Biography

Name
While there is a tendency to misspell his name as "Aryabhatta" by analogy with other names having the "bhatta" suffix, his name is properly spelled Aryabhata: every astronomical text spells his name thus,[6] including rahmagupta!s references to him "in more than a hundred places by name""[#] $urthermore, in most instances "Aryabhatta" does not fit the metre either"
[6]

Time and Place of birth Aryabhata mentions in the Aryabhatiya that it was composed %,6%& years into the 'ali (uga, when he was )% years old" *his corresponds to +,, -., and implies that he was born in +#6"
[+]

Aryabhata was born in *aregna /literally, song of the stars0, which is a small town in ihar, 1ndia, about %& 2m /3, mi0 from 4atna /then 2nown as 4ataliputra0, the capital city of ihar 5tate" .vidences 6ustify his birth there" 1n *aregna Aryabhata set up an Astronomical 7bservatory in the 5un *emple 6th century" *here is no evidence that he was born outside 4atliputra and traveled to 8agadha, the centre of instruction, culture and 2nowledge for his studies where he even set up a coaching institute"[9] :owever, early uddhist texts describe Ashma2a as being further south, in dakshinapath or the ;eccan, while other texts describe the Ashma2as as having fought Alexander"

Education
1t is fairly certain that, at some point, he went to 'usumapura for advanced studies and lived there for some time"[,] oth :indu and uddhist tradition, as well as h<s2ara 1 /-. 6),0, identify 'usumapura as 4<aliputra, modern 4atna"[6] A verse mentions that Aryabhata was the head of an institution /kulapati0 at 'usumapura, and, because the university of =alanda was in 4ataliputra at the time and had an astronomical observatory, it is speculated that Aryabhata might have been the head of the =alanda university as well"[6] Aryabhata is also reputed to have set up an observatory at the 5un temple in *aregana, ihar"[3&]

Other hypotheses
5ome archeological evidence suggests that Aryabhata could have originated from the present day 'odungallur which was the historical capital city of Thiruvanchikkulam of ancient 'erala"[33] $or instance, one hypothesis was that amaka /5ans2rit for "stone"0 may be the region in 'erala that is now 2nown as 'ouall>r, based on the belief that it was earlier 2nown as 'oum?'al?l?>r /"city of hard stones"0@ however, old records show that the city was actually 'oum?2ol?>r /"city of strict governance"0" 5imilarly, the fact that several commentaries on the Aryabhatiya have come from 'erala were used to suggest that it was Aryabhata!s main place of life and activity@ however, many commentaries have come from outside 'erala"

Aryabhata /1A5*: Aryabhaa, 5ans2rit: 0 or Aryabhata I[3][)] /+#6BCC& -.0[%][+] was the first in the line of great mathematician?astronomers from the classical age of 1ndian mathematics and 1ndian astronomy" :is most famous wor2s are the ryabhaya /+,, -., when he was )% years old0[C] and the Arya-siddhanta" *he wor2s of Aryabhata dealt with mainly mathematics and astronomy" :e also wor2ed on the approximation for pi" Aryabhata mentions "Dan2a" on several occasions in the Aryabhatiya, but his "Dan2a" is an abstraction, standing for a point on the eEuator at the same longitude as his F66ayini"[3)]

