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Āryabhaṭa

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Āryabhaṭa (b. AD 476) was a celebrated astronomer and mathematician of the classical period of the Gupta dynasty (AD 320 to ca. 600). This era is called the Golden Age in the history of India, during which Indian intellect reached its high water mark in most branches of art, science, and literature, and Indian culture and civilization reached a unique stage of development which left its deep impression upon succeeding ages. Āryabhaṭa played an important role in shaping scientific astronomy in India. He is designated as Āryabhaṭa I to differentiate him from Āryabhaṭa II, who flourished much later (ca. AD 950–1100) and who wrote the Mahāsiddhānta.

Āryabhaṭa I was born in AD 476. This conclusion is reached from his own statement in the Āryabhaṭīya: “When sixty times sixty years and three quarters of the yuga (now Mahā) had elapsed, twenty three years had then passed since my birth” (III, 10).

Since the present Kaliyuga (the last quarter of the Mahāyuga) started in 3102 BCE, Āryabhaṭa was...

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York

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Gupta, R.C. (2008). Āryabhaṭa. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9209

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9209

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

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