Candidasa (2 results)
Seller: Redins antikvariat, Enköping, SwedenRedins antikvariat
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Add to basketBasantarañjana Raya (editor). Kalika?ta? [Calcutta], Ban?gi?ya-sa?hitya-paris?ad. Printed by R. C. Mittra, at the Visvakosa press, 1323 [1915/1916]. 45,28,814 pages + 7 plates. Soft covers.*400 pages text + 414 pages notes.[#216020].
- Manuscript
Seller: Daniel Crouch Rare Books Ltd, London, United KingdomDaniel Crouch Rare Books Ltd
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Add to basketThe earliest extant Sanskrit astrolabe Brass astrolabe, elaborate throne, mater, womb, rete, six plates of later manufacture, with text, alidade. The earliest extant Sanskrit astrolabe, commissioned by an Indian astronomer for his son's education. The Astrolabe The astrolabe, sometimes called the slide rule of the heavens, can t…race its history back to Hellenistic times. The smart phone of its day, it could perform numerous functions: calculate the time of day or night; determine your position; show the movement and identify of heavenly bodies; cast horoscopes; help you navigate the oceans, and survey all the land you can see. From its Mediterranean origins, the astrolabe was preserved and developed by Islamic scholars in the Middle East for centuries. In 1017 Persian polymath Al-Biruni travelled to India, bringing with him the instrument. His treatise on the land's culture and religion, known simply as 'India', mentions a manual on the astrolabe that the author claims to have written in Sanskrit verse. Although no such manual exists today, it seems clear that the astrolabe was introduced into India in the early eleventh century. Astrolabes first began to be manufactured in India over three hundred years later, following the establishment of a new sultanate at Delhi, which encouraged the migration of Islamic scholars learned in astronomy and astrology. Under Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq a Jain astronomer named Mahendra Suri received royal patronage to compose a Sanskrit manual on the instrument, which he named 'Yantraraja' ('the king of astronomical instruments'). Over the subsequent centuries hundreds, if not thousands, of astrolabes were manufactured in India, of which the present item is the earliest surviving example. Dating The astrolabe has a six-line inscription in the womb of the mater, written in a combination of Sanskrit and medieval Gujurati common at this time. It reads: "In Samvat 1663, Saka 1528 current, on the first of Magha, on Sunday, at the city of Ahmedabad, during the reign of the illustrious Salim Shah, [this] astrolabe was caused to be made by the astrologer Candidasa for the purpose of the reading of [his] son Damodara." This date was originally thought to correspond to February 1, 1607, but more sophisticated conversion programmes have led experts more recently to conclude that Sunday December 25, 1605, is the date on which manufacture of the astrolabe was completed. Supporting this earlier date is the fact that just two months earlier, Salim Shah had ascended to the throne of the Mughal Empire at Agra and assumed the royal name Nur al-Din Jahangir. It is much more likely that an instrument completed two months after this change, and perhaps begun before it, would bear the old name than one made a year and a half later. As a result, the present item is the earliest extant Sanskrit astrolabe. Although it is likely that the instruments were being produced in India as early as the fourteenth century, since the first Sanskrit manual on astrolabes was made in 1370, no earlier example has been discovered. Attribution The inscription notes that the astrolabe was commissioned ("caused to be made") by Candidasa for the instruction of his son Damodara. Unlike among Islamic scholars, and despite the popularity of the astrolabe among Indian astronomers, the manufacture of astrolabes never became a specialist occupation in Indian, where skilled Hindu metal-workers produced the instruments on commission. It would generally be the responsibility of the astronomer to prepare drawings of the astrolabe they wanted made, and give them to a willing bronze-worker to be produced. As a result, inscriptions in Sanskrit astrolabes typically name the patron rather than the maker. Another result is that often display typographical errors, especially to the names of celestial bodies, as the craftsmen responsible for them were not themselves experts in astronomy. Rarity Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma, Professor of Sanskrit at Aligarh Muslim University and expert on Sanskrit astrolabes identifies 130 extant Sanskrit astrolabes, made in Gujurat and Rajasthan between 1605 and 1903. They are mainly held in museums and institutions, and their appearance on the market is rare. The present astrolabe is the earliest known example of such an instrument. Full description of the Astrolabe Recto The mater of the astrolabe consists of a brass disc 10.3mm in thickness with a raised rim, the limb, engraved with the degree scale in two bands. The inner band is graduated in single degrees, and the outer every three degrees, identified with Devanagari numerals in western Indian style. At the centre of the womb beneath the attribution inscription is a pin hole and pin, with which the latitude plates are held firmly in position. The mater is surmounted by an elaborate throne with a wide base, pierced to form an ornate pattern of foliage. A short inscription reads "salutation to the divine eye". A hole at the top of the throne above the inscription allows the astrolabe to be attached to the suspension shackle and ring, on which it is hung vertically and is able to rotate 360 degrees. The Plates The womb of the mater accommodates six thin circular discs bearing stereographic projections of the heavens from distinct terrestrial latitudes. These latitude discs are 252mm in diameter and have two holes, one in the centre at the site of the North Pole, through which they are slotted onto the mater's central pin, and another on the lower half to keep the plates from rotating. On each of the plates the four cardinal directions are marked, with east-west and north-south lines. Three concentric circles represent the tropics and the celestial equator. The local horizon is presented, and above the horizon circle, parallel altitude circles, or almucantars, are drawn. Unlike on Islamic astrolabes, Sanskrit instruments rarely bear azimuth lines, which do not appear on the present example. The lower half of each plate has the three sem.
