Bija Ganita

The attention of the learned has, during the present century, been called to the history of Indian mathematics. The credit goes to Mr. Reuben Burrow for some of the earliest notices which reached Europe on this very curious subject. His eagerness to illustrate the history of the mathematical sciences led him to collect oriental manuscripts, some of which, in the Persian language, with partial translations. In the year 1813, Mr Edward Strachey published a translation from the Persian of the Bija Ganita (or Vija Ganita), Hindoo treatise on algebra; and in 1816 Dr John Taylor published at Bombay a translation of Lelawati (or Lilavati), from the Sanscrit original. This last is a treatise on arithmetic and geometry, and both are the production of an oriental algebraist, Bhascara Acharya. Lastly, in 1817, there came out a work entitled Algebra, Arithmetic, and Mensuration, from the Sanscrit of Brahmegupta and Bhascara, translated by Henry Thomas Colebrooke. This contains four different treatises, originally written in Sanscrit verse, viz., the Vija Ganita and Lilavati of Bhascara Acharya, and the Ganitad’haya and Cuttacad’hyaya of Brahmegupta. The first two form the preliminary portion of Bhascara’s Course of Astronomy, entitled Sidd’hanta Siromani, and the last two are the twelfth and eighteenth chapters of a similar course of astronomy, entitled Brahma-sidd’hanta. Cosmo is proud to bring alive all these important works once again for the benefit of the students, teachers and researchers alike. All these and many other important works on ancient Indian sciences are now available in an easily assessable work, titled “Encyclopaedia of Science Heritage of India” in 45 Parts.