Āryabhaṭa (b.

476 AD – 550) is the first in the line of great mathematician-astronomers

from the classical age of Indian mathematics and Indian astronomy. His most famous
works are the Aryabhatiya (499) and Arya-Siddhanta.

Biography

Aryabhata was born in the region lying between Narmada

and Godavari, which was known as Ashmaka,and is now
identified with Maharashtra, though early Buddhist texts
describe Ashmaka as being further south, dakShiNApath or
the Deccan, while other texts describe the Ashmakas as
having fought Alexander, which would put them further
north.[1] Other traditions in India claim that he was from
Kerala and that he travelled to the North, or that he was a
Maga Brahmin from Gujarat.

However, it is fairly certain that at some point, he went to

Kusumapura for higher studies, and that he lived here for
some time.[2] Bhāskara I (AD 629) identifies Kusumapura as Pataliputra (modern Patna).
He lived there in the dying years of the Gupta empire, the time which is known as the
golden age of India, when it was already under Hun attack in the Northeast, during the
reign of Buddhagupta and some of the smaller kings before Vishnugupta.

His first name “Arya” is a term used for respect, such as "Sri", whereas Bhatta is a typical
north Indian name -- found today usually among the “Bania” (or trader) community in
Bihar.

Works

Aryabhatta 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.

The Arya-siddhanta, a lost work on astronomical computations, is known through the

writings of Aryabhata's contemporary Varahamihira, as well as through later
mathematicians and commentators including Brahmagupta and Bhaskara I. This work
appears to be based on the older Surya Siddhanta, and uses the midnight-day-reckoning,
as opposed to sunrise in Aryabhatiya. This also contained a description of several
astronomical instruments, the gnomon (shanku-yantra), a shadow instrument (chhAyA-
yantra), possibly angle-measuring devices, semi-circle and circle shaped (dhanur-yantra /
chakra-yantra), a cylindrical stick yasti-yantra, an umbrella-shaped device called
chhatra-yantra, and water clocks of at least two types, bow-shaped and cylindrical.[1]

A third text that may have survived in Arabic translation is the Al ntf or Al-nanf, which
claims to be a translation of Aryabhata, but the Sanskrit name of this work is not known.
Probably dating from the ninth c., it is mentioned by the Persian scholar and chronicler of
India, Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī.[1]

Aryabhatiya

Direct details of Aryabhata's work are therefore known only from the Aryabhatiya. The
name Aryabhatiya is due to later commentators, Aryabhata himself may not have given it
a name; it is referred by his disciple Bhaskara I as Ashmakatantra or the treatise from the
Ashmaka. It is also occasionally referred to as Arya-shatas-aShTa, lit., Aryabhata's 108,
which is the number of verses in the text. It is written in the very terse style typical of the
sutra literature, where each line is an aid to memory for a complex system. Thus, the
explication of meaning is due to commentators. The entire text consists of 108 verses,
plus an introductory 13, the whole being divided into four pAdas or chapters:

1. gitikApAda: (13 verses) large units of time - kalpa, manvantra, yuga, which
present a cosmology that differs from earlier texts such as Lagadha's Vedanga
Jyotisha(ca. 1st c. BC). Also includes the table of sines (jya), given in a single
verse. For the planetary revolutions during a mahayuga, the number of 4.32mn
years is given.
2. gaNitapAda (33 verses), covering mensuration (kShetra vyAvahAra), arithmetic
and geometric progressions, gnomon / shadows (shanku-chhAyA), simple,
quadratic, simultaneous, and indeterminate equations (kuTTaka)
3. kAlakriyApAda (25 verses) : different units of time and method of determination
of positions of planets for a given day. Calculations concerning the intercalary
month (adhikamAsa), kShaya-tithis. Presents a seven-day week, with names for
days of week.
4. 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.

In addition, some versions cite a few colophons added at the end, extolling the virtues of
the work, etc.

