INTRODUCTION

1. Introductory The Pañcasiddhāntikā (PS) of Varāhamihira (VM), (6th cent. A.D.), occupies an important place in the history of early Indian astronomy, for, herein we have been given certain aspects of five sys- tems of Indian astronomy current during the first centuries of the Christian era. The work supplies also considerable additional material on the astronomical concepts, computational methods and instruments used during the times of the author. VM makes mention of the objectives of the work towards its commencement: pūrvācāryamatebhyo yad yad śreṣṭhaṁ laghu sphuṭaṁ bījam | tat tad ihāvikalam aham rahasyam udyato vaktum || I.1 || Pauliśa-Romaka-Vāsiṣṭha-Saura-Paitāmahās tu pañca siddhāntāḥ || 2 || ‘Here, I shall state in full the best of the secret lore of astronomy extracted from the different schools of the ancient teachers so as to be easy and clear. ‘The five siddhānta-s, of which this work is a compendium, are the Pauliśa, the Romaka, the Vāsiṣṭha, the Saura and the Paitāmaha. Following the above statement, VM specifies also how he is intending to deal with the said five astronomical schools : yat tat param rahasyaṁ bhavati matir yatra tantrakārāṇām | tad aham apahāya matsaram asmin vakṣye grahaṁ bhānoḥ || dik-sthiti-vimarda-karṇa-pramāṇa-velā grahāgrahāv indoḥ | tārāgrahasaṁyogam deśāntarasādhanaṁ cā ‘smin || samamaṇḍala-candrodaya-yantra-cchedyāni śaṅkavacchāyā | upakaraṇādy akṣajyā-‘valambakā-’ pakramādyāni || I.5-7 || ‘I shall tell in this work, avoiding all jealousy, the computation of the solar eclipse which is guarded as a great secret and in which the mind of the astronomer reels. I shall also tell the occurr- ence or non-occurrence of the lunar eclipse, the directions of the first and last contacts, the dura- tion, the total phase, the ‘hypotenuse’ at any moment with related quantity of obscuration and time, and also the mutual conjunctions of the stars and the planets and the computation of difference in longitude as also the prime vertical, moonrise, astronomical instruments and other requirements, graphical representations, the gnomonic shadow, the sines of latitude, co-latitude and declinations and such other matters.’ While the importance of the work in the reconstruction of early Indian astronomy would be apparent from the above statement, the paucity of reliable manuscripts of the work makes the pre- paration of a correct edition of the work a formidable task, affecting, in its turn, a proper under- standing, translation and interpretation of the work. The gravity of the problem could be gauged from what G. Thibaut has stated in the Preface to the first edition of the work (TS), issued in 1889. He says:

1. The Pañcasiddhāntikā, the astronomical work of Varāha Mihira. The Text edited with an original commentary in Sanskrit and an English translation, by G. Thibaut and Mm Sudhakara Dvivedi, Leipzig : Varanasi, 1889; Rep. Lahore, 1930; Rep. Varanasi, 1968. (Page references made are to this reprint.)