The Āryabhaṭīya: dating a work and its witnesses.
The Āryabhaṭīya is traditionally dated to 499 CE. See how its critical edition lets the research record keep the composition, the author, and each surviving manuscript as separate objects.
Start with the edition
The Indian National Science Academy published a critical edition of the Āryabhaṭīya in 1976, and a Sanskrit Wikisource transcription of the work is online. The research record uses that edition to resolve the critical text and the manuscript basis it was built from. Indian National Science Academy ↗
Three dates, three objects
The record gives the traditional scholarly date of composition as 499 CE. It states plainly that this must not be collapsed with the dates of the surviving palm-leaf witnesses, or with the biography of the author. Each is its own object with its own evidence.
Try the research habit
A critical edition is an argument: it compares witnesses and reconstructs a text that no single manuscript contains. Ask which manuscripts an edition used and how it chose between their readings.
A question to carry forward
If every surviving copy is much later than the composition, what could still confirm that a particular passage was in the original?