The sulba sutras enumerates the rules for the construction of vedic fire altars designed by. The rig veda is the oldest of the vedas and contains a wealth of knowledge on a variety of subjects. The organization of these three sulbas are given below 1. The apastamba sulba sutra with text, sanskrit commentaries by kapardisvamin, karavinda swamin and sundararaja and english translation by satya. According to the strict injunctions of the hindu scriptures. Baudhayana sutras, mactutor history of mathematics archive, university of st andrews. The first part written in sutra style contains 90 sutras divided into seven ka.
Historically, as a human activity, it is said by the roman historian herodotus d. Sulbasutra geometry university of british columbia. The sulbasutras, which form a part of the vedic literature of the. Geometry is the branch of mathematics that deals with the partitioning of a physical or abstract space and the relationships induced by that partitioning. The beginnings of algebra can be traced to the constructional geometry of the vedic priests preserved in the sulbasutras, a manual of geometrical constructions from the 5 th to the 8 th centuries.
This series of treatises is known as the surya siddhanta and it is the oldest book of astronomy known to exist. In terms of solid geometry, he figured out that a wedge with rectangular base and both sides sloping could be broken down into a pyramid and a tetrahedral wedge. The knowledge of mathematics, the knowledge of geometry, especially as related to. Apart from sulba sutra, the list of sages associated with. If the word is not taken to mean, the sutra would be incomplete in the sense that it will be failing to mention its own object namely of being meant for computing the square root. Sulbasutras of baudhayana, apastamba and katyayana which form part. The name sulvasutra means rule of chords which is another name for geometry. Units of length measures according to sulbasutras 30 5. The sulbasutras contain the geometry necessary for construction of the vedi and the agni for the obligatory and votive rites. Developing an alternative math curriculum at school level.
Now, let us gabita the multiplication the sutra way. They offer a wealth of geometrical as well as arithmetical. So the construction of such sacrificial altars according to the strict injunctions. Applied geometry of the sulba sutras chaturpata atharvan ved. The date of the commentary is uncertain but according to olivelle it is not very ancient. Shulba sutras is the name given to those portions or supplements of the kalpasutras, which deal with the measurement and construction of the different altars or arenas for religious rites. The shulba sutras or sulbasutras are sutra texts belonging to the srauta ritual and containing. Indian works, the vastu shilpa shastra, use of geometry in sulbha sutras to calculate the. The sulba sutras have been dated from around 800200 bc, and further to the expansion of topics in the vedangas, contain a number of significant developments. These in turn are a part of the kalpasutras, which are attached to the vedas as one of the six v dangas or limbs of the vedas. The remaining two, the manava sulba sutra composed by manava fl.
He belongs to the yajurveda school, and is older than the other sutra author apastambha. Sulba sutra, which contains examples of simple pythagorean triples, such as. Sec tion 2 is a discussionof someof the geometry found in the sulba sutras while section 3 is the same for arithmetical constructions. Three authors can be singled out for mathematical exposition in the sulba sutras. According to his researches, mathematics is based on 16 sutras or wordformulae. Thus sutra 54 give a construction of the square root of n as a length. The baudhayana shulba sutra gives the construction of geometric shapes such as.
However, unlike modern geometry, the emphasis was not on proofs but on usage. The altars and fire places are of varying geometrical shapes. The baudhayana sulba sutra, the bestknown and oldest of the sulba sutras. Classical work, with sanskrit commentary on the mensuration of the vedic sacrificial altars according to maitraya. Even more it has done in mathematics, for algebra, geometry, astronomy, and the triumph of modern science mixed mathematics were all invented in india, just so much as. According to greek texts they were instructed in the secret processes of psychic knowledge. The later sulba sutras represent the traditional material along with further related elaboration of vedic mathematics. Pythagoras went from samos to ganga 2600 years ago to learn geometry. Moreover in sutra 54 he gives a method for constructing geometrically the square which has the same area as any given rectangle.
