Jyotihshastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c8.32

c8.32

The most important authority on muhūrta in the fourteenth century, however, was Vidyāmādhava, who wrote his Muhūrtadarśana or Vidyāmādhavīya²² in the Vijayanagara Empire in about 1360. Its fifteen adhyāyas are concerned with terminology and definitions (1; saṃjñā); faults (2; doṣa), exceptions (3; apavāda), and good qualities (4; guṇa) of muhūrtas; strengths and weaknesses (5; balābala); the saṃskāras (6–9); agriculture (10; kṛṣibījavāpa); installation of images of the gods (11; devapratiṣṭhā); military expeditions (12; yātrā); various other activities (13); on the nakṣatras (14); and on gocara (15). There is an extremely valuable ṭīkā on the VM, the Muhūrtadīpikā, written by Vidyāmādhava’s son, Viṣṇuśarman, in about 1365; as has been noted several times above, this provides a rich store of citations from the antecedent literature on several branches of jyotiḥśāstra.