Vākyapañcāṅga
Types of Tamil almanac / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Two types of almanacs are popular among the Tamil speaking people in India, and the world over. They are known by the names Vākyapañcāṅga and Thirugaṇita-pañcāṅga. The latter is also known as Dṛggaṇita pañcāṅga. This is not to be confused with the Dṛggaṇita pañcāṅga, the nearly unanimous choice of almanac of Malayalam speaking people, established by Vatasseri Parameshvara Nambudiri (c. 1380–1460) who was a major Indian mathematician and astronomer of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics founded by Madhava of Sangamagrama. The Vākyapañcāṅga is based on the astronomical data and computational methods propounded in the various Siddhānta texts like the Sūrya-Siddhānta and uses the text Vākyakaraṇa of anonymous authorship as the basic source book. The Thirugaṇita-pañcāṅga is based on the modern values of the various astronomical parameters and incorporates modern formulas and computational schemes. It was introduced by Chinthamani Ragoonatha Chary (1822 – 5 February 1880) an Indian astronomer attached to the then Madras Observatory.[1][2]