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Candraśekhara Sāmanta (1835–1904) was a self‐made astronomer who had the distinction of revising the traditional calendar of Orissa during the nineteenth century. He was a scion of a junior branch of the chiefs of the small estate of Khandapara and bore the title Sāmanta (Feudatory) on that account. His full traditional name was Sāmanta Śrī Candraśekhara Singh Harichandan Mohāpatra, and he was called locally Pathani Sāmanta. Young Candraśekhara had little modern education, but learned Sanskrit and astrology from his uncle, which he further developed by an intensive study of two of the authoritative texts of the times, the Sūryasiddhānta, and the Siddhāntaśiromaṇiof Bhāskarācārya. Exhibiting an uncanny interest in watching the skies, he became aware that the times of the rising and setting of the sun and moon and of the other celestial bodies were at variance with the times indicated in local almanacs arrived at by computation based on traditional texts. Often, when almanacs differed...

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York

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Sarma, K.V. (2008). Candraśekhara Sāmanta. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9558

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9558

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

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