Flourished Ujjayinī, (Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh, India), 1099
Śatānanda was an acclaimed Indian astronomer of the Hindu classical period (late 5th to 12th centuries). He was the son of San‐kara and Sarasvatī. Śatānanda was the author of an extremely popular astronomical manual, the Bhāsvatī, composed in 1099. In its eight short chapters, this work sets out the methodologies for preparing the daily almanac. But the author presents several variations from other texts of the same genre. He names his work after the word for the Sun, bhāsvān. In tune with his own name Śatānanda, meaning “delighting in hundreds,” he uses the centesimal system for commencing the epochal position and specifies several multipliers and divisors in terms of hundreds. Again, unlike most manuals that are based on the more modern yet anonymous Sūryasiddhānta (10th or 11th century), he specifies that his work is drawn from the older Sūryasiddhānta, which had been condensed by astronomer Varāhamihira in his work, the Pañcasiddhāntikā...
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Selected References
Chattopadhyay, Anjana (2002). “Satananda.” In Biographical Dictionary of Indian Scientists: From Ancient to Contemporary, p. 1228. New Delhi: Rupa.
Misra, Ramajanma (ed.) (1985). Bhāsvatī. With Sanskrit and Hindi commentaries by Matruprasad Pandeya. Varanasi, Bharata: Caukhambha Samskrta Sansthana.
Pingree, David (1975). “Śatānanda.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 12, pp. 115–116. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
——— (1978). “History of Mathematical Astronomy in India.” Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 15 (Suppl. 1), pp. 533–633. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
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Sarma, K.V. (2007). Śatānanda. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_1218
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