Bhāskara I was a 7th century astronomer, probably from the region that is between the border of modern day Mahārashtra, Gujarat, and Madhya Pradesh in India.
He wrote two treatises in the line of Āryabhaṭa I's astronomy, the Mahābhāskarīya (Shukla 1960) and the Laghubhāskarīya (Shukla 1963). Bhāskara did not just restate in an explicit way Āryabhaṭa I's astronomy; he also provided explanations and interpretations of this astronomer's reasoning. Bhāskara I is also the author of a commentary on the Āryabhaṭīya (see the entry on Āryabhaṭa). This is the oldest known Sanskrit commentary on this treatise. It is also the oldest known commentary for the whole mathematical and astronomical tradition in Sanskrit. The commentary is called the Āryabhaṭīyabhāṣya (Shukla 1976; Keller 2006). Bhāskara I himself dates the writing of this text to 628 AD. He is thus a contemporary of Brahmagupta.
This commentary, not being written in compact sūtraverses, can help us reconstruct what astronomy and...
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bag, A. K. Mathematics in Ancient and Medieval India. Varanasi: Chaukhambha Orientalia. 1979.
Balachandra Rao, S. ‘Bhāskara I’ in Encyclopaedia of Classical Indian Sciences: Natural Science, Technology and Medicine. Ed. Selin, Helaine and Roddam Narasimha. Hyderabad: Universities Press. In press, 2006.
Chemla, Karine and Agathe Keller The Chineese mian and the Sanskrit karaṇīs, From China to Paris: 2000 Years of Mathematical Transmission. Ed. Dold‐Samplonius, Yvonne. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002. 87–132.
Datta, B. The two Bhāskaras. Indian Historical Quaterly 6 (1930): 727–36.
Datta, B. and S. N. Singh History of Hindu Mathematics, Lahore, 1938: Asia Publishing, House, 1986.
‐‐‐. Hindu Geometry. Indian Journal of History of Science 15 (1980): 21–187.
‐‐‐. Hindu Trigonometry. Indian Journal of History of Science 18 (1983): 39–108.
Hayashi, T. and Michio Yano. A Note on Bhaskara I's Rational Approximation to Sine; Exact Sciences in Arabic, Sanskrit, and Chinese. Historia Scientiarum 42 (1991): 45–8.
Keller, Agathe. Expounding the Mathematical Seed, Bhāskara and the Mathematical Chapter of the Āryabhaṭīya. Bäsel: Birkhäuser, 2006.
‐‐‐. Making Diagrams Speak, in Bhāskara I's Commentary on the Āryabhaṭīya. Historia Mathematica 32 (2005): 275–302.
Shukla, K. S. Mahābhāskarīya, Edited and Translated into English, with Explanatory and Critical Notes, and Comments, etc. Lucknow: Lucknow University Press, 1960.
‐‐‐. Laghubhāskarīya, Edited and Translated into English, with Explanatory and Critical Notes, and Comments, etc. Lucknow: Lucknow University Press, 1963.
‐‐‐. 1976 Āryabhaṭīya of Āryabhaṭa, with the Commentary of Bhāskara I and Someśvara: Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi, 1976.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Keller, A. (2008). Bhāskara I. 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_9359
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9359
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-4559-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-4425-0
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law