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Vatasseri Parameshvara Nambudiri was a major Indian mathematician and astronomer of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama. He was also an astrologer. Parameshvara was a proponent of observational astronomy in medieval India and he himself had made a series of eclipse observations to verify the accuracy of the computational methods then in use. Based on his eclipse observations, Parameshvara proposed several corrections to the astronomical parameters which had been in use since the times of Aryabhata. The computational scheme based on the revised set of parameters has come to be known as the Drgganita or Drig system. Parameshvara was also a prolific writer on matters relating to astronomy. At least 25 manuscripts have been identified as being authored by Parameshvara.
Śrīpati, also transliterated as Shri-pati, was an Indian astronomer, astrologer and mathematician. His major works include Dhīkotida-karana (1039), a work of twenty verses on solar and lunar eclipses; Dhruva-mānasa, a work of 105 verses on calculating planetary longitudes, eclipses and planetary transits; Siddhānta-śekhara a major work on astronomy in 19 chapters; and Gaṇita-tilaka, an incomplete arithmetical treatise in 125 verses based on a work by Shridhara.
Mādhava of Sangamagrāma (Mādhavan) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer who is considered to be the founder of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics in the Late Middle Ages. Madhava made pioneering contributions to the study of infinite series, calculus, trigonometry, geometry and algebra. He was the first to use infinite series approximations for a range of trigonometric functions, which has been called the "decisive step onward from the finite procedures of ancient mathematics to treat their limit-passage to infinity".
Jyeṣṭhadeva was an astronomer-mathematician of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama. He is best known as the author of Yuktibhāṣā, a commentary in Malayalam of Tantrasamgraha by Nilakantha Somayaji (1444–1544). In Yuktibhāṣā, Jyeṣṭhadeva had given complete proofs and rationale of the statements in Tantrasamgraha. This was unusual for traditional Indian mathematicians of the time. The Yuktibhāṣā is now believed to contain the essential elements of calculus like Taylor and infinity series. Jyeṣṭhadeva also authored Drk-karana, a treatise on astronomical observations.
Achyuta Pisharodi was a Sanskrit grammarian, astrologer, astronomer and mathematician who studied under Jyeṣṭhadeva and was a member of Madhava of Sangamagrama's Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics. He is remembered mainly for his part in the composition of his student Melpathur Narayana Bhattathiri's devotional poem, Narayaneeyam.
Krishna Venkateswara Sarma (1919–2005) was an Indian historian of science, particularly the astronomy and mathematics of the Kerala school. He was responsible for bringing to light several of the achievements of the Kerala school. He was editor of the Vishveshvaranand Indological Research Series, and published the critical edition of several source works in Sanskrit, including the Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata. He was recognised as "the greatest authority on Kerala's astronomical tradition".
Veṇvāroha is a work in Sanskrit composed by Mādhava of Sangamagrāma, the founder of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics. It is a work in 74 verses describing methods for the computation of the true positions of the Moon at intervals of about half an hour for various days in an anomalistic cycle. This work is an elaboration of an earlier and shorter work of Mādhava himself titled Sphutacandrāpti. Veṇvāroha is the most popular astronomical work of Mādhava.
Vararuci is a name associated with several literary and scientific texts in Sanskrit and also with various legends in several parts of India. This Vararuci is often identified with Kātyāyana. Kātyāyana is the author of Vārtikās which is an elaboration of certain sūtrās in Pāṇini's much revered treatise on Sanskrit grammar titled Aṣṭādhyāyī. Kātyāyana is believed to have flourished in the 3rd century BCE. However, this identification of Vararuci with Kātyāyana has not been fully accepted by scholars. Vararuci is believed to be the author of Prākrita Prakāśa, the oldest treatise on the grammar of Prākrit language. Vararuci's name appears in a verse listing the 'nine gems' (navaratnas) in the court of one Samrat Vikramaditya. Vararuci appears as a prominent character in Kathasaritsagara, a famous 11th century collection of Indian legends, fairy tales and folk tales as retold by a Saivite Brahmin named Somadeva.The Aithihyamala of Kottarathil Shankunni states that Vararuchi was the son of Govinda Swami i.e. Govinda Bhagavatpada. It also states that King Vikramadithya, Bhatti- minister of King Vikramaditya and Bhartruhari were his brothers.
