Baudhayana, (c. 800 BC) was a Vedic learned man in ancient India, likely a priest and mathematician (although not in the modern sense). He is the author of the earliest and possibly most important Sulba Sutra — appendices to the Vedas giving rules for the construction of altars — called the Baudhayana Sulba Sutra, which contained several important mathematical results.

The Baudhayana Sulba Sutra contains the earliest statement of what is known today as the "Pythagorean theorem". It expresses the theorem in terms of the diagonals of rectangles:

The rope which is stretched along the length of the diagonal of a rectangle produces an area which the vertical and horizontal sides make together.

In other words, the square of the hypotenuse equals the sum of the squares

The rope which is stretched across the diagonal of a square produces an area double the size of the original square.

The proof contained in this statement becomes obvious when constructing a diagram for it. Apastamba (circa 600 BC) and Katyayana (circa 200 BC) later repeat the Pythagorean theorem given by Baudhayana, while Apastamba also gives a numerical proof of the general Pythagorean theorem, using an area computation.

The Baudhayana Sulbasutra also gives an approximation of the square root of two, correct to five decimal places.

References

• John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson. at the MacTutor archive.
• J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson,

See also

• Indian mathematics
• Indian mathematicians