History of Hindu Mathematics: A Source Book v1.c8.s5.2

v1.c8.s5.2

**The Operation.** Division was considered to be a difficult and tedious operation by European scholars even as late as the 15th and 16th centuries;¹ but in India the operation was not considered to be difficult, as the most satisfactory method of performing it had been evolved at a very early period. In fact, no Hindu mathematician seems to have attached any great importance to this operation. Āryabhaṭa I does not mention the method of division in his work. But as he has given the modern methods for extracting square- and cube-roots, which depend on division,² we conclude that the method of division was well-known in his time and was not described in the *Āryabhaṭīya* as it was considered to be too elementary. Most Siddhânta writers have followed Āryabhaṭa in excluding the process of division from their works, *e.g.*, Brahmagupta (628), Śrîpati (1039), and some others.