# Mathematician:Mathematicians/Sorted By Nation/India

For more comprehensive information on the lives and works of mathematicians through the ages, see the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, created by John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson.

The army of those who have made at least one definite contribution to mathematics as we know it soon becomes a mob as we look back over history; 6,000 or 8,000 names press forward for some word from us to preserve them from oblivion, and once the bolder leaders have been recognised it becomes largely a matter of arbitrary, illogical legislation to judge who of the clamouring multitude shall be permitted to survive and who be condemned to be forgotten.[1]

## India

##### Baudhayana (c. 800 BCE )

Indian mathematician, also a priest, believed to have flourished c. $800$ BCE.

Believed to have been a skilled craftsman, thus to have used his mathematical expertise in practical ways.

Did some early research into creating a circle with the same area as a given square.

Discovered $\pi$ to some degree of precision, and discovered what is now known as Pythagoras's Theorem.

Also evaluated the square root of 2 to five decimal places of accuracy.
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##### Piṅgalá (c. 5th or 2nd century B.C.E. )

Indian mathematician about whom practically nothing is known, not even when he lived.

Notable for being the first in history to mention what is now known as Pascal's Triangle.
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##### Aryabhata the Elder (476 – 550)

Indian mathematician and astronomer.

An early believer in the irrationality of $\pi$, and developed an approximation for it of $3.1416$.

Developed a positional system of numerals in C. 500, but it lacked a symbol for zero.
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##### Varāhamihira (505 – 587)

Indian astronomer, mathematician, and astrologer.

One of several early mathematicians to discover what is now known as Pascal's triangle.

Defined the algebraic properties of zero and negative numbers.

Improved the accuracy of the sine tables of Aryabhata I.

Made some insightful observations in the field of optics.
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##### Brahmagupta (598 – 668)

Indian mathematician and astronomer.

Gave definitive solutions to the general linear equation, and also the general quadratic equation.

Best known for the Brahmagupta-Fibonacci Identity.
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##### Bhāskara I (c. 600 – c. 680)

Indian mathematician who was the first on record to use Hindu-Arabic numerals complete with a symbol for zero.

Gave an approximation of the sine function in his Āryabhaṭīyabhāṣya of 629 CE.
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##### Mahāvīrāchārya (c. 800 – c. 870)

Mahāvīrāchārya (literally: Mahāvīrā the teacher) was an Indian mathematician best known for separating the subject of mathematics from that of astrology.

Gave the sum of a series whose terms are squares of an arithmetical progression and empirical rules for area and perimeter of an ellipse.
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##### Halayudha (c. 1000 )

Halayudha was an Indian mathematician who wrote the Mṛtasañjīvanī, a commentary on Piṅgalá's Chandah-shastra, containing a clear description of Pascal's triangle (called meru-prastaara).
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##### Gopāla (11th century )

Gopāla was an Indian mathematician noted for studying the Fibonacci numbers before $1135$.
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##### Acharya Hemachandra (1089 – 1172)

Hemachandra Acharya Sūrī (Sanskrit: हेमचन्द्र सूरी) was an Indian all-rounder who, among other things, investigated the Fibonacci sequence, following Gopāla.
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##### Bhāskara II Āchārya (1114 – 1185)

Bhāskara (Kannada: ಭಾಸ್ಕರಾಚಾರ್ಯ) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer.

He is known as Bhāskara II, Bhāskara Āchārya ("Bhāskara the teacher"), or Bhāskarāchārya, to distinguish him from Bhāskara I).
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##### Narayana Pandit (c. 1340 – c. 1400)

Narayana Pandit (Sanskrit: नारायण पण्डित) was an Indian mathematician who made considerable contributions to several areas of Indian mathematics.
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##### Mādhava of Saṅgamāgrama (c. 1350 – c. 1425)

Indian mathematician who made pioneering contributions to the study of infinite series, calculus, trigonometry, geometry and algebra.

It has been suggested that his works made their way to Europe and had an influence on the later European development of calculus.
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##### Srīnivāsa Aiyangār Rāmānujan (1887 – 1920)

Indian mathematician who made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series and continued fractions.
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##### Raj Chandra Bose (1901 – 1987)

Indian American mathematician and statistician best known for his work in design theory, finite geometry and the theory of error-correcting codes.

Invented the notions of partial geometry, strongly regular graph.

Started a systematic study of difference sets to construct symmetric block designs.

Noted with Sharadchandra Shankar Shrikhande and Ernest Tilden Parker for disproving Euler's Conjecture on Orthogonal Latin Squares.
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##### Hansraj Gupta (1902 – 1988)

Indian mathematician specialising in number theory, in particular the study of the partition function.
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##### Dattathreya Ramchandra Kaprekar (1905 – 1986)

Indian recreational mathematician who described several classes of natural numbers including the Kaprekar, Harshad and Self numbers and discovered the Kaprekar constant, named after him.
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##### Sharadchandra Shankar Shrikhande (b. 1917 )

Indian mathematician with distinguished and well-recognized achievements in combinatorial mathematics.

Noted with Raj Chandra Bose and Ernest Tilden Parker for disproving Euler's Conjecture on Orthogonal Latin Squares.
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##### Triloki Nath Bhargava (1933 – 2017)

Indian mathematician working mainly in the field of statistics.

Known for his work on permutable primes.
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## References

1. Eric Temple Bell: Men of Mathematics, 1937, Victor Gollancz, London.