in the Gupta Era and his subject of study was Encyclopedia. Avanti is his place of birth which in today’s day is known as Malwa in Madhya Pradesh, India. Varahamihira is considered to be one of the Navaratnas (nine jewels) from the Vikramaditya’s court.
Know more about the Varahamihira. Get an online astrology consultation by the world-renowned Astrologer Mr. Alok Khandelwal.
The esteemed legend
King Vikramaditya had 9 ministers, who were known as the 9 gems of the Kingdom. Each one was treated as 9 realms of their respective subjects and excelled in their respective fields. They contributed the knowledge of research to ancient India, like Medicine, Astrology, Astronomy, modern Architecture, Poetry, Grammar, Lexicography & Magic. The greatest Mathematician, Astronomer, Astrologer, whose contribution to Trigonometry & Astrology is unbeatable, is no other than “VARAH MIHIR”. The name seems to be a bit surprising, right? We will discuss here, how the name was changed from “MIHIR” to “VARAH MIHIR” and what was his inventions, discoveries and what makes him so great.
Prefix and the Sobriquet
As we all know heights can’t be touched without effort, for that it is needed to prove the eligibility. Like that, Mihir was not chosen as the minister in the kingdom from the beginning, but he earned this position due to his absolute prediction and which turned his name to “Varah Mihir”.
In the era of Vikramaditya, who is also known as Chandragupta-II in history, Mihir was so famous being a jyotshi and till that time, none of the predictions went wrong. Once the supreme King, called for Varah Mihir to his
court to verify his wisdom about Astrology in the presence of other ministers and Queen Virasena.
All the questions related to Astrology, asked by other ministers and members of the court, were properly answered by “Mihir” and the King pleased of such an unbeatable talent in his kingdom and finally asked to predict his future and his kingdom.
After going through the birth chart of the King, Mihir got silent and the entire court was staring at Mihir’s silence. Breaking the silence and with full of grief, the greatest astrologer confirmed his prediction that, the position of the planets says, the death of prince will happen at the age of 18.
The entire court got shocked with such prediction, but the queen did not believe this and disregarded Mihir. We all know King Vikramaditya is famous for his justice and in stories it is mentioned that Goddess Laxmi and Shanidev also came to Vikramaditya to verify his way of justice, that is another story, we may discuss any other day.
With a heart of stone, at that moment, the King asked Mihir to predict the exact date, time and reason of death and it was predicted as “the event will happen by a Boar [Varah in Hindi]” which was predicted before 6 years, when the prince was at age of 12. Before the predicted day, Mihir was again invited to the court and was requested to stay there till that date. King surrounded his city with proper boundaries and barricades and also his palace, increased the security for the prince and the palace and announced to kill if any boar is seen near the palace, means King was fully prepared to protect his son from attack of any boar.
At the exact predicted time, the sound of groaning came out of the prince’s room and it was seen that the Prince is about to die and died also in sometime. According to some scripts, it is mentioned as a boar which was coloured as white because of lime, entered into the room and killed the prince and other scripts say an idol of a boar fell down on the prince. But, both the scripts indicates to the same, the death was occurred by a boar.
The King announced the victory of Mihir and the failure of himself, but Mihir said,” this is not me, who won this or this was not any war. This is the Science of astrology and astronomy, which I predicted for a human being”.
And the king said, “I admire to the astrologer. The science you are talking about is nothing but Truth”. And for the mastery in this subject, the king conferred upon the greatest award, the emblem of “Varah”, and after that “Mihir” was renowned as “Varah Mihir”. If we can see the names of other rest ministers of Vikramaditya, we can understand they got some strange names, like “Betal bhatt”,” Amar-Simha”,”Khyapanak”. The suffix or prefix on their names, are nothing but the awards given by the King.