The Mathematics of the Ganitapāda

Abstract

If the Āryabhatīya is a difficult book to read, the Ganitapāda is the most difficult of its three main parts or chapters. The economy of expression of the sūtra style that limits a proper understanding of the material to the already initiated becomes even more frustrating when it comes to the mathematics because we know, as did the commentators, that the topics are capable of a precise formulation, to be accepted or rejected – there are a few wrong statements in the Ganitapāda- on logical and mathematical grounds alone.