गुप्त अभिलेख संग्रह (जे. एफ. फ्लीट - गुप्त सम्राटों एवं परवर्ती नरेशों के ऐतिहासिक पाषाण व ताम्रलेख)

156 CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM INDICARUM, VOL. III.
Śirōmaṇi, and the Ârya-Siddhânta of the second Âryabhaṭa.¹ I calculated it first for Ujjain,
i.e. for the Hindu meridian, reckoning from the mean sunrise there; and then turned it
into the tithi for Êraṇ. The longitude of Ujjain is 75° 43' east of Greenwich. I have
also calculated the ghaṭīs and palas from the apparent sunrise at Êraṇ; and all the results
are given in Table VI., on the upper part of page 157 below. From them we see that
the tithi fell on a Thursday,² according to all the authorities.
¹ i.e. the work that is usually called the Laghu-Ârya-Siddhânta.—There are two distinct
and separate works, each bearing the name of Âryabhaṭa as its author. The one published by Dr.
Kern contains one hundred and eighteen verses in the Âryâ metre, and is called Âryabhaṭīya in
general and by the author himself; but it may, and justly so, be called Ârya-Siddhânta; and it is
called so by many Hindu astronomers. The date of this work is Saka-Saṁvat 421 expired (A. D.
499-500). The other, which, I believe, has not yet been printed, contains about six hundred and
twenty-five verses in the Âryâ metre, divided into eighteen chapters. The date of it is not given.
But, from internal evidence, I find that it is later than the Brahma-Siddhânta of Brahmagupta
(Śaka-Saṁvat 550 expired; A.D. 628-29); and there is a reference to it in the Siddhânta-Śirōmaṇi
(Śaka-Saṁvat 1072 expired; A.D. 1150-51). Its date, therefore, lies somewhere between these two
limits. In the first verse of it, the author calls himself Âryabhaṭa; and his work, a Siddhânta, without
Laghu or any other epithet. In a manuscript copy of it, I find that it is named Mahâ-Siddhânta
at the end of some chapters, and Laghu-Ârya-Siddhânta at the end of others. For the sake of dis-
tinction and convenience, it is better to call the authors of these two works, the first and the second
Âryabhaṭa. The numbers of the revolutions of the planets &c. given, as belonging to the Ârya-
Siddhânta, in the Rev. E. Burgess' Translation of the Sûrya-Siddhânta and in some instances
those given by Prinsep (Prinsep's Essays, Vol. II. Useful Tables, n. 153) as belonging to the same
authority, belong really to the second Âryabhaṭa. Probably, when these gentlemen wrote, they had
not themselves seen the Siddhânta of the first Aryabhaṭa Gen. Sir A. Cunningham, also, was not,
it seems, aware of the two different Aryabhaṭas, when he wrote (Indian Eras, p. 88) "according to
Warren the number of days assigned by Âryabhaṭa to a Mahâyuga of 4,320,000 years is 1,577,917,500
in the south of India and 42 more in the MSS. preserved in Bengal." Of these two numbers, the
former belongs to the first, and the latter to the second, Âryabhaṭa.
² [i.e. on a Hindu Thursday.—It must be borne in mind that the Hindu week-day is reckoned, with
the solar day and night, from sunrise to sunrise, as stated at page 146 f. above; but the English week-
day, and the civil date coupled with it, from midnight to midnight. In comparing Hindu and English
dates, the only course is to take mean sunrise and mean midnight (6·0 A.M. and 12·0 P.M. respec-
tively), and to give, as the English equivalent, that week-day, with its civil date, which is actually
running during these eighteen hours, when of course the same week-day is running in India; i.e. the
week-day which is identical for the greater part by both the English and the Hindu reckonings. And,
if the difference in mean time between Greenwich and Ujjain, viz. 5 hours, 2 minutes, 52 seconds
(using the same longitude for Ujjain, 75° 43', taken from Keith Johnston's Atlas, that is used by Mr.
Sh. B. Dikshit for his calculations in this paper and for the Sâyana-Pañchâng) be taken into con-
sideration, of course the week-days of the two places are absolutely identical, except for the space
of 57 minutes, 8 seconds, or 2 ghaṭīs, 22·8 palas, at the end of the Hindu week-day; during that time,
while at Ujjain a Hindu Thursday for instance, is still running, at Greenwich the week-day will be
Friday. Owing to this, there may sometimes be a nominal discrepancy in the resulting English week-
day for a given tithi; but the instances will be few and far between, as very few tithis will be found
to end so late after sunrise; and the discrepancy will be confined mostly to such occurrences as the
heliacal rising of Jupiter (see, for instance, the double dates which it has been necessary to quote at
page 104 ff. above). In the present case, not one of the ending-points of the given tithi falls within
the debatable period; either for Ujjain, or for Êraṇ, which is appreciably to the east of Ujjain.—J. F. F.]