The Shulbasutras of Baudhayana, Apastamba, Katyayana and Manava: With Text, English Translation and Commentary c8.t1.39
The Śulbasūtras of Baudhāyana, Āpastamba, Kātyāyana and Mānava: With Text, English Translation and Commentary c8.t1.39
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c8.t1.39
No proof of this theorem is given by Baudhāyana and other *śulba* writers, since it is beyond their tradition to do so. Zeuthen, Cantor, Vogt, Cajori and Heath have expressed the view that the general statement was possibly the result of an induction from a small number of cases of right-angled triangles having sides in rational numbers known to them. But this is not the actual case. Our discussions on rational rectangles and construction of geometrical figures amply justify that the general character of the theorem was rightly understood by the *śulbakāras*.