[INDOLOGY] Date and place of a manuscript
Martin Gansten
martingansten at gmail.com
Thu Sep 10 20:49:49 UTC 2026
Thanks for the link, Dominik. There's another useful list in /Indian
Astronomy: A Source Book /by Subbarayappa and Sarma (1985, also
available on Archive), which includes nṛpa, bhūpa and bhūpati for the
number 16.
The most important thing to understand when it comes to bhūtasaṃkhyā is
that it's the concept that matters, not the choice of terms. Because
there is a traditional list (or several lists?) of 16 celebrated kings,
/any/ word for king can be used to mean 16, just as any word for moon
can mean 1, any word for eye can mean 2, etc. The precise word doesn't
need to be attested in a pre-existing text in order to be valid.
Best wishes,
Martin
Den 2026-09-10 kl. 22:12, skrev Dominik Wujastyk:
> I've found Rangacarya's list
> <https://archive.org/details/dli.csl.7173/page/287/mode/1up> helpful
> in the past. He doesn't have bhūpa or bhūpāla, though.
>
> Best wishes,
> Dominik
>
> --
> Dominik Wujastyk, Professor Emeritus, Classical Indian History
> University of Alberta
>
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>
> On Thu, 3 Sept 2026 at 04:29, Roland Steiner via INDOLOGY
> <indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
>
> Dear Martin,
>
> MW is a little erratic when it comes to bhūtasaṃkhyā: no value
> is given for bhūpāla, but 'a term for the number sixteen' is
> found under bhūpa
>
> Here, as in most cases, MW relies on the Petersburg dictionaries.
> When using these dictionaries, it's important to note that
> Böhtlingk only lists meanings for which he had evidence in the
> literature. For /bhūpa/, meaning “the number sixteen”, he had such
> evidence, namely “Gaṇit. Bhagaṇ. 9” (cf. MW s.v. /bhūpa/: “a term
> for the number sixteen, Gaṇit.”), but apparently not for
> /bhūpāla/. There's nothing more to it than that. It then goes
> without saying that in such cases /bhūpāla /can also refer to the
> number, which is why it's advisable to also check the Petersburg
> dictionaries for similarly formed words or synonyms, such as
> /nṛpa/, as you've already pointed out.
>
> MW gives 'the numbers one and nine', but I have never seen it
> mean anything but 9 in a bhūtasaṃkhyā context.
>
> MW's source is pw s.v. /aṅka/: "7) die Zahlen eins und neun." In
> the large PW (Volume 5, "Verbesserungen und Nachträge (=
> Improvements and Additions)", p. 951, s.v. /aṅka/), the following
> is given as evidence for the designation of the number "one": "9)
> auch Bez. der Zahl Eins, Ind. St. 8,208, N."
>
> Kind regards, Roland
>
>
> Am Donnerstag, 03. September 2026 08:33 CEST, schrieb Martin
> Gansten via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>:
>
>> No, MW is a little erratic when it comes to bhūtasaṃkhyā: no
>> value is given for bhūpāla, but 'a term for the number sixteen'
>> is found under bhūpa (and 'N. of the numeral 16' under nṛpa;
>> other synonyms of 'king' may include it too). For aṅka MW gives
>> 'the numbers one and nine', but I have never seen it mean
>> anything but 9 in a bhūtasaṃkhyā context.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Martin
>>
>>
>> Den 2026-09-02 kl. 23:03, skrev Jean Michel DELIRE:
>>>
>>> Thanks to Martin and Priya for their precise answers about the
>>> location and scribe of the manuscript.
>>>
>>> I had no idea that it could have been written in Tukoji Rao's
>>> camp or residence, and didn't imagine that rāmāṃkabhūpāla could
>>> be a bhūtasaṃkhyā. Actually, Monier-Williams /Dictionary /gives
>>> 3 for rāma and there are 9 āṃka (without the 0), but I don't
>>> find in MW the value 16 for bhūpāla.
>>> The fact that the scribe uses a śloka, as in the traditional
>>> Sanskrit mathematical texts, and that the author recommends to
>>> use the letters ka, kha, ga, etc. to name the geometrical
>>> points, instead of the abjad notation used in the Jaipur's
>>> /rekhāgaṇita/ and its Arabic model, also points to a more
>>> traditional and Hindu context.
>>>
>>> Thanks again,
>>>
>>> Jean Michel Delire, Brussels
>>>
>>>
>>> Le mer. 2 sept. 2026 à 19:09, Martin Gansten via INDOLOGY
>>> <indology at list.indology.info> a écrit :
>>>
>>> Apologies to the list for my many posts today, but naturally
>>> the solution is to eliminate the superfluous /ṃ /at the end
>>> of /daśamyāṃ/. This will give /daśamyām alikhad bālakṛṣṇo/.
>>> Mystery solved, verb restored, and the verse does seem to
>>> refer to the scribe after all (since the author has already
>>> been identified in the colophon).
>>>
>>> Martin
>>>
>>>
>>> Den 2026-09-02 kl. 19:01, skrev Martin Gansten:
>>>>
>>>> I'll have to correct that: as was just pointed out to me
>>>> off-list, what I read in haste as an 'e' stroke in fact
>>>> belongs to a ha from the line above, and the semi-legible
>>>> letter after kṛ is more probably ṣṇo, giving
>>>> malikhadvālakṛṣṇo. A personal rather than place name? No
>>>> verb, though, if this reading is correct.
>>>>
>>>> Martin
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Den 2026-09-02 kl. 17:21, skrev Martin Gansten:
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear Priya and all,
>>>>>
>>>>> I agree that this is intriguing, and it did occur to me
>>>>> that /tu/ might properly be a part of what followed rather
>>>>> than a separate particle, but I didn't have the background
>>>>> knowledge to identify Tukoji Rao. I imagine, though, that
>>>>> this short prose phrase (/dillīnagare tukorāvakaṭake/)
>>>>> refers to the copying of the manuscript, whereas the verse
>>>>> dating speaks of the book itself being completed (/kṛto
>>>>> gaṇitapustakam/ [sic]), so the date and the Tukoji
>>>>> reference don't necessarily go together. In fact,
>>>>> /malikhadvāle/ in the verse looks like a possible place
>>>>> name and could refer to where the work itself was written,
>>>>> although I have no idea of what or where that is.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best wishes,
>>>>> Martin
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Den 2026-09-02 kl. 16:12, skrev Priyamvada Nambrath via
>>>>> INDOLOGY:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> It appears to me that the location sentence parses as
>>>>>> 'dillīnagare tukorāva-kaṭake' - translating to 'in the
>>>>>> military camp/ residence of Tuko Rao in the city of Delhi.'
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Śaka 1693 translates, as you note, to 1771-72 CE, which
>>>>>> aligns very nicely with Tukoji Rao Holkar I. In this
>>>>>> exact period, Tukoji Rao was involved in a successful
>>>>>> Maratha campaign against the Mughal Emperor, Shah Alam,
>>>>>> in Delhi, and won some significant concessions. He is
>>>>>> known more for his military accomplishments; so if it is
>>>>>> the same person that is referred to here, the fact that a
>>>>>> geometry textbook was being written inside his garrison
>>>>>> while he was engaged in a battle with Delhi is fascinating.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> All best,
>>>>>> Priya
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>
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