Pathani Samanta Chandrasekhar
Pathani Samanta Chandrasekhar: Mahamahopadhyaya Chandra Sekhar Simha Samanta Harichandan Mohapatra, popularly in Odisha known as Pathani Samanta, is an astronomer of the rank of Aryabhata, Varahamihira, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskaracharya. He was born in 1835 A.D. in the princely state of Khandapara in Odisha. Away from the English education, he taught himself in Sanskrit and attained scholarship in traditional Indian Astronomy.
He fabricated ingenious instruments out of wooden sticks and bamboo chips and attained great accuracy in measurement. His scientific investigations are recorded in his astronomical treatise. “The Siddhanta Darpana” composed in Sanskrit Verse.
This work was highly acclaimed even by the Western Press in 1899. The title of Mahamahoadhyaya was conferred upon him by the British Govt. in 1893 in recognition of his contribution to astronomy. Samata Chandra Sekhar passed away in 1904. Even today most of the Odia almanacs attribute their calculations to Samanta’s prescriptions.
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