Bharatiya Jyotihshastra (History of Indian Astronomy), translated by R. V. Vaidya v1.c5.31

v1.c5.31

It was a convention with the ancient writers on astronomy to give a brief account of themselves. I could write the major portion of the book because of this convention. Now I propose to follow suit and give a brief account of myself before I conclude the preface; I was born on Tuesday, the 14th-cum-15th lunar day (tithi) of the bright half of Āṣaḍha, Śaka 1775 (according to Grahalāghava Pañcāṅga) i.e. on 20/21 July 1853, at the village of Murud, in Dapoli Taluk, District Ratnagiri, my birth ascendant being Gemini. My ancestral line from father backwards runs thus; Balakrishna, Ramachandra, Ballala and Shankar, and my mother's name was Durga. I am a Chitpavana Brahmana of Nityundan 'gotra', Hiraṇyakeśī branch. The original surname of our family was Vaiśāmpāyana. This family has inherited the priesthood and religious leadership of the village of Murud which was founded by a saint some centuries ago; our original ancestor was his disciple and this vocation was conferred on him by the saint. About two years of my childhood were spent in elementary education at the village school and later in a local Government Marathi school, from April 1862 to October 1868. These very years were partly devoted to some study of Sanskrit and reciting of the Vedas. Part of the next two years passed in working as a candidate at Dapoli Court and a part in learning English. I was a student in the Poona Training College for three years from November 1870, when I obtained a first class certificate in the final examination of the third year. While studying at the Training College, I attended an English school one hour every day for two years. In 1874 I passed the Matriculation Examination, but I could not join College owing to several difficulties. I worked as the Head Master of the Marathi School at Revadanda from February 1874 to February 1880, and later on as Head Master of the Marathi School No. 1 at Thana up to August 1882. Afterwards I worked as an Assistant teacher at the English school at Barsi till the end of October 1889 and as an Assistant at the Dhulia Training School till the end of June 1894. Since then, I have been working as an Assistant Teacher at the Poona Training College. I wrote and published the following Marathi books in the years noted against them: