Source materials concerning Astronomy and Mathematics

Abstract

Source materials concerning Astronomy and Mathematics comprise the unpublished manuscripts of palm leaves, birch or paper, some published manuscripts, research articles, and texts, which may include even literary and philosophical compositions. Unpublished manuscripts pose a serious problem as a large number of them are worm eaten and brittle. The manuscript catalogues including the descriptive ones, are not adequate to serve the purpose for a systematic study of the History of Indian Science. What is necessary os a long drawn study of the manuscript materials, bith published and unpublished, with assessment of the contents, the identity of authors in view of the existence of several authors bearing the same name, their dates and relationship to the different schools to which they belonged and related informations. A partial attempt was made through a Bibliography published by the National Institute of Sciences of India in 1966. But this work now requires to be extended as a long-term study basis to clear up the difficulty mentioned above.