The archaic and the exotic : studies in the history of Indian astronomical instruments
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The archaic and the exotic : studies in the history of Indian astronomical instruments
Manohar, 2008
Available at 3 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
The Fifteen papers collected in this volume are related to the author's investigations into the history of astronomical instruments in India. This history, so far untouched by others, is dominated by two currents: on the one hand the resilience of certain archaic instruments that held sway for long, on the other the receptivity of Indian astronomers towards exotic instruments from other cultures. Hence the title: The Archaic and the Exotic. The first part of the volume seeks to define the context in which the author's studies on Indian instruments are undertaken and emphasises the need for a combined study of Sanskrit astronomical texts and the extant instruments, besides pictorial depictions of instruments, notably in Mughal miniature paintings. The four papers in part II are devoted to an 'archaic' instrument, namely the sinking bowl variety of water clock, its history, its technical specifications and a ritual connected to its installation. The astrolabe and the celestial globe are the exotic instruments received enthusiastically in India from the Islamic World.
The five papers in part III deal with the history of the astrolabe in India: its promotion by Firuz Shah Tughluq, the dominant role played in its production by a family of instrument makers from Lahore under the patronage of the Mughal rulers, Sanskrit manuals composed on it, and certain individual specimens of the Indo-Persian and Sanskrit astrolabes. The last two papers, comprising part IV, deal with the history of the celestial globe in India and the globes crafted by two seventeenth-century instrument makers.
Table of Contents
- Preface
- Indian Astronomical & Time-Measuring Instruments: A Catalogue in Preparation
- Astronomical Instruments in Brahmaguptas Brahmasphutasiddhanta
- Perpetual Motion Machines & their Design in Ancient India
- Astronomical Instruments in Mughal Miniatures
- The Bowl that Sinks & Tells Time
- Announcing Time: The Unique Methodat Hayatnagar, 1676
- Measuring Time with Long Syllables: Bhaskara Is Commentary on Aryabhatiya, Kalakriyapada 2
- Setting up the Water Clock for Telling the Time of Marriage
- Sultan Suri & the Astrolabe
- The Lahore Family of Astrolabists & their Ouvrage
- The Safiha Zarqaliyya in India
- Yantraraja: The Astrolabe in Sanskrit
- Katapayadi Notation on a Sanskrit Astrolabe
- From al-Kura to Bhagola: On the Dissemination of the Celestial Globe in India
- Two Mughal Celestial Globes
- Index.
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