Works
Aryabhata is the author of several treatises on mathematics and astronomy, some of which are lost" :is ma6or wor2, Aryabhatiya, a compendium of mathematics and astronomy, was extensively referred to in the 1ndian mathematical literature and has survived to modern times" *he mathematical part of the Aryabhatiya covers arithmetic, algebra, plane trigonometry, and spherical trigonometry" 1t also contains continued fractions, Euadratic eEuations, sums?of?power series, and a table of sines" *he Arya-siddhanta, a lot wor2 on astronomical computations, is 2nown through the writings of Aryabhata!s contemporary, Garahamihira, and later mathematicians and commentators, including rahmagupta and has2ara 1" *his wor2 appears to be based on the older 5urya 5iddhanta and uses the midnight?day rec2oning, as opposed to sunrise in Aryabhatiya" 1t also contained a description of several astronomical instruments: the gnomon /shanku-yantra0, a shadow instrument /chhAyA-yantra0, possibly angle?measuring devices, semicircular and circular /dhanur-yantra H chakra-yantra0, a cylindrical stic2 yasti-yantra, an umbrella?shaped device called the chhatra-yantra, and water cloc2s of at least two types, bow?shaped and cylindrical"[9] A third text, which may have survived in the Arabic translation, is Al ntf or Al-nanf" 1t claims that it is a translation by Aryabhata, but the 5ans2rit name of this wor2 is not 2nown" 4robably dating from the ,th century, it is mentioned by the 4ersian scholar and chronicler of 1ndia, Ab> Iayh<n al? Jr>nJ"[9]

Aryabhatiya
8ain article: Aryabhatiya ;irect details of Aryabhata!s wor2 are 2nown only from the Aryabhatiya" *he name "Aryabhatiya" is due to later commentators" Aryabhata himself may not have given it a name" :is disciple has2ara 1 calls it Ashmakatantra /or the treatise from the Ashma2a0" 1t is also occasionally referred to as Arya-shatas-aShTa /literally, Aryabhata!s 3&90, because there are 3&9 verses in the text" 1t is written in the very terse style typical of sutra literature, in which each line is an aid to memory for a complex system" *hus, the explication of meaning is due to commentators" *he text consists of the 3&9 verses and 3% introductory verses, and is divided into four pdas or chapters:

3" Gitikapada: /3% verses0: large units of timeKkalpa, manvantra, and yugaKwhich present a cosmology different from earlier texts such as Dagadha!s Vedanga y!tisha /c" 3st century -.0" *here is also a table of sines /"ya0, given in a single verse" *he duration of the planetary revolutions during a mahayuga is given as +"%) million years" 2. Ganitapada /%% verses0: covering mensuration /ketra vyvahra0, arithmetic and geometric progressions, gnomon H shadows /shanku?chhAyA0, simple, Euadratic, simultaneous, and indeterminate eEuations %" #alakriyapada /)C verses0: different units of time and a method for determining the positions of planets for a given day, calculations concerning the intercalary month /adhikamAsa0, kShaya-tithis, and a seven?day wee2 with names for the days of wee2"
4. G!lapada /C& verses0: LeometricHtrigonometric aspects of the celestial sphere,

features of the ecliptic, celestial eEuator, node, shape of the earth, cause of day and night, rising of Modiacal signs on horiMon, etc" 1n addition, some versions cite a few colophons added at the end, extolling the virtues of the wor2, etc" *he Aryabhatiya presented a number of innovations in mathematics and astronomy in verse form, which were influential for many centuries" *he extreme brevity of the text was elaborated in commentaries by his disciple has2ara 1 /$hashya, c" 6&& -.0 and by =ila2antha 5omaya6i in his Aryabhatiya $hasya% /3+6C -.0" :e was not only the first to find the radius of the earth but was the only one in ancient time including the Lree2s and the Iomans to find the volume of the earth"

Mathematics
Place alue system and !ero
*he place?value system, first seen in the %rd century a2hshali 8anuscript, was clearly in place in his wor2" While he did not use a symbol for Mero, the $rench mathematician Leorges 1frah explains that 2nowledge of Mero was implicit in Aryabhata!s place?value system as a place holder for the powers of ten with null coefficients[3%] :owever, Aryabhata did not use the rahmi numerals" -ontinuing the 5ans2ritic tradition from Gedic times, he used letters of the alphabet to denote numbers, expressing Euantities, such as the table of sines in a mnemonic form"[3+]

Appro"imation of
Aryabhata wor2ed on the approximation for pi / 0, and may have come to the conclusion that is irrational" 1n the second part of the Aryabhatiyam /gaitap<da 3&0, he writes: caturadhikam atamaaguam dvaistath sahasrm ayutadvayavikambhasysann! vttapariha& "Add four to 3&&, multiply by eight, and then add 6),&&&" y this rule the circumference of a circle with a diameter of )&,&&& can be approached"" [3C]