Govinda Bhaṭṭathiri was an Indian astrologer and astronomer who flourished in Kerala during the thirteenth century CE.
Golagrama is a village or region in India associated with several medieval Indian astronomers, astrologers and mathematicians. Presently there is no place bearing the name Golagrama anywhere in India. It is known that Golagrama was situated in Maharashtra State on the northern banks of river Godavari, was near Partha-puri (Pathari) in Maharashtra and was about 320 km away from Amravati town in Maharashtra. It is sometimes identified as a place named Golgam at latitude 18° N longitude 78° E. The name Golagrama considered as a word in Sanskrit could literally be translated as sphere-village.
Nila-kantha was a 16th-century astrologer and astronomer and Sanskrit writer from the Mughal Empire of present-day India. He was a royal astrologer to emperor Akbar, and contributed to Todarananda, an encyclopedia sponsored by Akbar's minister Todara-malla. He wrote Tajika-Nilakanthi, the most popular work on the Tajika astrology, and possibly compiled Prashna-tantra, a work on interrogational astrology, based on an earlier text.
A History of the Kerala School of Hindu Astronomy (in perspective) is the first definitive book giving a comprehensive description of the contribution of Kerala to astronomy and mathematics. The book was authored by K. V. Sarma who was a Reader in Sanskrit at Vishveshvaranand Institute of Sanskrit and Indological Studies, Panjab University, Hoshiarpur, at the time of publication of the book (1972). The book, among other things, contains details of the lives and works of about 80 astronomers and mathematicians belonging to the Kerala School. It has also identified 752 works belonging to the Kerala school.
Tarka-Sangraha is a treatise in Sanskrit giving a foundational exposition of the ancient Indian system of logic and reasoning. The work is authored by Annambhatta and the author himself has given a detailed commentary, called Tarka-Sangraha Deepika, for the text. Annambhatta composed the text as well as the commentary in the second half of 17th century CE. The text of Tarka-sangraha is a small book with about 15 pages only and it was composed to help boys and girls learn easily the basic principles of Nyaya. Of all the works of Annambhatta, only Tarka-Sangraha and its commentary attained wide acceptance. They have been used as basic text for beginners for several generations.
Keshava was an astrologer and astronomer from Nandigrama in present-day western India.
Mazhamaṅgalaṃ Śaṅkaran Naṃpūtiri (1494-1570) was an Indian astronomer-astrologer-mathematician belonging to the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics who wrote a large number of books on astronomy and astrology in the vernacular language Malayalam in an effort to popularize these subjects among the common Malayalam speaking laypersons. He hailed from Peruvanam village in present-day Thrissur district. He spent most of his active life at Chengannur with his teacher Parameśvaran Pōtti of Vāzha-māveli house.
Kaṇakkusāraṃ is a comprehensive treatise in Manipravalam, composed in the 16th-17th century CE, dealing with elementary arithmetic and methods for solving arithmetical problems arising in the everyday life of members of an agricultural community. The book was composed by one Nīlakṇṭha; but other than the name, nothing more definite is known about the author. The date of composition of the book has also not been determined. The significance of the work is that it was composed in a variant of the local vernacular language addressing the needs of ordinary people and it is one of the earliest such work in Malayalam. In comparison, Yuktibhasha, composed in pure Malayalam and published in the middle of the sixteenth century, is an advanced text on mathematics and astronomy addressed to the advanced students and scholars of mathematics. The book is composed in verses and it also contains a commentary both in Manipravalam language. In the book, the author has claimed that the work is based on Sanskrit texts like Bhaskara II's Līlāvatī and older Malayalam texts on mathematics like Kaṇakkadhikāraṃ.
