Mañjula (Sanskrit for "lovely" or "charming") seems to be his actual name, as early writers - including his earliest commentator Prashasti-dhara (958 CE) - refer to him by this name.
However, the text was most popular in present-day Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, where commentaries in Sanskrit as well regional languages (Telugu and Malayalam) were written on it.
[6] His Laghu-mānasa appears to derive information from Aryabhata's various works (c. 500), Brahmagupta's Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta (c. 628 CE), and Lata-deva's Surya-siddhanta (6th century).
[3] I, famous as the Sun in Prakasha, born in the Bharadvaja Gotra, best among the Brahmanas, set forth another work, entitled Laghumanasa, which is small and contains brief and unprecedented methods of planetary computation.
Several writers interpret the word prakasha (IAST: prakāśa, Sanskrit for "light") as the name of the town (pattana) where Mañjula lived.
The commentators Suryadeva Yajva and Yallaya state that he lived in the town of Prakasha-pattana which was located in the northern part of the country (uttara-desha).
Mallikarjuna Suri's commentary on Lalla's Shishya-dhi-vrddhida states that a town with this name existed 80 yojanas to the east of the Hindu prime meridian, and the equinocital midday shadow there measured 5.75 angulas.
This suggests that the town existed near present-day Patna, at latitude 25°36' N and longitude 85°6' E.[6] The Laghu-mānasa is the only surviving work of Mañjula.
[10] The commentators Yallaya and Parameshvara interpret this to mean that Mañjula had written a larger work titled Bṛhan-mānasa.