The Science of the Shulba: A Study in Early Hindu Geometry c13.s1.22

c13.s1.22

We have explained before Baudhāyana's method for the transformation of a square (or a rectangle) into an isosceles trapezium which shall have a given face. That is different from the one supposed here. But this method has one advantage over that; it does not disturb the east-west line and so its adoption, we think, to have been more probable. If the altitude also vary, we get an indeterminate equation of the form $z(x+y)=2$ where 18z is the altitude of the resulting isosceles trapezium.