A History of the Kerala School of Hindu Astronomy (in Perspective) c10.s8.33

c10.s8.33

Acyuta Piṣāraṭi of Tṛkkaṇṭiyūr (Skt. Kuṇḍapura) in South Malabar, was a versatile scholar and original thinker on astronomy. It was he who enunciated, for the first time, in Indian astronomy, the correction called ‘Reduction to the the ecliptic’, in his work *Sputanirṇaya* (before A.D. 1593) and set out its rationale, elaborately, in his work *Rāśigolasphuṭanīti*.³ As pointed out earlier, (see above pp. 12-14), this correction was first introduced in Western astronomy by Tycho Brahe, at about the same time. Acyuta was a protege of King Ravi Varma of Veṭṭattuṇāḍ (Skt. Prakāśaviṣaya) and was the teacher of the renowned poet and grammarian Melputtūr Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭa, who, in the *carama-śloka* which he composed at the death of Acyuta, expressed the date of the latter’s demise in the chronogram, *vidyātama svar asarpat* (17,24,514), which falls in A.D. 1621. Acyuta has composed about a dozen works on Jyotiṣa, including *Karaṇottama*,⁴ on astronomical computation, in five chapters, *Uparāgakriyākrama*,¹ and *Uparāgavimśati*² on eclipse computation, *Chayāṣṭaka* on shadow computation and *Jātakābharaṇa* (?) and *Horāsāroccaya* on horoscopy. He has commented on the *Veṇvāroha* of Saṅgamagrāma Mādhava,³ *Suryasiddhānta* and on his own *Sphuṭanirṇaya* and *Karaṇottama*.⁴