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No doubt, Virasena had a lot of mathematical intelligence but they had definitely used the mathematical knowledge contained in the previous commentaries and the mathematical texts of Jain tradition available at that time. It is clear by the references of Pariyamma Suttam and other mathematical texts.2 Certainly Virasena is not a mathematician. He was a philosopher and religious divine. He was a religious saint and acarya of Digambara Jaina tradition. He had written 72,000 slokas (gathas) for Dhavala and 20,000 slokas of Jaya-Dhavata commentary which is completed by his pupil Acarya Jinasena.
As per information available in the ending lines of Uttara Purana, one more commentary of the book entitled Siddha-Bhupaddhati was written by Acarya Virasena. But at present it is not available. I am just quoting one verse of Uttara Purana -
That means Siddha Bhipaddhati is a text which is very difficult and Virasena has written this commentary to facilitate the study.
सिद्धिभूपद्धतिं यस्य टीकां संवीक्ष्य भिक्षुभिः । टीक्यते हेलयान्येषां विषमापि पदे पदे ॥ ३
Now we give some details of the mathematical material available in Dhavatā as follows:
Decimal Place Value System of Notation
Method of Place Value Notation is found in Jaina canonical literature and at some places in Ganita-sara-sangraha.*
For example:
7999998 is expressed as a number which has 7 in the beginning, 8 at the end and 9 repeated 5 times in between.5
Some other methods are also found to represent the number in the form of digits like, 46666664 is expressed as sixty-four, six hundreds, sixty-six thousands, sixty-six hundred-thousands and four kotis.6
22799498 is expressed as two kotis, twenty-seven, ninety-nine thousands, four and ninety eight.7
Fundamental Operations
All the fundamental operations-addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, extraction of square, cube, square-root and cube-roots, the raising of numbers to the given number, etc. are mentioned both with respect to integers and fractions. Some examples are -
1st square of 'a'
2nd square of 'a'
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Jain Education International
a2
Arhat Vacana, 14(2-3), 2002
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