Overview
This groundbreaking volume provides an up-to-date, accessible guide to Sanskrit astronomical tables and their analysis. It begins with an overview of Indian mathematical astronomy and its literature, including table texts, in the context of history of pre-modern astronomy. It then discusses the primary mathematical astronomy content of table texts and the attempted taxonomy of this genre before diving into the broad outlines of their representation in the Sanskrit scientific manuscript corpus. Finally, the authors survey the major categories of individual tables compiled in these texts, complete with brief analyses of some of the methods for constructing and using them, and then chronicle the evolution of the table-text genre and the impacts of its changing role on the discipline of Sanskrit jyotiṣa. There are also three appendices: one inventories all the identified individual works in the genre currently known to the authors; one provides reference information about the details of all the notational, calendric, astronomical, and other classification systems invoked in the study; and one serves as a glossary of the relevant Sanskrit terms.
Full Product Details
Author: Clemency Montelle ,
Kim Plofker
Publisher: Springer International Publishing AG
Imprint: Springer International Publishing AG
Edition: 1st ed. 2018
Weight: 0.647kg
ISBN: 9783319970363
ISBN 10: 3319970364
Pages: 308
Publication Date: 19 March 2019
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
The authors and the publisher are to be congratulated for bringing to the market and our reference shelves a thorough, well-organized, deeply-researched, and beautifully presented book. ... I am by no means qualified to comment on the particulars of the authors' analyses of the manuscripts they examined. I can say that I enjoyed reading the book and that it broadened my thinking about what mathematics is and what mathematicians do. (Scott Guthery, MAA Reviews, August 24, 2019)
The book is rich in various technical details from mathematical astronomy that serious students and researchers would benefit from. There is nevertheless a good deal of material that would be accessible to a wider class of readers. ... The book under review will no doubt inspire further studies on the topic, serving in particular as a source of technical support for them, and thereby expand the horizons of the topic. (S. G. Dani, Mathematical Reviews, April, 2020) The authors and the publisher are to be congratulated for bringing to the market and our reference shelves a thorough, well-organized, deeply-researched, and beautifully presented book. ... I am by no means qualified to comment on the particulars of the authors' analyses of the manuscripts they examined. I can say that I enjoyed reading the book and that it broadened my thinking about what mathematics is and what mathematicians do. (Scott Guthery, MAA Reviews, August 24, 2019)
