was born in 475 A.D. His birthplace is not sure, but in his book the ‘Aryabhatiya’, he mentions that he was a native of Kusumapura, the modern-day Patna. He excelled in academics from a very early age. Historians believe that he was also the head of Nalanda University in Kusumpura.
Aryabhata is the author of several treatises on mathematics and astronomy, some of which are lost.
His major work, Aryabhatiya, a compendium of mathematics and astronomy, was extensively referred to in the Indian mathematical literature and has survived to modern times.
The mathematical part of Aryabhatiya covers arithmetic, algebra, plane trigonometry, and spherical trigonometry. It also contains continued fractions, quadratic equations, sums-of-power series, and a table of sines.
The Arya-siddhanta, a lost work on astronomical computations, is known through the writings of Aryabhata’s contemporary, Varahamihira, and later mathematicians and commentators, including Brahmagupta and Bhaskara I. This work appears to be based on the older Surya Siddhanta and uses the midnight-day reckoning, as opposed to sunrise in Aryabhatiya. It also contained a description of several astronomical instruments: the gnomon (shanku-yantra), a shadow instrument (chhAyA-yantra), possibly angle-measuring devices, semicircular and circular (dhanur-yantra / chakra-yantra), a cylindrical stick yasti-yantra, an umbrella-shaped device called the chhatra-yantra, and water clocks of at least two types, bow-shaped and cylindrical.
Algebra
In Aryabhatiya, Aryabhata provided elegant results for the summation of series of squares and cubes.
Trigonometry
In Ganitapada 6, Aryabhata gives the area of a triangle as tribhujasya phalaśarīraṃ samadalakoṭī bhujārdhasaṃvargaḥ
that translates to: “for a triangle, the result of a perpendicular with the half-side is the area.”
Approximation of π
Aryabhata worked on the approximation for pi (π), and may have come to the conclusion that π is irrational. In the second part of the Aryabhatiyam (gaṇitapāda 10), he writes:
caturadhikaṃ śatamaṣṭaguṇaṃ dvāṣaṣṭistathā sahasrāṇām ayutadvayaviṣkambhasyāsanno vṛttapariṇāhaḥ.
“Add four to 100, multiply by eight, and then add 62,000. By this rule the circumference of a circle with a diameter of 20,000 can be approached.”[17]
This implies that for a circle whose diameter is 20000, the circumference will be 62832.
62832/20000 =3.1416 ; which is accurate to three decimal places.
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, that the sky rotated.
Aryabhatta, was certainly ahead of time. Several of the theories he discovered, were proven by others centuries later. SPARK is a pioneer in initiating several life-skill programs. Almost 20 years ago, we began teaching Mental Maths using Abacus. This was despite, people telling us, that in this age of computerization, why someone would need computational ability. And today, when we have hundreds of our students reach the pinnacle of education and occupy positions of value, and they tell us, it was the mental ability that came to their recue while cracking an IIT exam or finding the right chemical composition for a product. We also began our ‘etiquettes’ program specific for women years ago and today, it is the key differentiator for women to join the work force. Along with NIMka, SPARK, initiated the Money Management Program for children; today with the world heading towards a new normal, making our future generation robust with money matters is the order of the day. We have been ahead of time in launching our education programs for children from 5 to 18, because we sincerely believe children are our future and if we don’t give them the tools to excel, there is no real hope.
