Skip to main content

BHASKARA'S ASTRONOMY

 Bhaskara I, (flourished c. 629, possibly Valabhi, near modern Bhavnagar, Saurashtra, India), Indian astronomer and mathematician who helped to disseminate the mathematical work of Aryabhata (born 476).

His fame rests on three treatises he composed on the works of Aryabhata. Two of these treatises, known today as Mahabhaskariya (“Great Book of Bhaskara”) and Laghubhaskariya (“Small Book of Bhaskara”), are astronomical works in verse, while Aryabhatiyabhashya (629) is a prose commentary on the Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata. Bhaskara’s works were particularly popular in South India.

Planetary longitudes, heliacal rising and setting of the planets, conjunctions among the planets and stars, solar and lunar eclipses, and the phases of the Moon are among the topics Bhaskara discusses in his astronomical treatises. He also includes a remarkably accurate approximation for the sine function: in modern notation, sin x = 4x(180 − x)/(40,500 − x(180 − x)), where x is in degrees.

Bhāskara's work on calculus predates Newton and Leibniz by over half a millennium. He is particularly known in the discovery of the principles of differential calculus and its application to astronomical problems and computations. While Newton and Leibniz have been credited with differential and integral calculus, there is strong evidence to suggest that Bhāskara was a pioneer in some of the principles of differential calculus. He was perhaps the first to conceive the differential coefficient and differential calculus.

Using an astronomical model developed by Brahmagupta in the 7th century, Bhāskara accurately defined many astronomical quantities, including, for example, the length of the sidereal year, the time that is required for the Earth to orbit the Sun, as approximately 365.2588 days which is the same as in Surya siddhanta. The modern accepted measurement is 365.25636 days, a difference of just 3.5 minutes.

His mathematical astronomy text Siddhanta Shiromani is written in two parts: the first part on mathematical astronomy and the second part on the sphere.

The twelve chapters of the first part cover topics such as:

The second part contains thirteen chapters on the sphere. It covers topics such as:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

UNITS AND MEASUREMENTS IN ANCIENT INDIA

  As Mentioned in Chanakya Arthashastra  Chanakya was the political mentor of the legendary   Indian monarch Chandragupta Maurya of 4 th century BC. He was a man learned in many disciplines and wrote the famous book arthashastra. In it, he mentioned two types if DHANUSHA, consisting of 96 ANGULAS, and the other dhanusha is mentioned as garhpatya dhanusha and consists of 108 angulas, used for measurement of roads and distances. Chanakya also mentions that a dhanurgraha consists of 4 angulas and a yojana consists of 8000 dhanushas. Uniform units of length were used in planning of towns such as lothal, surkotada, kalibangan, dolavira, harrappa, and mohenjodaro. In the 1930-31 season at mohenjodaro, ernest mackay discovered a broken piece of shell bearing 8 divisions of 6.7056mm each, with a dot and a circle five graduations apart, which suggests a decimal system. However, attempts by mackay, to relate such a unit to attempts by mackay, to relate such a unit to the dimensi...
2 comments
Read more

ANCIENT STRATERGY GAME - CHATURANGA

     CHATURANGA or CHATUR   for short, is an ancient Indian strategy game that is commonly theorized to be the common ancestor of the board games Chess, Xiangqi, Shogi, Siltuyin and Makruk.     It is first known from the Gupta Empire in India around 6th century AD. In 7th century it was adopted as chatrang (shatranj) in sassanid Persia, which in turn was form of chess brought to late Medival Europe. The exact rules of chaturanga are unknown. In particular, there is uncertainly as to the moves of the GAJA(elephant).     Myron Samsin argues that chaturanga originated in the kingdom of Bacteria 255-53 BC, in a fusion of the many short moving men derived from the various moves of an Indian Race game, perhaps Seega or Chaupur on the Ashtapada the board of another race game.       Sanskrit caturanga is a bahuvrihi compound, meaning "having for limbs or parts" and in epic poetry often meaning "Army". The name comes from a battle ...
6 comments
Read more

TEMPLES IN INDIA

W hat do you think of temple in this modern era. A place where people go and worship their respective deities. And you are right, temples are a place of worship. But for now lets focus on the integral part of temple architecture. The design aim to integrate architecture with nature, the relative functions of various parts of the structure, and ancient beliefs utilizing geometric patterns(yantra), symmetry, and direction alignments. The most essential parts of a ''Mandir'' are: 1.VAHANA:  It is the vehicle(which carry or pulls) of god. Vahana denotes a mythical entity or an animal, a particular Hindu deity is said to use a vahana.                        Some deities  associated with their vahana:                                                   ...
8 comments
Read more