Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c13.31

c13.31

Taking Arya-bhatta, for reasons given in the notes,³⁵ to have preceded Brahmegupta and Varahamihira by several centuries; and Brahmegupta to have flourished about twelve hundred years ago;³⁶ and Varahamihira, concerning whose works and age some further notices will be found in a subjoined note,³⁷ to have lived at the beginning of the sixth century after Christ,³⁸ it appears probable that this earliest of known Hindu algebraists wrote as far back as the fifth century of the Christian era; and, perhaps, in an earlier age. Hence it is concluded, that he is nearly as ancient as the Grecian algebraist Diophantus, supposed, on the authority of Abulfaraj,³⁹ to have flourished in the time of the emperor Julian, or about A.D. 360.