A History of Sanskrit Literature c35.s2.8

c35.s2.8

None of the Siddhāntas which Varāhamihira had before him has come down to us in its original form. We know that Bhaṭṭotpala had before him a *Pauliça* so changed as to render the retention of the same name anomalous. The *Paitāmaha Siddhānta* of Varāhamihira differed little from the pre-scientific period; it commenced, however, a Yuga in the third year of the Çaka epoch, which may give its date. It differed from the *Brahma Siddhānta* forming part of the *Viṣṇudharmottara Purāṇa* on which Brahmagupta's *Sphuṭa Brāhmasiddhānta* is on one view based, and from the *Brahma Siddhānta* or *Çākalya Siddhānta*,¹ all of which present the orthodox modern doctrines. The *Romaka Siddhānta* was perhaps touched up by Lāṭa *c.* A. D. 505, and certainly later was revised drastically in the modern sense by Çrīṣeṇa, who wrote after Lāṭa and before Brahmagupta. The *Vāsiṣṭha Siddhānta* appears before Brahmagupta's time to have been revised by Vijayanandin and then by Viṣṇucandra, but the *Laghu Vāsiṣṭha Siddhānta*¹ which we have is clearly not connected with the original or the revision, and the *Vṛddha Vāsiṣṭha Siddhānta*,² which exists in manuscripts, seems equally far removed. The *Sūrya Siddhānta*³ which we have in fourteen chapters of Çlokas, is clearly in many respects modernized from the original; possibly Lāṭa had a hand in this, as Albērūnī ascribes the work to him, and he commented on the *Romaka* and *Pauliça* texts.