Lāt
Lāṭadeva
(fl. India, ca. A.D. 505),
astronomy.
Lāṭadeva, a pupil of Āryabhara I (b 476), was perhaps originally from Lāṭadeśa in southern Gujarat. He is known primarily through citations in the Pañcasiddhāantikā of Varāhamihira (sixth century) and in the commentary on the Brāhmasphutasiddhānta by Prthūdakasvāmin (ca. 864); the fragments are collected in O. Neugebauer and D. Pingree, The Pañcasiddhāntiā of Varāhamihira.
Lāṭadeva is said by Varāhamihira to have commented on the Romakasiddhānta and the Pauliśasidd-hānta, which represent Greek and Greco-Babylonian astronomical techniques in Sanskrit (see essay in Supplement); he is evidently also responsible for a revision of the Sūryasiddhānta whereby it came to conform to the ārddharātrikapaksa of his teacher, Āryabhata I. His epoch for that work was 20/21 March 505.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
All the available material concerning Lāṭadeva and his works will be found in O. Neugebauer and D. Pingree, The Pañcasiddhāntikā of Varāhamihira (Copenhagen, 1970), pt. 1, pp. 14-15.
David Pingree