Jain Thought and Culture

Author(s): G C Pandey
Publisher: University of Rajasthan

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Jain Thought and Culture
Todar mal also translated into Hindi a book called Atmanilshashan He also wrote humself a book called Mokshamargaprakashak For a man whose main interest was religion and philosophy, the mathematical portions of Trilokasara would be difficult indeed Moreover, Nemichanda in his Trilokasara had expressed the mathematics in the Prakrit language and not in the usual manner, as at present, in symbols for numbers etc Todar mal was able to reduce the 14 sets of Nemichanda in figures As would be clear, out of the fourteen sets, the last seven are quite complicated The fact that Todar mal was able to solve them speahs highly of his genius
So far as the mensuration portion of Trilokasara is concerned, Todar mal could go upto the areas of parallelogram, but failed in solving the conundrum of the volumes of the various regular solids
It must, of course, be mentioned that Jaipur did not lack mathematicians of very high order when Todarmal was writing The The period of his writings was only about twenty years after the death of Sawai Jai singh who had gathered round him Hindu and Muslim astronomers and Mathematicians from many parls of India Many of these talented men must have been still available for consultations But it does not appear that Todar mal tried to contact them for the translation of the mathemalıcal portions of Trilokasara, he depended upon his own labour and intelligence only
Jain mathematics, so far as it is Jain, had only one purpose This was to understand the Jain cosmography This mathematics had reached its highest point in the 10th century in the hands of the Digambar Jains of south India After this it did not advance much for it had no other goal left The mathematics was rediscovered and translated into a modern language in Jaipur in the 18th century by Todar mal
One might ask about the position of Jain mathematics in Jaipur to-day Though Jaipur is one of the most important centres of Digambar Jainas in Northern India, knowledge about Jain mathematics is practically non-existent here it is difficult to come by even a copy of Trilokasara in Jaipur