Dr.Dhoolipala Arka Somayaji was one of the great personalities of Andhra Pradesh who contributed a lot to the field of Indian astronomy. Dr. Somayaji, who is a genius in modern mathematics and physics, is the only person who dared to write English commentary to Siddhanta Siromani. Siddhanta Siromani is the text written by the great Bhaskaracharya in 11th centuary on Indian Astronomy. Dr.Somayaji served TTD as secretary of Hindu Dharma Rakshna Samiti ( at present Dharma Prachara Parishat).
We present some excerpts of his speech in Jyotish Conference held at Rajahmundry from 20th January to 22nd January 1980 at Rajahmundry.
“Now we proposed to moot one more question. The Hindus have been performing from times immemorial some religious rites based upon Tithis alone. For example, people perform annual ceremonies of their forefathers which are purely based upon Tithis. These Tithis which are being computed by the Hindu Panchang makers are geocentric alone and correction of geocentric parallax is not being applied. The western astronomers have nothing to do with Tithi so that the almanacs are not interested to compute Tithis as per our formulation. When the correction of geocentric parallax is not being effected, the Tithi computed loses Driksiddhi. Knowing this full-well the ancient Hindu Astronomers made it a convention that the correction cited need not be carried out. The so called Driksiddhivadis also are not doing this correction which means that their Tithis are not Driksiddha. When once we are prepared to make a convention and sacrifice Driksiddhi why not the Tithis computed on the basis of Suryasiddhanta be accepted as a convention? This satisfies the orthodox pundits also. We have just proposed this as a worth considering point, if we want to bring the entire public under one calendar. Just as there has been a convention with respect to Tithis namely बाणवृद्धि रसक्षीणा. Similarly there could be as well a convention to compute Tithis on the basis of Suryasiddhanta, so far as religious rites are concerned. Incidentally it may be mentioned here that we do have a number of conventions like that, for example यां तिथिं समनुप्राप्य उदयं याति भास्करः etc.