The Aryabhatiya presented a number of innovations in mathematics and astronomy in

verse form, which were influential for many centuries. The extreme brevity of the text
was elaborated in commentaries by his disciple Bhaskara I (Bhashya, ca. 600) and by
Nilakantha Somayaji in his Aryabhatiya Bhasya, (1465).

Mathematics

Place Value system and zero

The number place-value system, first seen in the 3rd century Bakhshali Manuscript was
clearly in place in his work.[3] ; he certainly did not use the symbol, but the French
mathematician Georges Ifrah argues that knowledge of zero was implicit in Aryabhata's
place-value system as a place holder for the powers of ten with null coefficients[4].
However, Aryabhata did not use the brahmi numerals; continuing the Sanskritic tradition
from Vedic times, he used letters of the alphabet to denote numbers, expressing quantities
(such as the table of sines) in a mnemonic form[5].

Pi as Irrational

Aryabhata worked on the approximation for Pi (π), and may have realized that π is
irrational. In the second part of the Aryabhatiyam (gaṇitapāda 10), he writes:[citation needed]

chaturadhikam śatamaśṭaguṇam dvāśaśṭistathā sahasrāṇām

Ayutadvayaviśkambhasyāsanno vrîttapariṇahaḥ.
"Add four to 100, multiply by eight and then add 62,000. By this rule the circumference
of a circle of diameter 20,000 can be approached."

Aryabhata interpreted the word āsanna (approaching), appearing just before the last
word, as saying that not only that is this an approximation, but that the value is
incommensurable (or irrational). If this is correct, it is quite a sophisticated insight, for
the irrationality of pi was proved in Europe only in 1761 by Lambert)[6].

After Aryabhatiya was translated into Arabic (ca. 820 AD) this approximation was
mentioned in Al-Khwarizmi's book on algebra[1].

Mensuration and trigonometry

In Ganitapada 6, Aryabhata gives the area of triangle as

tribhujasya phalashariram samadalakoti bhujardhasamvargah

that translates to: for a triangle, the result of a perpendicular with the half-side is the
area.[7] His great contribution to mensuration and trigonometry is used in the current
international mathematics.

Indeterminate Equations

A problem of great interest to Indian mathematicians since ancient times has been to find
integer solutions to equations that have the form ax + b = cy, a topic that has come to be
known as diophantine equations. Here is an example from Bhaskara's commentary on
Aryabhatiya: :

Find the number which gives 5 as the remainder when divided by 8; 4 as the
remainder when divided by 9; and 1 as the remainder when divided by 7.

i.e. find N = 8x+5 = 9y+4 = 7z+1. It turns out that the smallest value for N is 85. In
general, diophantine equations can be notoriously difficult. Such equations were
considered extensively in the ancient Vedic text Sulba Sutras, the more ancient parts of
which may date back to 800 BCE. Aryabhata's method of solving such problems, called
the kuṭṭaka (कूटटक) method. Kuttaka means pulverizing, that is breaking into small
pieces, and the method involved a recursive algorithm for writing the original factors in
terms of smaller numbers. Today this algorithm, as elaborated by Bhaskara in AD 621, is
the standard method for solving first order Diophantine equations, and it is often referred
to as the Aryabhata algorithm[8].

The diophantine equations are of interest in cryptology, and the RSA Conference, 2006,
focused on the kuttaka method and earlier work in the Sulvasutras.

Astronomy

Aryabhata's system of astronomy was called the audAyaka system (days are reckoned
from uday, dawn at lanka, equator). Some of his later writings on astronomy, which
apparently proposed a second model (ardha-rAtrikA, midnight), are lost, but can be partly
reconstructed from the discussion in Brahmagupta's khanDakhAdyaka. In some texts he
seems to ascribe the apparent motions of the heavens to the earth's rotation.

Motions of the Solar System

Aryabhata appears to have believed that the earth rotates about its axis. This is made clear
in the statement, referring to Lanka , which describes the movement of the stars as a
relative motion caused by the rotation of the earth:

Like a man in a boat moving forward sees the stationary objects as moving
backward, just so are the stationary stars seen by the people in lankA (i.e. on the
equator) as moving exactly towards the West. [achalAni bhAni
samapashchimagAni - golapAda.9]

But the next verse describes the motion of the stars and planets as real movements: “The
cause of their rising and setting is due to the fact the circle of the asterisms together with
the planets driven by the provector wind, constantly moves westwards at Lanka”.

