Treatises and tables, algorithms and approximations: the role of computation in early modern Sanskrit astronomy (Q2928872)

Towards the middle of the second millennium BCE, a significant part of Sanskrit mathematical astronomy shifted its focus and format from traditional verse treatises and handbooks to a bewildering variety of table texts. While the classical Sanskrit astronomical handbook shortens and simplifies the procedures from theoretical astronomy treatises for greater ease and speed in calculation, the table text takes a different path: eliminating most computational algorithms in favor of precomputed tabulated values of functions. NEWLINENEWLINEThis paper traces the historical development of these two different types of approach adopted by Indian mathematicians and compares their approaches to mathematical astronomy problems, illustrating the role of computational methods in their evolution. According to the author, the use of textual genres of ``tables'' and ``short formula'' and the neglect of ``siddhanta'' is one of the main reasons for the alleged ``decline'' and ``undermining'' of Indian knowledge of astronomical theory. A comparison of the two different approaches has been illustrated by taking one specific example, namely, techniques for finding ecliptic declination. The Indian mathematician Bhaskara II had composed both a demonstrably correct trigonometric rule and a clever numerically tweaked algebraic approximation for a quantity like ecliptic declination.