INTRODUCTI0N
The present volume, issued as Part III the Critical Edition of the Aryabhatiya, carries the textual verses of Aryabhata with the commentary called Bhata-prakasika by Suryadeva Yajvan (b. A.D. 1191) who belonged to Gangapuri or Gangaikonda-Colapuram in South India. Suryadeva's commentary, which is published here critically for the first time, attempts to present a compact exposition of the Aryabhatiya. It is a commentary which is neither too discursive nor all too-brief, which can be expected to give a fair idea of the views of Aryabhata on mathematics and astronomy.
1. CRITICAL APPARATUS
1. Manuscript material
The present edition of Aryabhatiya and Suryadeva Yajvan's commentary thereon is based on five mutually independent palm leaf manuscripts, all of which are reliable and complete. All of them are inscribed in the Malayalam script and are deposited in the Kerala University Oriental Research Institute and Manuscripts Library, Trivandrum. All the mss. contain both the text and the commentary. The brief descriptions of these manuscripts given below are intended to draw attention to their physical features and internal characteristics.
A. Ms No. C. 224-A, described in the Descriptive Catalogue of Sanskrit Mss. in the Curator's office, Trivandrum, Vol. IV, pp. 1355 ff., under Cata. No. 641-A. A modern transcript of this manuscript is available in the Library under No. T. 24. The present work is the first in a codex of astronomical works procured from the scholarly royal house of the erst while principality of Edappalli in Central Kerala. The ms. contains 75 folios, 30 cm. x 4 cm., with 9-10 lines a page and about 50 letters per line. The ms. is legibly inscribed but no scribe is named. It is well preserved and presents a generally reliable text. There is no mention, at the end of the work of the date of transcription, but another work in the codex, being Tantrasagraha of Nilakantha, gives the date of its transcription, in a post-colophonic statement, as Kollam era 928, equivalent to A.D. 1753. This date might be taken as the date of the present Aryabhatkya ms. as well. A postcolophonic statement to the last work in the codex, Siddhantasekhara,
