Table of Contents
GENIUS
- Aryabhatta (476–550 CE) was the first of the major mathematician-astronomers from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy.
- His works include the Āryabhaṭīya (499 CE, when he was 23 years old) and the Arya-siddhanta.
- He was born in 476 CE in Bihar. He studied at the University of Nalanda. He flourished in Kusumapura—near Patalipurta (Patna), then the capital of the Gupta dynasty.
GREATEST MATHEMATICIAN
- Aryabhata mentions in the Aryabhatiya that it was composed 3,600 years into the Kali Yuga, when he was 23 years old. This corresponds to 499 CE, and implies that he was born in 476.
- Bhāskara I describes Aryabhata as āśmakīya, “one belonging to the Aśmaka country.
- It is fairly certain that, at some point, he went to Kusumapura for advanced studies and lived there for some time. Both Hindu and Buddhist tradition, as well as Bhāskara I (CE 629), identify Kusumapura as Pāṭaliputra, modern Patna.
- A verse mentions that Aryabhata was the head of an institution (kulapa) at Kusumapura, and, because the university of Nalanda was in Pataliputra at the time and had an astronomical observatory, it is speculated that Aryabhata might have been the head of the Nalanda university as well.
WORKS
- Aryabhata is the author of several treatises on mathematics and astronomy, some of which are lost.
- His major work, Aryabhatiya, a compendium of mathematics and astronomy, was extensively referred to in the Indian mathematical literature and has survived to modern times.
- The mathematical part of the Aryabhatiya covers arithmetic, algebra, plane trigonometry, and spherical trigonometry. It also contains continued fractions, quadratic equations, sums-of-power series, and a table of sines.
WORKS
- The Arya-siddhanta, a lost work on astronomical computations, is known through the writings of Aryabhata’s contemporary.It contained a description of several astronomical instruments.
- A third text, which may have survived in the Arabic translation, is Al ntf or Al-nanf. It claims that it is a translation by Aryabhata, but the Sanskrit name of this work is not known.
ARYABHATIYA
- It is written in style typical of sutra literature, in which each line is an aid to memory for a complex system. The text consists of the 108 verses and 13 introductory verses, and is divided into four pādas or chapters:
- Gitikapada: (13 verses): large units of time.There is also a table of sines (jya), given in a single verse. The duration of the planetary revolutions during a mahayuga is given as 4.32 million years.
- Ganitapada (33 verses): covering mensuration (kṣetra vyāvahāra), arithmetic and geometric progressions, simple, quadratic, simultaneous, and indeterminate equations (kuṭṭaka).
- Kalakriyapada (25 verses): different units of time and a method for determining the positions of planets for a given day.
- Golapada (50 verses): Geometric/trigonometric aspects of the celestial sphere, features of the ecliptic, celestial equator, node, shape of the earth, cause of day and night, rising of zodiacal signs on horizon, etc
FOUNDATION OF MATHEMATICS
- Place value system and zero
- Approximation of π – This implies that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is ((4 + 100) × 8 + 62000)/20000 = 62832/20000 = 3.1416, which is accurate to five significant figures.
- Trigonometry In Ganitapada 6, Aryabhata gives the area of a triangle
- Indeterminate equations
- Algebra
- Astronomy,eclipses,heliocentrism, Sidereal periods
DEATH
- In 1960, he suffered a heart attack. He was treated by top doctors in India, including his friend Dr Bidhan Chandra Roy, the then Chief Minister of West Bengal.
- His health started deteriorating and he died on 7 March 1961 at the age of 74, from a cerebral stroke. At that time he was still in office as the Home Minister of India.
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