The Astronomy of Āryabhaṭa

Abstract

Indian astronomy is a substantial subject in its own right, arising in early antiquity, when it was closely bound up with the Vedic religion. Many astronomical treatises were written over the centuries, but the work of one astronomer is particularly interesting: Āryabha$\mathop t\limits_.$a of Kusumapura, who was born in A.D. 476. Although he was later than Ptolemy, his planetary theories, based on regular circular motion, seem to have developed out of pre-Ptolemaic Greek ideas.