Kṛṣṇa Daivajña was a 16th-17th century Indian astrologer-astronomer-mathematician from Varanasi patronized by the Mughal Emperor Jahangir. As a mathematician Kṛṣṇa Daivajña is best known for his elaborate commentary on Bhaskara II's Bījagaṇita and, as an astrologer, his fame rested on his commentary on Śrīpati's Jātakapaddhati. These commentaries contain not only detailed explanations of the text being commented upon, but also the rationales of the various rules and often additional original material. He has also composed an original work by name Chādakanirṇaya dealing with eclipses.
Mazhamaṅgalaṃ Nārāyaṇan Naṃpūtiri was an Indian scholar, poet, astrologer and mathematician belonging to the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics. Nārāyaṇan Naṃpūtiri hailed from Peruvanam village in present-day Thrissur district in Kerala. His father was Mazhamaṅgalaṃ Śaṅkaran Naṃpūtiri himself a respected scholar and writer who had authored a large number of books on astronomy and astrology in the vernacular Malayalam language in an effort to popularize astronomy among the lay public.
Śānkarasmṛti (Laghudharmaprakrāśikā) is treatise in Sanskrit dealing with the customs and traditions of the people of medieval Kerala. The work calls itself Laghudharmaprakrāśikā and the term Śānkarasmṛti is not mentioned anywhere in the work. However at the end of every chapter there is a colophon which begins with the words sāṅkare dharmaśāstre which probably gave rise to the tradition of referring to the work as Śānkarasmṛti. The work is originally supposed to contain thirty-six chapters, but only the first twelve chapters have been unearthed. Thus in that sense, the currently available manuscripts of the work are incomplete. The work is about the traditions and customs of Kerala at the time the work was composed. Many of these customs called Keraḷācāra-s are peculiar to Kerala and are not seen among people in other parts of India. At several places in the text, the author of Śānkarasmṛti invokes a certain work titled Bhārgavasmṛiti as the authority for his pronouncements. But unfortunately the work Bhārgavasmṛiti has not so far seen the light of the day, and moreover, in the whole corpus Sanskrit literature, except in Śānkarasmṛti, there is no mention of a work titled Bhārgavasmṛiti. It is believed that Bhārgavasmṛiti must have been a fictitious invention of the author of Śānkarasmṛti.a
Devācārya was an Indian astronomer hailing from Kerala, India who flourished during the second half of 7th century CE. He is the author of a karaņa text on astronomy titled Karaņaratna which deals with almost every aspect of planetary astronomy generally discussed in other Indian texts on astronomy. This work is important in the study of history of astronomy in India as it sheds valuable light on the methods used by the astronomers of South India, in the seventh century CE, in their astronomical computations. No personal information about Devācārya is known except that his father's name was Gojanma and that Devācārya was a great devotee of Viṣṇu, Ŝiva and Brahma. That he flourished during the second half of the seventh century CE is inferred from the fact the epoch specified in Karaņaratna is the first day of the year 611 Saka Era which corresponds to 26 February 689 CE.
References
- 1 2 3 David Pingree (1994). Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit Series A, Volume 5. American Philosophical Society. p. 649. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
- 1 2 3 4 K. V. Sarma (1972). A History of the Kerala School of Hindu Astronomy. Vishveshvaranand Institute of Sanskrit and Indological Studies, Panjab University, Hoshiarpur. p. 48. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ↑ Ulloor S Paramesvara Aiyer (1957). Kerala Sahitya Charitram Vol II. Thiruvananthapuram: Travancore University Publications Department. p. 95. Retrieved 15 July 2024. (Also available at Sayahna Foundation
- 1 2 Madabhushi Krishnamachariar, M. Srinivasachariar (1989). History of Classical Sanskrit Literature. Motilal Banarsidass. p. 190. Retrieved 14 July 2024.
- ↑ Suniti Kumar Chatterji (1937). The Cultural Heritage of India Volume V Language and Literatures. Calcutta: The Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture. p. 95. Retrieved 15 July 2024. (Chapter 6 Saiva Literature by N. Murugesa Mudaliar)