History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.628

v6.c82.628

There are three siddhāntas in use, viz. the Sūryasiddhānta (used throughout India on account of its accuracy), the Āryasiddhānta (relied on in Travancore, Malabar, and by the Mādhvas in Karnātaka and in Tamil Districts of Madras State) and the Brāhma-siddhānta (followed in Gujerat and Rajputana). The last, however, is losing ground in favour of the first In the Siddhāntas calculations are made from the epoch of the *mahāyuga* and are so elaborate that pañcāṅgas can hardly be made from them direct. Therefore, works called karaṇas based on the Siddhāntas are used to prepare pañcāṅgas, such as Makaranda in Bengal and the Grahalāghava of Gaṇeśa; the tables of the latter called Tithicintāmaṇi are used in the Deccan, Central India and some other parts of India. There are two important points of difference between the Siddhāntas among themselves viz the length of the year (but the difference is only of a few *vipalas*) and the second is the number of revolutions of the Moon and the planets in the Kalpa or Mahāyuga or Yuga. The Siddhāntaśiromaṇi (I. 6) specifies the matters with which a siddhānta must deal, the very first of which is the enumeration of the units of time from *truṭi* up to the end of *pralaya*.