Mah?v

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MAH?V?RA

(fl. Mysore, India, ninth century)

mathematics.

Mah?v?ra, a Jain, wrote during the reign of Amoghavars?a, the R?s?t?rak?t?a monarch of Karn??t?aka and Mah?r?s?t?ra between 814/815 and about 880. Nothing else of his life is known. His sole work was a major treatise on mathematics, the Gan?itas?rasan?graha (see essay in Supplement), in nine chapters:

Terminology.
Arithmetical operations.
Operations involving fractions.
Miscellaneous operations.
Operations involving the rule of three.
Mixed operations.
Operations relating to the calculations of areas.
Operations relating to excavations.
Operations relating to shadows.

There is one commentary on this work by a certain Varadar?ja, and another in Kannad?a, entitled Daivajñavallabha.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Gan?itas?rasan?graha was edited, with an English trans. and notes, by M. Ran?g?c?rya (Madras, 1912); and with a Hind? anuv?da by Laks?m?candra Jaina as J?var?ma Jaina Grantham?l? 12 (Sol?pura, 1963). There are discussions of various aspects of this work (listed chronologically) by D. E. Smith, “The Ganita-Sara-Sangraha of Mah?v?r?c?rya,” in Bibliotheca mathematica, 3 , no. 9 (1908–1909), 106–110; B. Datta, “On Mah?v?ra’s Solution of Rational Triangles and Quadrilaterals,” in Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society, 20 (1932), 267–294; B. Datta, “On the Relation of Mahâvîra to ?rîdhara,” in Isis, 17 (1932), 25–33; B. Datta and A. N. Singh, History of Hindu Mathematics, 2 vols. (Lahore, 1935–1938; repr. in 1 vol., Bombay, 1962), passim; E. T. Bell, “Mahavira’s Diophantine System,” in Bulletin of the Calcutta Mathematical Society38 (1946), 121–122; and A. Volodarsky,“O traktate Magaviry ‘Kratky kurs matematiki,’” in Fizikomatematicheskie nauki v stranakh vostoka, II (Moscow, 1969), 98–130.