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Yes,
it seems so. Unfortunately, I did not
know about Aryabhata,

Mathematically, the difference
between
a sine and a chord is trivial, but in the question of
refraction it is not. The law which is so simple
in terms of sines becomes very complicated if you
express it in terms of chords.
I imagine that Ptolemy who experimented with
refraction tried to fit the curve with all functions
he knew (the paper mentions parabolas).

Alex.

In one of my papers I found it convenient to use
ancient Greek chords instead of sines, and I made a footnote
that the chord (chd) was the original main trig function.
The footnote continues: "Only in the 5-th century were
sines and other trig functions invented".
So it looks like I knew about Ariabhata when I
was writing this:-)
I definitely knew that there were no Arab mathematicians
in 5-th century!

On Fri, 5 Jan 2007, Chuck Taylor wrote:

> http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Aryabhata


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