The Pañcasiddhāntikā of Varāhamihira (1)

Abstract

The Pañcasiddhāntikā of Varāhamihira is one of the most important sources for the history of Hindu astronomy before the time of Āryabhaṭa I (b. 476 AD). Two editions of this work (both furnished with English translation and commentary) have appeared, one in 1889 under the editorship of G. Thibaut and S. Dvivedi, and the other in two parts in 1970 and 1971 under the editorship of O. Neugebauer and D. Pingree. But even now the contents of the work are at places not correctly understood. The object of the proposed series of papers is to deal with certain passages of the work which have not been properly understood so far. In the present paper, which is the first of the series, I propose to deal with four topics, viz. (i) criticism of Viṣṇucandra and Romaka by Pauliśa, (ii) the declination table of Varāhamihira, (iii) the fifth correction for Mercury and Venus in the old Sūryasiddhānta, and (iv) a traditional correction of the Pauliśa school for the longitude of the Moon’s ascending node.