Mathematics in Ancient and Medieval India c6.s8.1

c6.s8.1

From 300 B. C. to 300 A. D. we get a picture of early Jaina geometry. No single Jaina treatise of this period dealing with geometry and mathematics in general is known to us. Though geometry was admired as "lotus of mathematics"², yet we get only scrapy references here and there. In the *Sthānāṅgasūtra*³ (c. 300 B. C.), an early Jaina work, *rajju*, an instrument of measurement and *rāśi*, a solid quantity meaning measurement of solid bodies are the two topics mentioned under geometry¹. Though the term *rajju* does not appear in later works, there will be no difficulty in recognising it as referring to plane geometry ( *kṣetra* ). It is synonymous with the term *Śulba* of the Vedic period. A commentator of the Jaina work, *Gaṇitasārasaṃgraha* has rightly identified it ( *Śulba* ) with the *Kṣetragaṇita*. The term *rāśi* appears in later works where it means measurements of quantity of grains. In the later Hindu treatises, the topic on *rāśī* forms a part of *Khāta*² (cubic figures). Some technical terms of geometrical importance are used in the *Sūrajprajñapati*, *Bhāgavatisūtra*, *Tattvārthādhigamasūtra* of Umāsvati (c. 150 B. C.) etc. Probably these Jaina authors had more detailed knowledge, but the treatises written by them are lost. Several relations regarding circumference of a circle and their diameter are available in the *Tattvārthādhigamasūtra*, *Kṣetrasamāsa*, *Trilokasāra* and *Gommaṭasāra* and other Jaina works.³