Crown of Treatises: Chapter on Mathematics

Who was Shesha? There is no actual evidence of this. The commentary of Somakara is also of two types—in the larger version, Somakara's name appears at the beginning and Shesha's at the end. In the smaller version, neither name is present. All the ancient manuscripts that have been found are in a severely degraded state, filled with omissions, errors, and variant readings. Due to numerous contradictions in the original commentary, both local and foreign mathematical scholars have long been distressed in their attempts to interpret its meaning. †

From the Vedanga Jyotisha The "Vedanga Jyotisha" is one of the earliest known Indian texts on astronomy, dated to the first millennium BCE, used to determine the timing for Vedic rituals. we learn—the Sun's northward journey Uttarayana: the winter solstice begins from the start of the Shravishtha (Dhanishtha) The 23rd lunar mansion or nakshatra. constellation, and the southward journey Dakshinayana: the summer solstice begins from the middle of the Ashlesha constellation.

† The late Honorable Shankar Balkrishna Dikshit of Poona wrote a very important historical book in Marathi titled Bharatiya Jyotishshastra History of Indian Astronomy. To date, such a book has not been written in any other language. In it, he demonstrated the interpretation and mathematical rationale of some verses of the Vedanga Jyotisha as the occasion arose, and Dr. Thibaut George Thibaut (1848–1914), a German-British Indologist of Benares also derived the rationale for several verses. However, the consistency of the entire text was not established—scholars untangled the meaning only as far as their individual insights allowed. This miserable state of "grinding the already ground" A Sanskrit idiom (pishta-peshana) referring to repetitive, fruitless effort persisted for years, and eventually, people fell silent. In 1907, Barhaspatya (Lala Chotelal, Executive Engineer, P.W.D., United Provinces), having collected the writings of old scholars and ancient books of the Vedanga, determined the correct readings and published his own English commentary with full mathematical proofs. He was completely successful in this task and received full credit. That commentary appeared in the Hindustan Review of Prayag and was also issued as a reprint; it caused a great sensation. Great scholars praised it. Immediately upon its publication, Shri Sudhakar Dwivedi also released the Vedanga Jyotisha along with his own "Sudhakar Commentary." While critiquing the explanations of the ancient commentators, Dikshit, Thibaut, and Barhaspatya, he became an independent commentator himself. At that time, a debate also took place between Dwivedi and Barhaspatya—articles were published, and a great spectacle unfolded. Articles were also published in the journal Saraswati.