LILLIE TO THE RESCUE!!
Out of nowhere, Lillie,
may her name forever be cut in gold along the meridian, PMed to say she'd found a copy of Gundel's
Dekane und Dekansternbilder FOR SALE IN THE U.S.!!!! And for not very much money either...
I've been trying to find my own copy for ages and I've been going back and photocopying these massive chunks of the Columbia University copy at intervals... then sloooowwwlllyyy translating the obscure academic german. In my undying trade thread I had offered pretty much
anything for a copy: (the Greenwood! the Thomson Leng!) but no one even nibbled.
When Aulruna visited NYC with her gorgeous fella they'd offered to dig around in Germany for a buyable copy, but surprisingly it proved as hard to find there as here. But it's from 1936 and it's about one weird footnote to ancient astrology and there probably aren't that many people who would be interested to read it.
But as I type this, I just received confirmation that my very own copy is winging its way to me for the extremely reasonable price of forty (40) US dollars. Four Oh. To appreciate that I should explain that I had sort of resigned myself to spending hundreds... I'm so excited it's hard to sit still.
On top of that, on the pdf front, I've started poking around in jyotish (hindu astrology) because of the pivotal south Asian role in the decans transmission and mutation and the decan's idiosyncratic use in that tradition. It's a lot to take in, but I'm trying to stay focused on the topic at hand. Picking my way through the
Yavanajataka and the
Brihat Jatak...(who knew?!) and with the help of the inestimable David Pingree's midcentury articles, I've found something else extraordinary which I'll go into in the next version of the PDF. I'm crossing into exhilirating territory. Love this kind of digging: these are the moments when I wish I'd chucked it all and been an academic. And it's spo strange to me to that this funky deck has led me into studying all of these strange, wonderful topics.
Version 2.4 of the PDF will be delayed a bit longer, but between the immanent
Dekane copy and what I'm learning about the use of the Decans in Hindu jyotish, I feel I've arrived at the Rubicon and I can see a farther shore...