Āryabhaṭa
आर्यभट
Astronomer-mathematician (b. 476 CE), author of the Āryabhaṭīya.
Definition
Āryabhaṭa (born 476 CE) composed the Āryabhaṭīya in 499 CE at Kusumapura, near present-day Patna. Its four sections (Gītikā, Gaṇita, Kālakriyā and Gola) present a syllabic place-value notation for numbers, a table of sines, a value of π equal to 3.1416, and the view that the Earth rotates on its axis. His school shaped the later siddhānta tradition, and Bhāskara I wrote an early commentary on the work.
Articles that use this term
- Siddhanta
Eclipses in the Indian sky: what is computed and what is kept
How the siddhantas compute a grahana, what Rahu and Ketu stand for in that computation, and sutak as a practice that varies from one tradition to another.
7 min read · 30 September 2026