Stellar Antiquity

I have written previously about the book Vedanga Jyotisa which was written in the 1st millennium BCE by Lagadha, an ancient Indian astronomer. Today, I want to write about another text that can be considered as an astronomy textbook for the ancient Indians.

The Surya Siddhantha was first translated into English by Ebenezer Burgess and published in 1860. He was a missionary who travelled to India in 1839. Based on the astronomical constants in the text, Burgess estimated that the Surya Siddhanta was written between 490CE and 1091CE, taking the mean 560CE as the date of its writing. However, scholars today believe that this was a living text written by many different people between the 4th and 8th centuries CE. This new date has been calculated based on the table of Nakshatras mentioned in the text.

Three distinct stages of growth have been identified:

1. original work that existed before the scholar Varahamihira
2. the scholar Varaha’s redactor with the epicyclic theory
3. latter additions and alterations

The Surya Siddhanta is a treatise outlining the astronomical theories and methods used by scholars and astrologers in ancient India. It was written during the Gupta empire, which is considered by some historians to be the golden period of India.

Over the course of the year, I’ll be studying Burgess’s translation of the Surya Siddhanta to get an understanding of the cosmic views postulated by the ancient Indians.