Mahendra Suri

Mahendra Suri (1340-1410) is the 14th century Jain astronomer who wrote the Yantraraja, the first Indian treatise on the astrolabe.

Astrolobe [Universe within one's palm] is a higly sophisticated astromical intrument of the pre-modern times. It is a versatile observational and computational instrument. As an observational instrument, it was employed for measuring the altitudes of heavenly bodies and for measuring the heights and distances in land survery. As an computational device, it can simulate the motion of the heavens at any given locality and time. It was also an analog computer for solving numerous problems in sphercial trignometry.

He was a pupil of Madana Suri. Mahendra Suri acted as a mediator between the Islamic and sanskritic tradition of learning.

The Yantraraja or "the king of astronomical instruments" is divided into five chapters
Chapter 1: Ganitadhyaya provides trigonometical parameters needed for the construction of astrolabe.
Chapter 2: Yantraghatanadhaya enumerates the different parts of astrolabe
Chapter 3: Yantraracanadhyaya construciton of common northern astrolabe and other variants
Chapter 4: Yantrasodhanadhyaya the method of verifying whether the astrolabe is properly constructed or not
Chapter 5: Yantravicaranadhyaya the use of astrolabe as an observational and computational instrument and dwells on the various problems in astronomy and spherical trinometry that can be solved using astrolabe

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