Aryabhatta : two or three persons ?

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The author of Aryabhatiya was most probably a brahmin, which is

evinced by the mangalaacharana at the start of Aryabhatiya. He hailed

perhaps from Maharashtra (Ashmaka janapada) but lived at the village

Khagola of Kusumpur (Patna); this village still bears the name Khagola

in his fond memory.

 

It is alleged that he did not adhere to the Vedic-Puranic concepts of

astrology/astronomy in many crucial fields. It is not true. The

theoretic framework of all his ideas were 100% according to

Vedic-Puranic tradition, including the bhoo-bramana-siddhaanta.

Geocentric or heliocentric theories are not found in any ancient text

of Vedic-Puranic tradition, we find everywhere references to

Merucentric view of the Cosmos, in which even the Earth must revolve

round the Meru. This Meru was on Eart's surface, not at its centre.

The Britishers renamed this Mt Meru as Mt Kenya and propagated wrong

notions of Geocentricism about ancient Indians. Geocentricism was an

invention of Roman Church, Indians believed in Merucentricism.

 

The fact that the author of Aryabhatiya was vehemently opposed by

Brahmagupta and others is wrongly used to prove non-brahmanical

origins of Aryabhatta. Brahmagupta and others opposed the author of

Aryabhatiya because Aryabhatiya tampered with the quantities in

yuga-bhagana-maana (mean motions of planets) and great time cycles.

Aryabhatiya adhered to the overall framework of old concepts but

changed the values of terms. Most probably, the reason was that any

authentic copy of Suryasiddhanta was not available to the author of

Aryabhatiya, hence he tried to evolve his own quantities. That is why

he did not mention Suryasiddhanta, which was lauded by Varah Mihir as

the most clear of all siddhhanta just half century after Aryabhatiya

was supposedly compiled.

 

Even this daye of compilation of Aryabhatiya based upon wrong

premises. Aryabhatiya uses AD 499 (3600 years after Kaliyuga) for its

Karana method of planetary computations, because AD was the date of

zero ayanamsha according to Suryasiddhantic and all ancient schools.

In Karana method, some nearby date is chosen for making the tables and

equations. If this date is previous yuga start then it is called

Tantra technique in Jyotisha, and if this date is chosen to be

beginning of Creation then it is called Siddhaanta technique. It is

noteworthy that in all these three methods of making panchangas, some

previous date is chosen, which has some important astronomical

significance. 499 AD was the year of zero ayanamsha. Hence, it was a

date preceding the compilation of Aryabhatiya.

 

There was another Aryabhatta who was a commentator of Suryasiddhanta.

Suryasiddhanta and Aryabhatiya have fundamental differences in two

important respects : Aryabhatiya does not adhere to Suryasiddhantic

quantities for mean motions in all cases, and Aryabhatiya changes the

sequence of processes needed in making true planets from mean planets.

All other astrologers/astronomers adhered to Suryasiddhantic schemes

in these respects, and rejected the values given in Aryabhatiya.

Planetary positions computed according to Aryabhatiya differ from

Suryasiddhantic planets by great margins even for 499 AD. Hence, it is

foolish to believe that the author of Aryabhatiya was same as the

commmentator of Suryasiddhanta, as many authors are propagating. These

modern authors have not tried to compute and compare planetary

positions according to ancient texts. Al Beruni had distinguished the

author of Aryabhatiya from the commentator of Suryasiddhanta. There

was a third Aryabhatta who wrote Mahasiddhanta much later, and broadly

followed Suryasiddhantic schemes.

 

-VJ