Haridatta I

views updated

Haridatta I

(fl. India, 683)

astronomy.

Haridatta, who probably lived in south India, composed in 683 the Grahacāranibandha, the principal text of the parahita system of astronomy (see essay in Supplement), which is based on the Āryabhaṭīya of Āryabhaṭa I and which prevailed in Kerala until the fifteenth century. An important feature of this work is its versified table of the planetary equations employing the kaṭapayādi method of expressing numerals. The Grahacāranibamdha was published by K. V. Sarma (Madras, 1954), Haridatta therein refers to his Mahāmārganibandhana in which, he discussed the calculation of tithis; this work is lost. Various opinions of Haridatta regarding astrology are cited by Govindasvāmin (fl. ca. 850) in the Prakaṭārhadīpikā, a comimentary on the Uttarakhaṇḍa of pseudo-Parāśara’s Horāśāstra.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aside from K. V. Sarma’s introduction to his ed. of the Grahacāranibandha mentioned above, the only discussion of Haridatta is by K. Kunjunni Raja, “Astronomy and Mathematics is Kerala,” in Brahmavidyā, 27 (1963), 118–167, esp. 123–126.

David Pingree