Kamalakara (1616 â 1700) was an Indian astronomer and mathematician. He came from a learned family of scholars from Golagrama, a village in Maharashtra State near Partha-puri (Pathari) on the northern bank of the river GodÃÂvarë. His father, Nrsimha, was born in 1586. Two of Kamalakara's three brothers were also astronomers and mathematicians. Divakara, born in 1606, was the eldest of the brothers and Ranganatha was youngest. KamalÃÂkara learnt astronomy from his elder brother DivÃÂkara, who compiled five works on astronomy. His family later moved to VÃÂrÃÂá¹Âasë.
KamalÃÂkara's major work, "SiddhÃÂntatattvaviveka", was compiled in Varanasi in about 1658, and was published by Sudhakar Dwivedi in the VÃÂrÃÂá¹Âasë series. This work consists of 13 chapters in 3,024 verses. It deals with the topics of: units of time measurement, mean motions of the planets, true longitudes of the planets, the three problems of diurnal rotation, diameters and distances of the planets, the Earth's shadow, the Moon's crescent, risings and settings, syzygies, lunar and solar eclipses, planetary transits across the Sun's disk, the patas of the Moon and Sun; the "great problems", along with a conclusion. His other works include à Âeá¹£avÃÂsanàand SauravÃÂsanÃÂ. KamalÃÂkara was bitterly opposed to Munishvara, the author of SiddhÃÂntasÃÂrvabhauma.
It is wrongly believed by some modern sources that KamalÃÂkara discovered that the pole star we see at present was not exactly at the pole. But this ideas was first expressed in Brahmanda Purana and Matsya Purana by sage Veda Vyasa: "uttAnapAda-putro-asau meDhibhooto dhruvo divi | sa hi bhraman bhtaamayate nityam chandraadityau grahaiH saha" (Uttanapada's son Dhruva is fixed like a pole in the Heaven, but it is moving itself and is making all the planets together with Sun and Moon move). KamalÃÂkara's contribution was to rediscover this forgotten idea.
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