ब्राह्मस्फुटसिद्धान्त (ब्रह्मगुप्त - शून्य, कुट्टक, बीजगणित एवं सम्पूर्ण २१ अध्याय सान्वय सटीक)

ALGEBRA GOES TO EUROPE FROM INDIA 191 Towards the close of his treatise on Algebra, Bhāskara II informs us, that it is compiled and abridged from the more diffuse works on the same subject, bearing the names Brāhme (meaning no doubt Brahmagupta), Śrīdhara and Padmanābha; and in the body of his treatise, he has cited a passage of Śrīdhara's algebra and another of Padmanābha. He repeatedly adverts to preceding writers and refers to them in general terms, where his commentators understand him to allude to Āryabhaṭa, to Brahmagupta to the latter's scholiast Caturveda Pṛthūdaka Svāmī and to the other writers above mentioned. Most, if not all, of the treatises, to which he thus alludes, must have been extant, and in the hands of his commentators, when they wrote; as appears from their quotations of them; more especially those of Brahmagupta and Āryabhaṭa, who are cited, and particularly the first mentioned, in several instances. A long and diligent research in various parts of India, has, however, failed of recovering any part of the Padmanābha Bīja (or the algebra of Padmanābha) and of the algebraic and other works of Āryabhaṭa. But the translator has been more fortunate in regard to the works of Śrīdhara and Brahmagupta, having in his collection Śrīdhara's compendium of arithmetic, and a copy incomplete however, of the text and scholia of Brahmagupta's Brahmasiddhānta comprising among other no less interesting matter, a chapter treating of arithmetic and mensuration; and another, the subject of which is algebra : both of them fortu- nately complete. The commentary is a perpetual one; successively quoting in length each verse of the text; proceeding to the interpretation of it, word by word; and subjoining elucidations and remarks; and its colo- phon, at the close of each chapter, gives the title of the work and the name of the author. Now the name which is there given, Caturveda Pṛthudaka Svāmī, is that of a celebrated scholiast of Brahmagupta, frequently cited as such by the commentaries of