Āpa and Apāṃvatsa – enigmatic stars catalogued in Sūryasiddhānta

Abstract

Indian siddhāntic texts are well known for their indigenous approach to solutions of problems in astronomy which also speaks of their expertise in mathematics. The text Sūryasiddhānta is considered as an authority and we come across a number of texts as commentaries on this text. They range from 8th Century CE to 19th century CE. The study of the stars that have been listed in the text appears relatively easy for the 27 stars of the zodiac. However, there are other stars for which optical identifications are not easy. Here we present possible identifications for two stars called Āpa and Apāṃvatsa, in the constellation of Virgo. We use the NASA Skyview Survey and other catalogues to see if these two correspond to variable stars.