CHAPTER I MEAN LONGITUDES OF THE PLANETS Homage to the Sun : 1. I bow to the Sun— to Him with the help of whose mo- tion this true motion of the heavenly bodies is inferred even though the methods (adopted for the purpose by different writers) be different. Homage to Aryabhata I : 2. Victorious is Aryafchata whose excellent fame has crossed the bounds of the (Indian) oceans and whose (treatise on astronomical) science leads to accurate results in far off places (even) after the lapse of so much time. Appreciation of Aryabhata I and his work : 3. None except Aryabhata has been able to know the motion of the heavenly bodies : there the others (merely) move in the ocean of utter darkness of ignorance {ajnanabahaladhvanta- sagara) . Sankaranarayana reads alafn in place of nalam and so he interprets the passage as follows : "Those who endeavour to determine the motion of the planets with the help of other astronomical works than the Aryabhatlya move in vain in the ocean of utter darkness of ignorance". The compound word ajnanabahaladhvatitasagaramzy also be interpreted to mean "the ocean of the darkness of utter ignorance". in th? T ,0giZing * r yabhata T and his work on mathematics and astronomy n the above stanzas the author has indicated the system of astronomy that he 1S going to follow in the present work. A rule for calculating the ahargana : 4-8. Add 3179 to the (number of elapsed) years of the fcaka era. (then) multiply (the resulting sum) by 12, and (then) add the (number of lunar) months (expired) since the com-
