A History of the Kerala School of Hindu Astronomy (in Perspective) c7.s3: 3. Stress on observation and experimentation

A History of the Kerala School of Hindu Astronomy (in Perspective) c7.s3

Language: English

3. Stress on observation and experimentation

c7.s3.1

An insight into the mediaeval astronomer’s methodology, which consisted of prolonged and repeated observation, experimentation, recording of readings, checking of the values obtained from observation with those obtained by computation and the postulation of corrections (*saṃskāra*), in order to make computation correspond with observation, might be illustrated by certain statements which Parameśvara makes elsewhere. In his sub-commentary *Siddhāntadīpikā* on the *Mahabhāskarīya-bhāṣya* of Govindasvāmin,¹ he has a long excursus on a number of eclipses which he had observed carefully and about which he had recorded the details, with a view to effecting necessary corrections to prevailing rules of computation or for formulating new rules therefor (*op. cit.*, pp. 321-32). He commences the said excursus with the statement that he had been observing eclipses from Śaka 1315 (A.D. 1393), that he had found the observed times to have always preceded the computed times and, so, the computations needed corrections:

c7.s3.2

¹ T. S. Kuppanna Sastri, Cr. ed. of *Mahabhāskarīya* of Bhāskarācārya with the *Bhāṣya* of Govindasvāmin and the super-commentary *Siddhāntadīpikā* of Parameśvara, Madras, 1957.

c7.s3.3

*tithiviśva’-(1315)-same śāke prārabhya grahaṇam mayā |*
*anekam īkṣitam, teṣu bhinnaḥ kālo dṛśa sadā || 2 ||*
*pratyakṣakalas teṣu prāg gaṇitānītakālataḥ |*
*ataḥ kāryo ’tra saṃskāro yaḥ kaścid gaṇakottamaiḥ || 3 ||* (p. 321)

c7.s3.4

He then enunciates the True positions of the Sun, Moon, Moon’s higher apsis and node at sunrise for a particular contemporary date as calculated by the application of the corrections proposed by him, so as to form the zero-readings for calculations beginning from that date. He also suggests that verifications should be made in course of time and further corrections postulated and applied as and when needed :

c7.s3.5

*asmin kāle tu ravīnduccapātānam sthitir īdṛśī |*
*etatsiddhyartham asmābhiḥ saṃskārāntaram adṛtam || 91 ||*
. . . . .
*kalāntare tu saṃskāraś cintyatām gaṇakottamaiḥ ||93|| (p.332)¹*

c7.s3.6

¹ On Parameśvara's astronomical observations, see K. V. Sarma, 'An-pattiyañcu kollatte tapassu' ('Fifty-five years' penance'), *Mathrubhumi* (Malayalam Weekly, Kozhikode), 7.10.1956, pp. 29-30.

Linked texts (1)

Mahābhāskarīya — Bhāskara I, Sanskrit