Birth - Aryabhata was born in 476 AD

Place of Birth -

Probably Kusumpura of Patliputra(modern day Patna, Bihar). A different hypothesis has been provided
by Bhaskara I, who describes Aryabhata as an ‘asmaka’. He may have originated from the asmaka that is
present day Kodungallur which was the historical capital of Thiruvanchikkulam of ancient Kerala.

Education -

He went to Kusumpura for advanced studies and lived there for some time. He was the head of an
institution at Kusumpura, probably the Nalanda University. It is said that that he set up an observatory
at the Sun Temple in Taregana, Bihar.

Date and place of death –

Sprit towards subject-

Aryabhata is author of several treatise on mathematics and astronomy.

His work, Aryabhatia, is a treatise on both mathematics and astronomy, and is extensively referred to in
Indian mathematical literature. It covers arithmetic, algebra, plane trigonometry, spherical
trigonometry, continued fractions, quadratic equations, sum-of-powers series and a sin table.
His other work, Aryasidhhanta, though lost, is known through the writings of Aryabhata’s contemporary,
Varamihira, and later mathematicians like Brahmagupta and Bhaskara I. It is mainly on astronomy.

Aryabhatia-

It consists of many mathematical and astronomical concepts in verse form, as is typical in sutra
literature. It consists of 108 verses and 13 introductory verses and is divided into four padas. Of this, the
Ganitapada deals with mathematical ideas. It covers mensuration, arithmetic and geometric
progressions, simple, quadratic, simulataneous, and indeterminate equations.

Contributions-
Place values system and zero-

The place-value system was used in his work. He is also credited with creating the concept of zero.
Although he did not use a symbol for zero, it was implicit in his place value system as a place holder for
the powers of 10 with null coefficients. He did not use Brahmi numerals but used Sanskrit letters to
denote numbers.

Approximation of π-
Aryabhatta had approximated pi upto 5 significant figures, and may have come to the
conclusion that pi is irrational. The ganitpada verse 10, when translated, reads-
"Add four to 100, multiply by eight, and then add 62,000. By this rule the circumference of a
circle with a diameter of 20,000 can be approached."
If we calculate the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is ((4 + 100) x 8+
62000)/20000=3.1416, which is accurate to five significant figures.

It is speculated that Aryabhata used asana(approaching) to mean that the value is incommensurable
(irrational).

Trigonometry –
He gave the area of triangle as ‘the result of a perpendicular with the half side’. He discussed the
concept of sine, which he called ‘jya’.When it was translated to Arabic, it was read as ‘jaib’. When it
was translated into Latin in 12th century AD, jaib (pocket) was replaced by ‘sinus’ (cove or bay), from
which the word ‘sine’ is derived.

Indeterminate Equations-

Aryabhata gave an algorithm to find the integer solutions to the linear Diophantine equations, i.e, of
the form ax + by = c. An example of such a problem is-
Find the number which gives 5 as a remainder when divided by 8, 4 as the remainder when divided
by 9, and 1 as the remainder when divided by 7.

In equation form, if N denotes the number, then N = 8x + 5 = 9y + 4 = 7z + 1. There are more

unknowns than equations. The smallest value of N which satisfies the conditions is 85. In general,
Diophantine equations are notoriously difficult to solve.

Kutakka in Sanskrit means ‘pulverizing’ or ‘breaking into small pieces’. It involves a recursive
algorithm for writing the original factors in smaller numbers. This method became the standard
method for solving first-order Diophantine equations.

Algebra-

Aryabhata provided results for series of summation of squares and cubes-

1^2 + 2^2 + 3^2 + … + n^2 = (n(n+1)(2n+1))/6
1^3 + 2^3 + 3^3 + … + n^3 = (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + … + n)^2

Diophantine equations –