Acyuta Piṣāraṭi (ca. 1550–1621) was an astronomer from the south Indian state of Kerala. He came from the village of Tṛkkaṇṭiyūr near Tirūr in southern Malabar. Born in an aṃpalavāsi (temple servant) caste, he belonged to a long and illustrious line of mathematicians and astronomers that commenced with Saṅgamagrāma Mādhavan (ca. 1340–1425) in the fourteenth century and continued up to Kṛṣṇadāsan (1786–1812) in the nineteenth. He was a student of the redoubtable Jyeṣṭhadevan (ca. 1500–1610) and was teacher to the great grammarian and devotional poet Melpattūr Nārāyaṇa Bhaṭṭatiri of the Nārāyaṇīyaṃ fame. His patrons included Ravi Varma, the chief of Veṭṭaṃ near Ponnāni, and the Taṃprākkaḷs of the Āḻvāñcēri family.
Acyuta Piṣāraṭi studied medicine, poetics, and grammar and wrote the Praveśaka, an introduction to Sanskrit grammar. But his fame rests on the contributions he made to the development of astronomy. In the Spuṭanirṇayawritten before 1593, he showed that the Moon moves on its...
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References
Iyer, S. V. (1952–1953). Acyuta Piṣāroṭi: His date and works. The Journal of Oriental Research Madras, 22, 40–46.
Joseph, G. G. (2009). A passage to infinity: Medieval Indian mathematics from Kerala and its impact. New Delhi: Sage.
Raja, K. K. (1995). Astronomy and mathematics in Kerala. Madras: The Adyar Library and Research Centre.
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Devadevan, M.V. (2014). Acyuta Piṣāraṭi. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3934-5_10283-1
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