PingreeD., “MUL.APIN and Vedic astronomy”, to appear in the Festschrift for Åke Sjöberg.
2.
See, e.g., DīkṣitaŚ. B., Bhāratīya jyotiḥśāstra, 2nd edn (Poona, 1931), 50–62, and KaneP. V., History of Dharmaśāstra, v, pt 1 (Poona, 1958), 495–510; both accounts, as many others, contain highly conjectural hypotheses.
3.
Much of the information concerning these coordinates found in the Sanskrit astronomical texts is assembled in PingreeD., “History of mathematical astronomy in India”, Dictionary of scientific biography, xv (New York, 1978), 533–633 (henceforth cited as “History”). There I reduced the polar coordinates to ecliptic coordinates by an Indian method in order to explore the relationship of the Indian catalogues with Ptolemy's. That relationship turned out not to be one of dependence, but the derived ecliptic coordinates are useful for detecting the computations that lie behind the second Āryabhaṭa's coordinates in Table 15 below.
4.
ThibautG., “The number of stars constituting the several nakshatras according to Brahmagupta and Vriddha-Garga”, Indian antiquary, xiv (1885), 43–45.
5.
See also ShuklaK. S., Vaṭeśvarasiddhānta (New Delhi, 1985), 539–95, for later traditions.
6.
PingreeD., “The Mesopotamian origin of early Indian mathematical astronomy”, Journal for the history of astronomy, iv (1973), 1–12; “Venus omens in India and Babylon”, Language, literature, and history, ed. by Rochberg-HaltonF. (American Oriental Series, lxvii; New Haven, 1987), 293–315; and “Babylonian planetary theory in Sanskrit omen texts”, From ancient omens to statistical mechanics, ed. by BerggrenJ. L.GoldsteinB. R., (Copenhagen, 1987), 91–99.
7.
“History”, 565. In some respects Brahmagupta's catalogue represents a version closer to the original than does that in the Viṣṇudharmottarapurāṇa.
8.
All of the conversions were made by Mr Morrissey, who developed the computer programs that actually performed the calculations.
9.
We have used HirshfeldA.SinnottR. W., Sky catalogue 2000.0, i (Cambridge, 1982).
10.
Whitney'sW. D. identifications are found in his notes to the translation of the Sūryasiddhānta by BurgessE., originally published in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, vi (1860), and reprinted Calcutta, 1935; in the reprint Whitney's discussion fills pp. 204–54.
11.
“History”, 608.
12.
His table of “errors”, on p. 243, includes, for 56 positions, 13 between 1° and 2°, 9 between 2° and 3°, 4 between 3° and 4°, 2 between 4° and 5°, and 1 between 7° and 8° — that is, exactly one half of the positions are “wrong” by more than 1° according to his identifications.
13.
PingreeD., “Precession and trepidation in Indian astronomy before a.d. 1200”, Journal for the history of astronomy, iii (1972), 27–35.
14.
Varāhamihira in about 550 gave the ecliptic longitudes and latitudes of 9 stars (PañcasiddhāntikāXIV33–37; see “History”, 554). In Table 19 I compare his coordinates with those of a.d. 100 as given in PetersC. H. F.KnobelE. B., Ptolemy's catalogue of stars (Washington, 1915). The λ of η Tauri is very wrong (perhaps due to scribal error), and it is astonishing to see μ Cancri show up in such a list; and δ Cancri is normally put in Pusya rather than in Āśleṣā. But these coordinates seem to be meant to be the tropical coordinates for about the middle of the fifth century rather than the sixth. They may, then, represent a part of a Greek catalogue translated into Sanskrit; in any case Varāhamihira's tradition deviates from the normal Indian tradition.
15.
“History”, 555.
16.
A composite presentation is given in the Appendix I at the end of this paper.
17.
“History”, 594.
18.
“History”, 578.
19.
“History”, 599.
20.
“History”, 610.
21.
“History”, 621.
22.
“History”, 625.
23.
BillardR., L'astronomie indienne (Paris, 1971).
24.
See, for instance, PingreeD. in Journal for the history of astronomy, xi (1980), 58–62.
