Kamalakara


Kamalakara, an Indian astronomer and mathematician, came from a learned family of scholars from Golagrāma, a village on the northern bank of the river Godāvarī. His father was Nrsimha who was born in 1586. Two of Kamalakara's three brothers were also astronomer and mathematicians: Divakara, who was the eldest of the brothers born in 1606, and Ranganatha who was youngest. Kamalākara learnt astronomy from his elder brother Divākara, who compiled five works on astronomy. His family later moved to Vārāṇasī.

Major works

Kamalākara's major work, "Siddhāntatattvaviveka", was compiled in Varanasi at about 1658 and has been published by Sudhakar Dwivedi in the Vārāṇasī series. This work consists of 13 chapters in 3,024 verses. It deals with the topics of: units of time measurement; mean motions of the planets; true longitudes of the planets; the three problems of diurnal rotation; diameters and distances of the planets; the earth's shadow; the moon's crescent; risings and settings; syzygies; lunar eclipses, solar eclipses; planetary transits across the sun's disk; the patas of the moon and sun; the "great problems"; along a conclusion. His other works include Śeṣavāsanā and Sauravāsanā. Kamalākara was bitterly opposed to Munishvara, the author of Siddhāntasārvabhauma.
It is wrongly believed by some moderners that Kamalākara discovered the idea that the pole star we see at present is not exactly at the pole. But this ideas was first expressed in Brahmananda Purana and Matsya Purana by sage Veda Vyaasa: "uttAnapAda-putro-asau meDhibhooto dhruvo divi | sa hi bhraman bhtaamayate nityam chandraadityau grahaiH saha ||". The meaning of this expression is "Uttanapada's son Dhruva is fixed like a pole in the Heaven, but it is moving itself and is making all the planets together with Sun and Moon move".
Kamalākara's contribution was to rejuvenate this forgotten idea.

Contributions