Jyotihshastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c4.17

c4.17

The age of Lagadha’s work can be fixed from the following considerations. Its language is post-Vedic, and it imitates Piṅgala’s Chandaḥsūtra in using the final or first syllables of the names of the nakṣatras as their designations;⁶ its period relation is copied in the oldest Paitāmahasiddhānta, whose epoch is 11 January 80;⁷ and its astronomy reflects that of Mesopotamia in the Achaemenid period. It is likely, therefore, that it was composed not very many years before or after 400 B.C., when the Achaemenids controlled Gandhāra.