MAHENDRA S?RI

(fl. western India, 1370)

astronomy.

A Jain and a pupil of Madana S?ri of Bh?gupura (Broach, Gujarat), Mahendra S?ri wrote the first Sanskrit treatise on the astrolabe, the Yantrar?ja (1370). He evidently used an Islamic source (see essay in Supplement); in it, for instance, R = 3600’ = 60 parts; e = 1415’ = 23;35°. Furthermore, the commentary by his pupil, Malayendu S?ri, lists the latitudes of ? dane (Aden), Makk? (Mecca), Badas?as?na (Badakhshan), Balas?a (Balkh), Nayas?pura (N?sh?p?r), Samarakanda (Samarkand), K?sag?ra(Kashgar), and other Islamic cities, as well as “Hims?rapiroj?v?da which is inhabited by the king P?roja” (the king is Fir?z Sh?h Tughlaq [1351–1388], and the place the His?ar palace begun by F?r? at Firozabad, near Delhi, in 1354), and both the Persian and the Indian (Sanskrit) names of thirty-two stars.

There is another commentary on the Yantrar?ja by Gop?r?ja (1540) and a set of examples for the year 1512.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Yantrar?ja was edited, with Malayendu’ commentary, by Sudh?kara Dvivedin (Benares, 1882) and by K. K. Raikva (Bombay, 1936). There are notices on Mahendra in S. Dvivedin, Ganakataran¯gin? (Benares, 1933), pp. 48–49, repr. from The Pandit, n.s. 14 (1892); and in ?. B. D?ks?ita, Bh?ratiya Jyoti???stra (Poona, 1896; repr. Poona, 1931), p. 351 in repr. See also S. L. Katre, “Sult?n F?r?z Sh?h Tughluk: Royal Patron of a Contemporary Sanskrit Work,” in Journal of Indian History, 45 (1967), 357–367.

David Pingree