*his implies that the ratio of the circumference to the diameter is //+ N 3&&0 O 9 N 6)&&&0H)&&&& P 6)9%)H)&&&& P %"3+36, which is accurate to five significant figures" 1t is speculated that Aryabhata used the word sanna /approaching0, to mean that not only is this an approximation but that the value is incommensurable /or irrational0" 1f this is correct, it is Euite a sophisticated insight, because the irrationality of pi was proved in .urope only in 3#63 by Dambert"[36] After Aryabhatiya was translated into Arabic /c" 9)& -.0 this approximation was mentioned in Al?'hwariMmi!s boo2 on algebra"[9]

Trigonometry
1n Lanitapada 6, Aryabhata gives the area of a triangle as tribhu"asya phalashariram samadalak!ti bhu"ardhasamvargah that translates to: "for a triangle, the result of a perpendicular with the half?side is the area""[3#] Aryabhata discussed the concept of sine in his wor2 by the name of ardha-"ya, which literally means "half?chord"" $or simplicity, people started calling it "ya" When Arabic writers translated his wor2s from 5ans2rit into Arabic, they referred it as "iba" :owever, in Arabic writings, vowels are omitted, and it was abbreviated as "b" Dater writers substituted it with "aib, meaning "poc2et" or "fold /in a garment0"" /1n Arabic, "iba is a meaningless word"0 Dater in the 3)th century, when Lherardo of -remona translated these writings from Arabic into Datin, he replaced the Arabic "aib with its Datin counterpart, sinus, which means "cove" or "bay"@ thence comes the .nglish since" Alphabetic code has been used by him to define a set of increments" 1f we use Aryabhata!s table and calculate the value of sin/%&0 /corresponding to has6ha0 which is 3#3,H%+%9 P &"C@ the value is correct" :is alphabetic code is commonly 2nown as the Aryabhata cipher" [39]

Indeterminate e#uations
A problem of great interest to 1ndian mathematicians since ancient times has been to find integer solutions to eEuations that have the form ax N by P c, a topic that has come to be 2nown as diophantine eEuations" *his is an example from h<s2ara!s commentary on Aryabhatiya: $ind the number which gives C as the remainder when divided by 9, + as the remainder when divided by ,, and 3 as the remainder when divided by # *hat is, find = P 9xNC P ,yN+ P #MN3" 1t turns out that the smallest value for = is 9C" 1n general, diophantine eEuations, such as this, can be notoriously difficult" *hey were discussed extensively in ancient Gedic text 5ulba 5utras, whose more ancient parts might date to 9&& -." Aryabhata!s method of solving such problems is called the kuaka / 0 method" #uttaka means "pulveriMing" or "brea2ing into small pieces", and the method involves a recursive algorithm for writing the original factors in smaller numbers" *oday this algorithm, elaborated by has2ara in 6)3 -., is the standard method for solving first?order diophantine eEuations and is often referred to as the Aryabhata algorithm"[3,] *he diophantine eEuations

are of interest in cryptology, and the I5A -onference, )&&6, focused on the kuttaka method and earlier wor2 in the 5ulbasutras"

Algebra
1n Aryabhatiya Aryabhata provided elegant results for the summation of series of sEuares and cubes:[)&]

and

Astronomy
Aryabhata!s system of astronomy was called the audAyaka system, in which days are rec2oned from uday, dawn at lanka or "eEuator"" 5ome of his later writings on astronomy, which apparently proposed a second model /or ardha-rAtrikA, midnight0 are lost but can be partly reconstructed from the discussion in rahmagupta!s khan'akhAdyaka" 1n some texts, he seems to ascribe the apparent motions of the heavens to the .arth!s rotation" :e may have believed that the planet!s orbits as elliptical rather than circular"[)3][))]

