Pathani Samanta

 

This almanac itself is based on the calculations provided in the book Siddhanta Darpana which was written in 1899 by the renowned naked eye astronomer Mahamahopadhyaya Chandrasekhar Singh Harichandan Mahapatra Samanta, better known to us as Pathani Samanta. Siddhanta Darpana is a masterpiece of observational astronomy and the calculations made here by Pathani Samanta are very close to the modern values observed via telescopes. And all of this was done without any telescopes. But the question now arises, who is Pathani Samanta? In this post, we would try to chart out his life’s work and his genius as a way to answer this question.

Beginnings

Very little is known of the early life of Samanta Chandra Sekhar. He was born in the royal house of Khandapara on the 13th of December 1835. Khandapara was a princely state in Odisha, in what is now the district of Nayagarh. He was nicknamed Pathani by his parents and thus came to known as Pathani Samanta.