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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
PRÉFACE.
Brahmagupta is calculated to lead to the conclusion that, in all probability, Mahāvīrācārya was familiar with the work of Brahmagupta and endeavoured to improve upon it to the extent to which the scope of his Ganita-sārasangraha permitted such improvement. Mahāvīrācārya's classification of arithmetical operations is simpler, his rules are fuller and he gives a large number of examples for illustration and exercise. Prthūdakasvāmin, the wellknown commentator on the Brahmasphu ta-siddhānta, could not have been chronologically far removed from Mahāvīrācārya, and the similarity of some of the examples given by the former with some of those of the latter naturally arrests attention. In any case it cannot be wrong to believe, that, at the time, when Mahāvīrācārya wrote his Ganita-sāra-sangraha, Brahmagupta must have been widely recognized as a writer of authority in the field of Hindu astronomy and mathematice. Whether Bhāskarācārya was at all acquainted with the Ganitasāra-sangraha of Mahāvīrācārya, it is not quite easy to say. Since neither Bhāskarācārya nor any of his known commentators seem to quote from him or mention him by name, the natural conclusion appears to be that Bhāskarācārya's Siddhānta-siromani, including his Līlāvati and Bijagaạita, was intended to be an improvement in the main upon the Brahmasphuta-siddhānta of Brahmagupta. The fact that Mahāvīrācārya was a Jaina might have prevented Bhāskarācārya from taking note of him; or it may be that the Jaina mathematician's fame had not spread far to the north in the twelfth century of the Christian era. His work, however, seems to have been widely known and appreciated in Southern India. So early as in the course of the eleventh century and perhaps
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