Thank you very much, Lubomir, for uploading this edition, and David, for pointing to the book, which I will certainly use for my course on History of Indian mathematics (and astronomy).

Also for this course, I am nowadays struggling with a part of the Lalitavistara, where the Buddha is showing his ability in numbers. His enumeration of powers of 10, from the koṭi to the tallakṣaṇa, is very clear. But things become obscure when he continues his enumeration with other (supposed) powers of 10. The problem is that he says that the next one, the dhvajāgravatī, is able to count all the sand of the Gaṅgā, while the sixth one, the sarvanikṣepa, is able to count all the sand of ten Gaṅgā. How is it possible if every unit equals the previous one multiplied by ten (and what else could it be) ? Apart from noting that this kind of enumeration and its use for counting the sand reminds very much Archimede's Sandreckoner, I must add that there are discrepancies between the two translations I know (de Foucaux 1988 (1884) and Goswami 2001) and also with the 'sanskrit' text of Śāntibhikṣu Śāstrī 1984. After this enumeration, comes a scale which rely the last unit, the paramāṇurajaḥpraveśānugata, to the yojana, by multiplying it by 7 ten times, and then again by 12, 2, 4, 1000 and 4, so that a yojana equals 7¹⁰.12.2.4.1000.4 paramāṇurajaḥpraveśānugatas. And, of course, the Buddha asks if somebody can tell how many paramāṇurajaḥpraveśānugatas would contain a bowl of 1 yojana. Here again, the answer seems awkward for it amounts to 10²⁸ while it should be more than 10⁴¹. Does anyone have an explanation for these mistakes, or know of a paper or a book which discusses these problems ?

Best regards,

Jean Michel

Jean Michel DELIRE

Lecturer on History of mathematics - IHEB (ULB)

Lecturer on Science and civilisation of India - Sanskrit Texts - IHEB (ULB)

Member of the Centre National d'Histoire des Sciences (KBR, Bruxelles)

Member of the Société Asiatique (Paris)

Le lun. 10 avr. 2023 à 10:37, Lubomír Ondračka via INDOLOGY <indology@list.indology.info> a écrit :

I just uploaded the pdf of the book that David sent me:
https://archive.org/details/suryasiddhanta-shukla

If anyone have the pdf of Sumatitantram that David writes about in the
next email, please send it to me, I would be happy to upload it on
archive.org as well.

Best
Lubomir


On 09.04.2023 21:51, David and Nancy Reigle via INDOLOGY wrote:
> I was wondering if there is a critical edition of the /Sūrya-siddhānta/.
> I could not find one. However, there is something very close to one,
> although it is not called a critical edition. It is Kripa Shankar
> Shukla's edition, /The Sūrya-siddhānta with the Commentary of
> Paramesvara/. Lucknow University: Department of Mathematics and
> Astronomy, 1957. For the text of the /Sūrya-siddhānta/, he gives full
> variant readings from manuscripts of the text as commented on by
> Mallikārjuna Sūri (1178 CE), Yallaya (1472 CE), and Rāmakṛṣṇa Ārādhya
> (1472 CE), besides from the printed edition of Raṅganātha's commentary
> edited by Jīvānanda Vidyāsāgara. He says that he also consulted the
> commentaries by Bhūdhara (1572 CE) and Tamma Yajvā (1599 CE) for
> deciding between certain readings. Of course, the text is based on the
> commentary by Parameśvara (1432 CE), which predates the commonly used
> commentary by Raṅganātha (1603 CE) by nearly two centuries. When he has
> chosen a reading different from Parameśvara's, he cites Parameśvara's
> reading as mū. pustake, for mūla-pustake.
>
> I did not find a digital copy of Shukla's edition online, but I have
> scanned the photocopy I made of it. Happy to send it to anyone who wants
> it. Perhaps someone who knows how can upload it to the web.
>
>
> Best regards,
>
> David Reigle
>
> Colorado, U.S.A.
>
>
>
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