Mathematics of the vedas hindupedia, the hindu encyclopedia. Although the theorem has long been associated with greek mathematicianphilosopher pythagoras c. Shulbasutras or the rules of geometry were instrumental for the vedic hindus to construct altars. The rules of geometry itself were known as shulba sutra, the sanskrit word sutra meaning aphorism or a short rule. Problem 30 of the ahmes papyrus uses these methods to calculate the area of a circle, according. If n is any number then a rectangle of sides n and 1 has the same area as a square with side equal to the square root of n. They deal with construction of sacrificial altars and fire places. According to plofker, the katyayana was composed after the great. Geometry of the sulba sutras hailing from the times of the vedas, the ritual literature which gave directions for constructing sacrificial fires at different times of the year dealt with the their measurement and construction in a systematic and logical way, thus giving rise to the sulba sutras. According to greek texts they were instructed in the secret processes of. Pdf sulba sutra of vedic india and pythagorean principle of.
Then follow the brahmanas books and the sulba sutra books in chronological order. Pythagorean pythagoras theorem in baudhayana sulba sutra. According to the rules of the vastu, a building erected must be situated in such a. Section 4 looks at some of the applications to the building of citis and section 5 integrates the different sections and discusses the significance of the applied geometry of the sulba sutras. He is noted as the author of the earliest sulba sutra appendices to the vedas giving rules for the construction of altarscalled the baudhayana sulbasutra, which contained several important mathematical results. Mathematics in veda samhitas as mentioned earlier, the books are the four or five veda samhitas.
Euclid is a greek mathematician and often referred to as the father of geometry. Geometry according to sulbasutras, maharshi sandipani rashtriya ved vidya pratishthan, ujjain. Pythagorean pythagoras theorem in baudhayana sulba sutra 800 bc in mathematics, the pythagorean pythagoras theorem written around 400 bc is a relation among the three sides of a right triangle rightangled triangle. The arithmetic back ground of geometry of sulbasutras 19 4. Some of them relate to the broader field of mathematics, of which a subset is described here. It belongs to taittiriya samhita of krishna yajurveda. The basis and inspiration for the whole of indian mathematics is geometry. According to staal, certain aspects of the tradition described in the shulba sutras would have been transmitted orally, and he points to places in southern india where the firealtar ritual is still practiced and an oral tradition preserved. According to legend, the hindu sun god, surya, revealed to maya highly specific knowledge of the cosmos, presumably to allow the people of earth to better worship him. As a final look at the mathematics of the sulbasutras we examine what may be the most remarkable. The pythagoras theorem 3 in india, the baudhayana sulba sutra, the dates of which are given variously as between the 8th century bc and the 2nd century bc, contains a list of pythagorean triples discovered algebraically, a statement of the pythagorean theorem, and a geometrical proof of the pythagorean theorem for an isosceles right triangle. Sulba sutra by some is dated to 10th century bc or perhaps older. Somehow many writers jump to the relatively late sulba sutras while discussing ancient indian mathematics.
Theorem, transfer a square into a circle, square root of 2, some trigonometry in ancient. Baudhayana sulba sutra project gutenberg selfpublishing. Their shape, area, the number of bricks to be used for their construction are. Katyayana sulba sutra with english translation, explanatory notes, diagrams. Increase a unit length by its third and this third by its own fourth less the thirtyfourth part of that fourth. Indian sulbasutras mactutor history of mathematics archive. Search for library items search for lists search for contacts search for a library. Section4 looks at some of the applications to the building of citis and sec tion 5 integratesthe different sectionsand discusses the significanceof the applied geometry of the sulba sutras. Baudhayana pythagoras theorem it was ancient indians been provided by both baudhayana and apastamba in the sulba sutras it was known in the sulbasutra for example, sutra 52 of baudhayanas sulbasutram that the diagonal of a square is the side of another square with two times.
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