INTRODUCTION.

Varaha Mihira a great Indian astronomer was a native of Avanti modern-day Ujjain and the son of Adityadasa sun-servant who was an astronomer and from whom he received his education as he himself tells us in his Brihat Jataka Great Birth-chart (Chap. XXVI Verse 5). The date of his birth is involved in obscurity. It is the practice of all the Hindu astronomers to give this information in their works on astronomy; but unfortunately Varaha Mihira’s work on astronomy, known as the Panchasidhantika Five Astronomical Treatises, is now lostOur subscribers, especially those of N. W. P. and Bengal, are requested to give the matter some attention and try if they can procure a copy of this excellent work. beyond all hope of recovery. The popular notion is that he was one of the 12 gems of the Court of Vikramarka King Vikrama. Now Vikrama Era the era established by King Vikrama, as we find from the Hindu calendar, dates from 56 B. C. whereas Varaha Mihira is considered to have flourished in the sixth century after Christ. So the Vikramarka of the first century before Christ must be different from the Vikramarka of the 6th century after Christ, unless we go to the length of believing that Vikramarka reigned, according to the Hindu legend, for a thousand years. We are not without parallel instances in the Christian Bible in which Enos is said to have lived 905 years, Cainan 910 years, Seth 912 years, Adam 930 years, Noah 950 years, Jared 962 years and Methusala 969 years; and yet poor non-biblical Vikramarka is grudged a comparatively small matter of 500 years.

Now A. D. 505 is considered by some to be the date of Varaha Mihira’s birth and by others to be that of his Panchasidhantika, and A. D. 587 is thought to be the date of his death. It is also said that Varaha Mihira has quoted from Aryabhatta a famous ancient mathematician; that Aryabhatta was born in 476 A. D. and that this circumstance goes to prove that the dates given above are probably not incorrect. We shall now examine how far these dates are supported by evidence to be obtained from Varaha Mihira’s own works—a circumstance which, curiously enough, appears to have escaped the attention of even such eminent scholars as Colebrook, Davis, Sir William Jones and others: