Pancasiddhantika

There is some reason for fear that the feeling of any one who may examine in detail this edition and translation of Varaha Mihira’s astronomical work will, in the first place, be wonder at the boldness of the editors.  I am indeed fully conscious that on the imperfect materials at our disposal an edition in the strict sense of the word cannot be based, and that what we are able to offer at present deserves no other name but that of a first attempt to give a general idea of the contents of the Panchasiddhantika.  It would, in these circumstances, possibly have been wiser to delay an edition of the work until more correct Manuscripts have been discovered.  Two considerations, however, in the end induced us no longer to keep back the results, however imperfect, of our long continued endeavours to restore and elucidate the text of the Panchasiddhantika.  In the first place we were encouraged by the consideration that texts of purely mathematical or astronomical contents may, without great disadvantages, be submitted to a much rougher and bolder treatment than texts of other kinds.  What interests us in these works, is almost exclusively their matter, not either their general style or the particular words employed, and the peculiar nature of the subject often enables us to restore with nearly absolute certainty the general meaning of passages the single words of which are past trustworthy emendation.  And, in the second place, we feel convinced that even from that part of the Panchsiddhantika which we are able to explain more is to be learned about the early history of Sanskrit Astronomy than from any other work which has come down to our time.