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Though it is little difficult to tell who is the founder of Indian mathematics and Astronomy, Indian vedas contain the whole information about it. Many Rishis had developed calendar rules, the various ways and methods to give the information about eclipses, new moon night, and to decide the suitable time for various activities. With the passing time, Rishis developed Paitamah theorem, Vaishistha theorem, Romak theorem, Pawlik theorem etc. But gradually they became old as they didn’t give accurate results. Therefore people were loosing faith in it. But then a Scientist Aryabhatta removed the errors in this knowledge about mathematics and Astronomy and put it in front of people in new revised form.
The era known by Gupta era and Suvarna era was the era when India made phenomenal progress in the field of literature, Art and Science. In the field of Science the progress was made in the branches of Mathematics, Chemistry and Astrology. During that period a famous mathematician and Astrologer played a major role. He was resident of a village Kusumpur near Patna, capital of Bihar state. He was born on 13th April 476 and Died during 520. Those days Buddh and Jain religions were more in prevalence. But he was a follower of Sanatan Hindu religion. He made various remarkable inventions and research in the field of mathematics and astrology which could be considered to be ahead of time those days. He wrote that knowledge in the form of books and made an arrangement for the availability of that knowledge to the future generations.
Those days Magadh located Nalanda University was the major and famous study center. Students used to come there from within and outside India. There was a separate department for astronomy in the University. According to an ancient verse Aryabhatta had headed the Nalanda University as a chancellor.
On the present day, the information of three books written by Aryabhatta is available. Dashgitika, Aryabhattiya, and Tantra. But the specialists say that he has written one more book. Aryabhatta Sidhanta. But to this date only 34 verses of this book are available. The book was popularly been used in seventh century. But when the book was being used popularly like other books then why and how it got disappeared? It’s an unsolved puzzle.
Aryabhatta was the first scientist who included Arithmetic, Algebra, and Geometry in Astrology. In ‘Aryabhattiya Sidhanta’ he gave an introduction of basic theorems of Astrology. The book was divided into four parts of 121 verses.
In the part named Gitpadika he explained the things like planet’s rotation period, zodiac the planet’s rotation orbits.
In the second part named Gitpad, he analyzed mathematical square root, cube root, area of triangle, sine (jya) etc.
The relationship between the circumference and the diagonal of the circle, which we call Pi, He estimated it to be 3.1416 which was almost accurate.
In this book he had given the mathematical formulae like
(A+B)2 = A2+2AB+B2
In the third part named ‘Kalkriya’ of this book he wrote about the different parts of the time scale, planets rotation and revolution, counting of days, weeks, months etc. In the same book he had explained about the method of writing a large number in concise form.
Fourth part is famous by name 'Golpad' and it gives information about Astronomy science. Sun, Moon, Pluto, Neptune and other planets, their states, the reasons of Day and Night, zodiac and the reasons of eclipse etc are also explained in this book. Even today's scientists get surprised when they know that Aryabhatta had estimated the correct value of Pi and defined Sine in that old era.
Aryabhatta was an epoch maker. He never entertained the superstitions spread those days. On the contrary he tried to educate people against those superstitions. He told the world that Earth, Moon and other planets don't have their own light and they shine due to the sun. Even he told that the part of the earth on which the sunlight falls there it is day and the other side it is night. He also discussed about the different times at different cities and their reasons. He told the world that the earth is spherical and rotates around its axis. He also wiped off the belief of the people that the earth is the center of the universe and sun and other planets revolve around it. He had also estimated about the shape, speed, and the orbit of the earth and researched about solar and lunar eclipses. He estimated the main recurrence era of about 4320 thousand years and subdivided it into four small eras called Satyayug, Tretayug, dwaparyug and kaliyug. The period for these small eras he estimated as 1080 thousand years. He devised a formula to calculate the days when there would be solar and lunar eclipses in the future and according to the formula the estimate was never wrong.
Other than astrology he also worked on mathematics and invented various theorems. He was the first to elaborately teach algebra to the Indian people those times. Though it is difficult to tell about who invented the concept of zero and the digital number system in India but it was been elaborately used in Arayabhatta's books. His success was spread not only in India but also across the world. Arab scholars were very proud of his astrological knowledge and used to call him 'Arajbhat'
Aryabhatta who made various inventions in Algebra, Arithmetic, Geometry and Astrology, if mentioned as an important milestone in the Indian history, would not be an exaggeration. Those days almost all books were in the form of verses and they were passed from one generation to other by mugging. The book 'Aryabhatta Sidhanta' though was widely used in 7th century, with time it disappeared. This fact creates a mysterious curiosity about the knowledge that book contained. His fondness for the subject mathematics which is always exact and accurate and the nature of knowledge he had provided in his existing books makes anybody to believe that the book which is disappeared must have contained some special knowledge about the astrology. That may be the reason later on people may have preferred it to keep secrete or may be it would prove to be destructive if it goes in wrong hands...
Though command2 had read this paper many times before, he felt elated by reading it now also. Considering Boss's fondness for zero, Vedic mathematics and astrology and his ability to guess the right time for the right job, Command2 was convinced that Boss must have found the book 'Aryabhatt Sidhant' . Command2 was now done with almost half his job. But the remaining half and the most important part of the job was still to be done. First and foremost it was important to find whereabouts of the Boss. Last time when Boss talked to him on mobile, his number did not appear on the display. He was not sure how he managed to do that. Still he went to the telephone company to trace his Boss. They did not prove to be of much use to him. But they discovered a new thing that their frequency was been stolen by somebody. They were also able to tell him by large the area from where the call was done. Since he didn't know Boss by face, it had became very difficult for Command2 to find him. Still he used to go almost daily in the area to find Boss, and used to return only when he is totally exhausted. There were no signs of finding Boss. May be when he wandered around these many times in the area, boss may have crossed him. But there was no way by which he could have recognized him.
Continued …
Original Novel by Sunil Doiphode
English Version by Mugdha Apte
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