Basic Mathematics

Author(s): L C Jain
Publisher: Rajasthan Prakrit Bharti Sansthan Jaipur

Page 19

as Gañitasarasaṁgraha3 of Mahāvirācārya (+9th century), others being known as astronomical treatises, the Süryaprajñapti and the Candraprajíapti4.
Mahāvirācārya expressed his obligation to the tradition of previous mathematicians, “With the help of the accomplished holy sages, who are worthy to be worshipped by the lords of the world, and of their disciples and disciples' disciples, who constitute the well-known jointed saries of preceptors, I glean from the great ocean of the knowledge of numbers a little of its essence, in the manner in which gems are picked up from the sea, gold is from the stony rock and the pearl from the oyster shell; and give out according to the power of my intelligence, the Sāra-Samgraha, a small work on arithmetic, which is (however) not small in value.”'5
As one of the best mathematicians of his time, he gives his appreciation of mathematics in the following words, “In all transactions which relate to worldly, Vedic or other similar religious affairs, calculation is of usc. In the science of love, in the science of economics, in music and in drama, in the art of cooking, in medicine, in architecture, in prosody, in poetics and poetry, in logic and grammar and such other things, and in relation to all that constitutes the peculiar value of the arts, the science of calculation is held in high esteem. In relation to the movement of the sun and other heavenly bodies, in connection with eclipses and conjunction of planets, and in connection with the tripraśna (direction, position and time) and the course of the moon - indeed in all these it is utilized. The number, the diameter and the perimeter of islands, oceans and mountains; the extensive dimensions of the rows of habitations and halls belonging to the inhabitants of the world, of the interspace between the worlds, of the world of light, of world of gods and of the dwellers in hell, and other miscellaneous measurements of all sorts--all these are made out by the help of gasita. The configuration of living beings therein, the length of their lives, their eight attributes, and other similar things; their progress and other such things, their staying together, etc.—all these are dependent upon ganita (for their due comprehension). What is the good of saying much ? Whatever there is in all the three worlds, which are possessed of moving and non
3.
Edited in + 1912, with English Translation by Rangācārya, Madras. Cf. also GSS. edited & translated by L, C. Jain, Sholapur, 1963.
These constitute as two of the twelve upāńgas, whose tradition is traced back to 3rd century at Patliputra, Cr, bibliography also. cf. pp. 17-19, (op. cit.)
5.