THE SALUTARY SIMPLIFICATIONS IN ASTRONOMICAL PROCEDURES BY GAṆEŚA DAIVAJÑA

Gaṇeśa Daivajña is one of the great luminaries of post–Bhāskara period who is responsible for upholding the great tradition of Indian astronomy and Mathematics through his very creative and popular works. Gaṇeśa has simplified the procedures of computations of planetary positions and eclipses by completely dispensing with trigonometric functions, without sacrificing the correctness of the results. These procedures are otherwise laborious by the traditional methods. For this reason, even today, his works are famous among pañcāṅga makers in most parts of India. This paper presents the special features of his popular text <italic>Grahalāghava</italic> and its computational effectiveness in the calculations of planetary positions and eclipses.