Laghu Mānasa Vyākhyā – a 17th century astronomy manuscript in Kannaḍa

Abstract

We have studied two manuscripts as commentaries called Laghu Mānasa Vyākhyā and titled grahaṇānayanam. Our attempts to decipher the contents have revealed that they are commentaries in Sanskrit (the script is Kannada) on the 9th century manuscript called Laghu Mānasa by Munjalācarya. These two manuscripts have solved examples of eclipses of śaka 1528 (1606CE) and 1549 (1627CE); the procedure gives all the details to get the mean positions of the Sun, the Moon, and the nodes and subsequently, the timings and magnitude of eclipses. The first text is incomplete; the second has complete calculations. With the details provided for the procedure, we find that the method for finding the sine is unique and differs from that of Bhaskarācārya and Ganeśha Daivajnya. We present the calculations, verify them, and compare them with online software computations. The agreement is within the error limits of observations.