Munīśvara (b. 1603), son of Raṅganātha, was born into a family of reputed astronomers of several generations, who had migrated from their original home on the banks of river Godāvarī in the south to Varanasi in the north of India. Munīśvara's paternal uncle, Kṛṣṇa Daivajña, was patronized by the Mughal emperor Jehangir, who ruled from Delhi (1605–1628). Elevating references by Munīśvara to Shahjehan, who succeeded Jehangir as emperor in 1628, and casting the horoscope of the time of Shahjehan's coronation are pointers to the continued royal patronage enjoyed by Munīśvara's family. In his commentary on the Līlāvatī, Munīśvara states that another name of his was Viśveśvara.
Munīśvara was a prolific writer, on both mathematics and astronomy, and wrote both original works and commentaries. The Siddhāntasārvabhauma, written in 1646, is his major work on astronomy. In 12 chapters, of which nine chapters constituted Part I, the work dealt with the subjects of a normal textbook. In Part II,...
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Primary Sources
Siddhāntasārvabhauma of Munīśvara. Ed. Mitha Lal Ojha. Varanasi: Sampurnanand Sanskrit University, 1978.
Siddhāntaśiromaṇi of Bhāskara with the Commentary Marīcī of Munīśvara. Ed. Muralidhara Jha. Benares: E. J. Lazarus and Co., 1917.
Siddhāntaśiromaṇi of Bhāskara with the Commentary Marīcī of Munīśvara. Ed. Dattatreya Apte. Poona: Anandasrama Sanskrit Series, 1943.
Siddhāntaśiromaṇi of Bhāskara with the Commentary Marīcī of Munīśvara. Ed. Kedardatta Joshi. Varanasi: Banaras Hindu University, 1964.
Secondary Sources
Dikshit, S. B. Bhāratiya Jyotish Śāstra (History of Indian Astronomy). Trans. R. V. Vaidya. Pt. II: History of Astronomy During the Siddhantic and Modern Periods. Calcutta: Positional Astronomy Centre, India Meterological Department, 1981.
Dvivedi, Sudhakara. Gaṇaka Taraṅgiṇī or Lives of Hindu Astronomers. Ed. Padmakara Dvivedi. Benares: Jyotish Prakash Press, 1933.
Pingree, David. Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit. Series A, Vol. 4. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1981.
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Sarma, K.V. (2008). Munīśvara. 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_9586
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