Jyotihshastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c4.s2.108

c4.s2.108

This process of transmitting Islamic astronomy to India was carried much further by the translation of Naṣīr al-Dīn’s Arabic version of Ptolemy’s Σύνταξις μαθηματική into Sanskrit by Jagannātha¹⁰⁶ at Jayapura in 1732 under the patronage of Savāī Jayasiṃha.¹⁰⁷ The Siddhāntasamrāṭ¹⁰⁸ continues after the thirteenth book of Ptolemy with supplements describing the instruments that Jayasiṃha had set up in his observatories in imitation of those installed by Ulugh Beg at Samarqand, and an exposition of Ulugh Beg’s and al-Kāshī’s derivations of sines, followed by remarks on the traditional aspects of Indian astronomy that were not touched upon by Ptolemy.¹⁰⁹ This last effort to expound Ptolemaic astronomy in Sanskrit was also doomed to fail; a century later, modern European astronomy was being taught in Sanskrit at Sihore by Somanātha Vyāsa¹¹⁰ and other paṇḍits of the Sihore High School¹¹¹ in the 1830’s and 1840’s under the influence of Englishmen such as Lancelot Wilkinson. The process of Westernization was practically complete by the time Premavallabha¹¹² wrote his Paramasiddhānta¹¹³ at Jayapura in 1882.