Biographies

Baudhayana 800BC - 740BC Baudhayana was the author of one of the earliest Sulbasutras:
documents containing some of the earliest Indian mathematics.

Apastamba 600BC - 540BC
Apastamba was the author of one of the most interesting of the Indian Sulbasutras .

Panini 520BC - 460BC
Panini was a Sanskrit grammarian who gave a comprehensive & scientific theory of phonetics, phonology,and morphology.

Katyayana 200BC - 140BC
Katyayana was also one of the authors who contributed to mathematics.

Yavanesvara 120 - 180
Yavanesvara was an Indian astrologer who translated an important Greek text on astrology.

Aryabhata the Elder 476 - 550
Aryabhata I was an Indian mathematician who wrote the Aryabhatiya which summarises Hindu mathematics up to 6th Century.

Yativrsabha 500 - 570
Yativrsabha was a Jaina mathematician who gave a description of the universe which is of historical importance in understanding Jaina science and mathematics.

Varahamihira 505 - 587
Varahamihira was an Indian astrologer whose main work was a treatise on mathematical astronomy which summarised earlier astronomical treatises. He discovered a version of Pascal’s triangle and worked on magic squares.

Brahmagupta 598 - 670
Brahmagupta was the foremost Indian mathematician of his time. He made advances in astronomy and most importantly in number systems including algorithms for square roots and the solution of quadratic equations.

Bhaskara I 600 - 680
Bhaskara I was an Indian mathematicians who wrote commentaries on the work of Aryabhata I.

Lalla 720 - 790
Lalla was an Indian mathematician who wrote mainly on the application of mathematics to astronomy.

Govindasvami 800 - 860
Govindasvami was an Indian mathematical astronomer whose most famous treatise was a
commentary on the work of Bhaskara I.

Mahavira 800 - 870
Mahavira was an Indian mathematician who extended the mathematics of Brahmagupta.

Prthudakasvami 830 - 890
Prthudakasvami was an Indian mathematician best known for his work on solving equations.

Sankara Narayana 840 - 900
Sankara Narayana was an Indian astronomer and mathematician.

Sridhara 870 - 930
Sridhara was an Indian mathematician who wrote on practical applications of algebra and was one of the first to give a formula for solving quadraticequations.

Aryabhata II 920 - 1000
Aryabhata II was an Indian mathematician who wrote about astronomy as well as geometry. He constructed tables of sines accurate up to about 5 figures.

Vijayanandi 940 - 1010
Vijayanandi was an Indian mathematician and astronomer who made some contributions to trigonometry.

Sripati 1019 - 1066
Sripati was an Indian who wrote on astronomy and arithmetic.

Brahmadeva 1060 - 1130
Brahmadeva was an Indian mathematician who wrote a commentary on the work of Aryabhata I.

Acharya Hemchandra 1089 - 1173
Hemachandra was a Jaina scholar who presented what is now called the Fibonacci sequence around 1150, about 50 years before Fibonacci (1202). He was considering the number of cadences of length n, and showed that these could be formed by adding a short syllable to a cadence of length (n?1), or a long syllable to one of (n?2). This recursion relation F(n) = F(n?1) + F(n?2) is what defines the fibonacci sequence.

Bhaskara 1114 - 1185
Bhaskara II or Bhaskaracharya was an Indian mathematician and astronomer who extended Brahmagupta’s work on number systems.

Narayana Pandit 1340-1400
Narayana Pandit is the author of an arithmetical treatise called Ganita Kaumudi and an algebraic treatise called Bijganita Vatamsa.

Madhava of Sangamagrama 1340-1425
Madhava of Sangamagrama was the founder of the Kerala School and considered to be one of the greatest mathematician-astronomers of the Middle Ages. It is vaguely possible that he may have written Karana Paddhati a work written sometime between 1375 and 1475 but all that is known of Madhava comes from works of later scholars.

Parameshvara 1370-1460
Parameshvara, the founder of the Drgganita system of astronomy, was a prolific author of several important works. He belonged to the Alathur village situated on the bank of Bharathappuzha. He is stated to have made direct astronomical observations for fifty-five years before writing his famous work, Drgganita. He also wrote commentaries on the works of Bhaskara I, Aryabhata and Bhaskara II. His Lilavati Bhasya, a commentary on Bhaskara II’s Lilavati, contains one of his most important discoveries.

Nilakantha Somayaji 1444 - 1544
Nilakantha was a mathematician and astronomer from South India who wrote texts on both astronomy and infinite series.

Jyesthadeva 1500 - 1575
Jyesthadeva was a mathematician from South India who wrote an important work on mathematics and astronomy which summarises the work of the Kerala school.

Citrabhanu c. 1530
Citrabhanu was a 16th century mathematician from Kerala who gave integer solutions to 21 types of systems of two simultaneous Diophantine equations in two unknowns.