Indian Science and Technology in the Eighteenth Century: Some Contemporary European Accounts c13.46

c13.46

They not only applied algebra both to astronomy75 and to geometry;76 but conversely applied geometry likewise to the demonstration of Algebraic rules.77 In short, they cultivated Algebra much more, and with greater success, than geometry; as is evident from the comparatively low state of their knowledge in the one,78 and the high pitch of their attainments in the other: and they cultivated it for the sake of astronomy, as they did this chiefly for astrological purposes. The examples in the earliest algebraic treatise extant (Brahmegupta's) are mostly astronomical: and here the solution of indeterminate problems is sometimes of real and practical use. The instances in the later treatise of Algebra by Bhascara are more various: many of them geometric; but one astronomical; the rest numeral: among which a great number of indeterminate; and of these some, though not the greatest part, resembling the questions which chiefly engage the attention of Diophantus. But the general character of the Diophantine problems and of the Hindu unlimited ones is by no means alike: and several in the style of Diophantine are noticed by Bhascara in his arithmetical, instead of his algebraic, treatise.79