Lanka (lit. Sri Lanka) is here a reference point on the equator, which was taken as the
equivalent to the reference meridian for astronomical calculations.

Aryabhata described a geocentric model of the solar system, in which the Sun and Moon
are each carried by epicycles which in turn revolve around the Earth. In this model,
which is also found in the Paitāmahasiddhānta (ca. AD 425), the motions of the planets
are each governed by two epicycles, a smaller manda (slow) epicycle and a larger śīghra
(fast) epicycle. [9] The order of the planets in terms of distance from earth are taken as: the
Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the asterisms[1].

The positions and periods of the planets were calculated relative to uniformly moving
points, which in the case of Mercury and Venus, move around the Earth at the same speed
as the mean Sun and in the case of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn move around the Earth at
specific speeds representing each planet's motion through the zodiac. Most historians of
astronomy consider that this two epicycle model reflects elements of pre-Ptolemaic
Greek astronomy.[10] Another element in Aryabhata's model, the śīghrocca, the basic
planetary period in relation to the Sun, is seen by some historians as a sign of an
underlying heliocentric model.[11]

Eclipses

He states that the Moon and planets shine by reflected sunlight. Instead of the prevailing
cosmogyny where eclipses were caused by pseudo-planetary nodes Rahu and Ketu, he
explains eclipses in terms of shadows cast by and falling on earth. Thus the lunar eclipse
occurs when the moon enters into the earth-shadow (verse gola.37), and discusses at
length the size and extent of this earth-shadow (verses gola.38-48), and then the
computation, and the size of the eclipsed part during eclipses. Subsequent Indian
astronomers improved on these calculations, but his methods provided the core. This
computational paradigm was so accurate that the 18th century scientist Guillaume le
Gentil, during a visit to Pondicherry, found the Indian computations of the duration of the
lunar eclipse of 1765-08-30 to be short by 41 seconds, whereas his charts (by Tobias
Mayer, 1752) were long by 68 seconds.[1].

Aryabhata's computation of Earth's circumference as 24,835 miles, which was only 0.2%
smaller than the actual value of 24,902 miles. This approximation might have improved
on the computation by the Greek mathematician Eratosthenes (c.200 BC), whose exact
computation is not known in modern units.

Sidereal periods

Considered in modern English units of time, Aryabhata calculated the sidereal rotation
(the rotation of the earth referenced the fixed stars) as 23 hours 56 minutes and 4.1
seconds; the modern value is 23:56:4.091. Similarly, his value for the length of the
sidereal year at 365 days 6 hours 12 minutes 30 seconds is an error of 3 minutes 20
seconds over the length of a year. The notion of sidereal time was known in most other
astronomical systems of the time, but this computation was likely the most accurate in the
period.

Heliocentrism

Āryabhata claims that the Earth turns on its own axis and some elements of his planetary
epicyclic models rotate at the same speed as the motion of the planet around the Sun. This
has suggested to some interpreters that Āryabhata's calculations were based on an
underlying heliocentric model in which the planets orbit the Sun.[12][13] A detailed rebuttal
to this heliocentric interpretation is in a review which describes B. L. van der Waerden's
book as "show[ing] a complete misunderstanding of Indian planetary theory [that] is
flatly contradicted by every word of Āryabhata's description,"[14] although some concede
that Āryabhata's system stems from an earlier heliocentric model of which he was
unaware.[15] It has even been claimed that he considered the planet's paths to be elliptical,
although no primary evidence for this has been cited.[16] Though Aristarchus of Samos
(3rd century BC) and sometimes Heraclides of Pontus (4th century BC) are usually cred
with knowing the heliocentric theory, the version of Greek astronomy known in ancient
India, Paulisa Siddhanta (possibly by a Paul of Alexandria) makes no reference to a
Heliocentric theory.