Page:Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata, English translation.djvu/8

viii "warrior," and bhatta means "learned man," "scholar." Āryabhatta is the spelling which would naturally be expected. However, all the metrical evidence seems to favor the spelling with one t. It is claimed by some that the metrical evidence is inclusive, that bhata has been substituted for bhatta for purely metrical reasons, and does not prove that Āryabhata is the correct spelling. It is pointed out that Kern gives the name of the commentator whom he edited as Paramādīsvara. The name occurs in this form in a stanza at the beginning of the text and in another at the end, but in the prose colophons at the ends of the first three sections the name is given as Parameśvara, and this doubtless is the correct form. However, until more definite historical or metrical evidence favoring the spelling Āryabhatta is produced I prefer to keep the form Āryabhata.

The Āryabhatīya is divided into four sections which contain in all only 123 stanzas. It is not a complete and detailed working manual of mathematics and astronomy. It seems rather to be a brief descriptive work intended to supplement matters and processes which were generally known and agreed upon, to give only the most distinctive features of Āryabhata's own system. Many commonplaces and many simple processes are taken for granted. For instance, there are no rules to indicate the method of calculating the ahargana and of finding the mean places of the planets. But rules are given for calculating the true places from the mean places by applying certain corrections, although even here there is no statement of