Learning With Spheres: The golādhyāya in Nityānanda’s Sarvasiddhāntarāja (Scientific Writings from the Ancient and Medieval World)

This book provides, for the very first time, a critical edition and an English translation (accompanied by critical notes and technical analyses) of the chapter on spheres (__golādhyāya__) from Nityānanda’s __Sarvasiddhāntarāja__, a Sanskrit astronomical text written in seventeenth-century Mughal India. Readers will learn how terrestrial and celestial phenomena were understood by early modern Sanskrit astronomers using spherical geometry. The technical discussions in this book, supported by the critically edited Sanskrit text and geometric diagrams, offer an opportunity for historians of the astral sciences to understand developments in astronomy in seventeenth-century Mughal India from a more nuanced perspective. These are supplemented through explorations of modernity, mathematics, and mythology and how they thrived within Sanskrit astronomical discourse at the courts of the Mughal emperors. This book will be of interest to historians and philosophers of science, in particular those interested in the history of non-Western astral sciences. The book will be a valuable resource for scholars studying the general history of Sanskrit astronomy in the Indian subcontinent as well as those interested in the technical aspects of Sanskrit and Indo-Persian astronomy in Mughal India. "This book provides, for the very first time, a critical edition and an English translation (accompanied by critical notes and technical analyses) of the chapter on spheres (golādhyāya) from Nityānanda's Sarvasiddhāntarāja, a Sanskrit astronomical text written in seventeenth-century Mughal India. Readers will learn how terrestrial and celestial phenomena were understood by early-modern Sanskrit astronomers using spherical geometry. The technical discussions in this book, supported by the critically edited Sanskrit text and geometric diagrams, offer an opportunity for historians of the astral sciences to understand developments in astronomy in seventeenth-century Mughal India from a more nuanced perspective. These are supplemented through explorations of modernity, mathematics, and mythology and how they thrived within Sanskrit astronomical discourse at the courts of the Mughal emperors. This book is of interest to historians and philosophers of science, in particular those interested in the history of non-western astral sciences. The book would be a valuable resource for scholars studying the general history of Sanskrit astronomy in the Indian subcontinent as well as those interested in the technical aspects of Sanskrit and Indo-Persian astronomy in Mughal India"-- Provided by publisher Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents List of figures List of tables 1 Introduction 2 Manuscript Sources and Stemma 3 Critical Edition 4 Edited Sanskrit Text and Its English Translation 5 Critical Notes and Technical Analyses Appendix A Nityānanda’s Geodetic Method vis-à-visal-Bīrūnī’s Method to Calculate the Earth’s Radius Appendix B The Cosmography of the Purāṇas Appendix C Numbering of verses in the Critical Edition vis-à-vis the Eight Manuscripts of the golādhyāya in Nityā-nanda’s Sarvasiddhāntarāja Bibliography Index This book provides a critical edition and an English translation of the chapter on spheres (goladhyaya) from Nityananda's Sarvasiddhantaraja, a Sanskrit astronomical text written in seventeenth-century Mughal India. Suitable for those studying and interested in the history of non-western astral sciences.