History of Science in South Asia (Journal)
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Who is the Native of the Sarvasiddhāntatattvacūḍāmaṇi?
No full textThe British Library, London, holds a unique manuscript copy of a Sanskrit text entitled Sarvasiddhāntatattvacūḍāmaṇi (MS London BL Or. 5259). This manuscript, consisting of 304 large-size folios, is lavishly illustrated and richly illuminated. The author, Durgāśaṅkara Pāṭhaka of Benares, attempted in this work to discuss all the systems of astronomy – Hindu, Islamic and European – around the nucleus of the horoscope of an individual personage. Strangely, without reading the manuscript, the authors Sudhākara Dvivedī in 1892, C. Bendall in 1902 and J. P. Losty in 1982, declared that the horoscope presented in this work was that of Nau Nihal Singh, the grandson of Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Lahore, and this has been the prevailing notion since then.
The present paper refutes this notion and shows – on the basis of the relevant passages from the manuscript – that the real native of the horoscope is Lehna Singh Majithia, a leading general of Maharaja Ranjit Singh.
Mean and True Positions of Planets as Described in Gaṇitagannaḍi : A Karaṇa Text on Siddhāntic Astronomy in Kannaḍa
No full textThe unpublished seventeenth-century Kannaḍa-language mathematical work Gaṇitagannaḍi is transmitted in a single palm-leaf manuscript. It was composed by Śaṅkaranārāyaṇa Jōisaru of Śṛṅgeri and is a karaṇa text cast as a commentary on the Vārṣikatantrasaṅgraha by Viddaṇācārya. Gaṇitagannaḍi\u27s unique procedures for calculations wer introduced in an earlier paper in volume 8 (2020) of this journal. In the present paper the procedures for calculations of the mean and true positions of planets are described
Jaina Thoughts on Unity Not Being a Number
No full textAt one time, the Jainas in India and the Greeks in abroad held that unity was not a number. This paper provides an insight for the first time into the thoughts offered by the Jainas as to why unity was not a number for them
Gaṇitagannaḍi - A Text of 1604 CE on Siddhāntic Astronomy in Kannaḍa
No full textFrom a private collection of palm leaf manuscripts the text Gaṇitagannaḍi has been unearthed and studied. The contents follow the traditional texts with all the chapters starting from the calculation of ahargaṇas to the predictions of eclipses. The text presents a unique method of calculation which the author, Viddaṇācārya, declares to be his own invention. In this paper, the procedures are described with the help of the elaborate commentary, written in Kannaḍa language, by Śaṅkaranārāyaṇa Jōisaru of Shringeri This paper highlights the uniqueness of the procedure for calculating the ahargaṇa and the dhruvās for the positions of planets.  
Sīdhu (Śīdhu): the Sugar Cane “Wine” of Ancient and Early Medieval India
No full textThis article considers the nature of one particular drink made from sugar cane called sīdhu (usually m., also śīdhu), exploring the evidence from textual sources. Other drinks were made with sugar cane products, such as āsavas, medicinal ariṣṭas, and the drink called maireya, but I will not consider those here. As I argue, sīdhu was the basic fermented sugar cane drink, not strongly characterized by additives—“plain” sugar-wine as it were. Though in a manner typical of premodern Indic alcohol culture, even this one drink was a complex and variable affair. Rather than consider this drink in medical sources alone—important as that evidence may be—my methodology here is to examine the history of this drink in the light of a wide range of textual evidence, placing this drink in the broad context of pre-modern South Asian drinking culture
A Model of the Universe in Kathmandu\u27s Old Royal Palace
No full textThis paper discusses a model of the universe found in Mohan courtyard of the old royal palace of Kathmandu, the Hanūmānḍhokā. It was commissioned and installed by King Pratāpa Malla in 1656 CE. The artifact is referred to as “earth-ball” or terrestrial globe (bhūgola) in an inscription and is based on Purāṇic concepts of the universe. An eighteenth-century ritual text indicates that it was an object of worship in the courtyard
Al-Bīrūnī’s India, Chapter 14: An Account of Indian Astronomical, Mathematical and Other Literature
No full textThis article provides a new English translation of Chapter 14 of al-Bīrūnī\u27s Kitāb taḥqīq mā li-l-Hind. The whole book was translated by E. Sachau (as Alberuni\u27s India) more than 100 years ago. Thanks to the more recent work by David Pingree, especially the Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit, we can offer many improvements and additions to Sachau\u27s translation. We focused our attention to Chapter 14 of the same book where we find much interesting information about the history of Indian astronomy and mathematics. In the Appendix we have compared the table of contents of the Brāhmasphutasiddhānta as reported by al-Bīrūnī (in Arabic) and those given in Dvivedin\u27s Sanskrit text
A Comparative Survey of the Indradhvaja Ceremony (Gārgīyajyotiṣa 45)
No full textThis article gives a preliminary survey of Gārgīyajyotiṣa 45, a ritual description of the festival of Indra\u27s Banner (indradhvaja), based on manuscript evidence. The testimony of Garga is compared to the description of the same rite in Varāhamihira\u27s Bṛhatsaṃhitā (chapter 42), with reference to later Puranic versions. Since Varāhamihira has explicitly referenced Garga\u27s text on multiple occasions, this comparison brings to light Varāhamihira\u27s own innovations with respect to his source material. While Varāhamihira did not produce the ritual ex nihilo, he seems to have added greater specificity to the ritual\u27s mantric content and overnight structure, and to the broader connectivity between the Indradhvaja festival and other events in the nascent royal calendar. 
Indian Sine Table of 36 Entries
No full textTrigonometry is an indispensable tool of Indian mathematical astronomy. The concept of trigonometry originated in Greece and it was transmitted to India together with astronomy
Varāhamihira’s Physiognomic Omens in the Garuḍapurāṇa
No full textIn this paper, I study the three chapters devoted to human physiognomy in the Garuḍapurāṇa. Two of the three come directly from Varāhamihira’s sixth-century Bṛhatsaṃhitā with the commentary (vivṛti) of the Kaśmirian Bhaṭṭotpala (fl. ca. 966 or 969 CE). I hope to make two research contributions. First, I hope to show that the date of this section of the Purāṇa, if not indeed the entire Purāṇa, cannot be before the sixth century and probably after the tenth century. Second, I will illustrate how a text in different metres was normalised into anuṣṭubh metre for ease of memory and recitation. I shall conclude with a discussion of the lessons we can learn from this kind of ancient Indian redaction proces