Śatānanda (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1068–1099) was an Indian

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

best known from his manual the ''Bhāsvatī'' (1099). Śatānanda is thought to have lived in

Puri Puri, also known as Jagannath Puri, () is a coastal city and a Nagar Palika, municipality in the state of Odisha in eastern India. It is the district headquarters of Puri district and is situated on the Bay of Bengal, south of the state ca ...

Ujjain Ujjain (, , old name Avantika, ) or Ujjayinī is a city in Ujjain district of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the fifth-largest city in Madhya Pradesh by population and is the administrative as well as religious centre of Ujjain ...

and drew from other texts including the Suryasiddhanta of Varahamihira. Śatānanda was the son of Sankara and Saraswati, born in

Odisha Odisha (), formerly Orissa (List of renamed places in India, the official name until 2011), is a States and union territories of India, state located in East India, Eastern India. It is the List of states and union territories of India by ar ...

. He may have served in the court of the Kesari dynasty. Some sources suggest he lived in Ujjain. His name literally means the "joy of hundreds" in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

and he used centesimal numbering in his astronomical manual ''Bhasvati'' published in 1099. The book has eight short chapters with 128 verses which include methods for preparing almanacs. He also includes methods for computing the longitudinal positions of the planets. Using 528 CE as a reference he computed the annual

precession Precession is a change in the orientation of the rotational axis of a rotating body. In an appropriate reference frame it can be defined as a change in the first Euler angle, whereas the third Euler angle defines the rotation itself. In o ...

rate as 1 minute. The sections include: * Tithyādidhruvādhikāra (Tithi Dhruva) * Grāhadhruvādhikāra (Graha Dhruva) * Pancāngaspastādhikāra (Calculation of Calendar) * Grahaspasfādhikāra (True place of Planets) * Triprasnādhikāra (Three problems: Time, Place and Direction) * Chandragrahanâdhikâra (Lunar Eclipse) * Sûryagrahanādhikāra (Solar Eclipse) * Parilekhādhikāra (Sketch or graphical presentations of eclipses) Several contemporary commentaries of the book were also published. Aniruddha, a son of Bhavadasa of Varanasi, wrote a commentary (''tika'') on Satananda's ''Bhasvati'' in 1495 CE.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Satananda 11th-century Indian astronomers