Motions of the solar system

Aryabhata correctly insisted that the earth rotates about its axis daily, and that the apparent movement of the stars is a relative motion caused by the rotation of the earth, contrary to the then?prevailing view in other parts of the world, that the s2y rotated" *his is indicated in the first chapter of the Aryabhatiya, where he gives the number of rotations of the earth in a yuga,[)%] and made more explicit in his g!la chapter:[)+] 1n the same way that someone in a boat going forward sees an unmoving [ob6ect] going bac2ward, so [someone] on the eEuator sees the unmoving stars going uniformly westward" *he cause of rising and setting [is that] the sphere of the stars together with the planets [apparentlyQ] turns due west at the eEuator, constantly pushed by the cosmic wind" Aryabhata described a geocentric model of the solar system, in which the 5un and 8oon are each carried by epicycles" *hey in turn revolve around the .arth" 1n this model, which is also found in the (aitmahasiddhnta /c" -. +)C0, the motions of the planets are each governed by two epicycles, a smaller manda /slow0 and a larger ghra /fast0" [)C] *he order of the planets in terms of distance from earth is ta2en as: the 8oon, 8ercury, Genus, the 5un, 8ars, Rupiter, 5aturn, and the asterisms""[9] *he positions and periods of the planets was calculated relative to uniformly moving points" 1n the case of 8ercury and Genus, they move around the .arth at the same mean speed as the 5un" 1n the case of 8ars, Rupiter, and 5aturn, they move around the .arth at specific speeds, representing each planet!s motion through the Modiac" 8ost historians of astronomy consider that this two?epicycle model reflects elements of pre?4tolemaic Lree2 astronomy"[)6] Another

element in Aryabhata!s model, the ghr!cca, the basic planetary period in relation to the 5un, is seen by some historians as a sign of an underlying heliocentric model"[)#]

Eclipses
5olar and lunar eclipses were scientifically explained by Aryabhata" Aryabhata states that the 8oon and planets shine by reflected sunlight" 1nstead of the prevailing cosmogony in which eclipses were caused by pseudo?planetary nodes Iahu and 'etu, he explains eclipses in terms of shadows cast by and falling on .arth" *hus, the lunar eclipse occurs when the moon enters into the .arth!s shadow /verse gola"%#0" :e discusses at length the siMe and extent of the .arth!s shadow /verses gola"%9B+90 and then provides the computation and the siMe of the eclipsed part during an eclipse" Dater 1ndian astronomers improved on the calculations, but Aryabhata!s methods provided the core" :is computational paradigm was so accurate that 39th century scientist Luillaume De Lentil, during a visit to 4ondicherry, 1ndia, found the 1ndian computations of the duration of the lunar eclipse of %& August 3#6C to be short by +3 seconds, whereas his charts /by *obias 8ayer, 3#C)0 were long by 69 seconds"[9]

$idereal periods
-onsidered in modern .nglish units of time, Aryabhata calculated the sidereal rotation /the rotation of the earth referencing the fixed stars0 as )% hours, C6 minutes, and +"3 seconds@[)9] the modern value is )%:C6:+"&,3" 5imilarly, his value for the length of the sidereal year at %6C days, 6 hours, 3) minutes, and %& seconds /%6C")C9C9 days0[),] is an error of % minutes and )& seconds over the length of a year /%6C")C6%6 days0"[%&]

%eliocentrism
As mentioned, Aryabhata advocated an astronomical model in which the .arth turns on its own axis" :is model also gave corrections /the gra anomaly0 for the speeds of the planets in the s2y in terms of the mean speed of the sun" *hus, it has been suggested that Aryabhata!s calculations were based on an underlying heliocentric model, in which the planets orbit the 5un,[%3][%)][%%] though this has been rebutted"[%+] 1t has also been suggested that aspects of Aryabhata!s system may have been derived from an earlier, li2ely pre?4tolemaic Lree2, heliocentric model of which 1ndian astronomers were unaware,[%C] though the evidence is scant"[%6] *he general consensus is that a synodic anomaly /depending on the position of the sun0 does not imply a physically heliocentric orbit /such corrections being also present in late abylonian astronomical texts0, and that Aryabhata!s system was not explicitly heliocentric"
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