Ancient Indian Mathematicians

Co - Editor : Sri M. Seetarama Rao
Foreword: Prof. V. Kannan

The enthusiasm triggered by the "International Congress of Mathematicians 2010"took the shape of this volume on "Ancient Indian Mathematics". This is a humble attempt to draw the attention of the world mathematicians towards the mathematical achievements of ancient Indians. We are aware that India was not the only land where Mathematics sprouted up in those remote pre-historic early days of human civilization and that is why almost every essay of this volume attempted to compare the mathematical achievements of each Indian mathematician with those of his contemporary counterparts, elsewhere in the world.

Even though there were several other ancient Indian mathematicians whose works are available today (apart from those that were burnt and spoiled in invasions etc.),we could select only 22 of them, purely for reasons of crave for compactness, but we tried to cover the long period of history, starting from the Vedic period to 1500 AD. It is commendable that all the illustrious authors of these essays, who excelled in their respective fields of Mathematics, maintained sense of equilibrium and brevity. We congratulate and thank each one of them, more so for their ready response to our: all for papers on non-routine subjects, at a short notice.

In view of the achievements and popularity of Sri Bharati Krishna Tirthaji and Sri Srinivasa Ramanujam, we have added an addendum to accommodate two essays on their achievements, even though they do not belong to ancient periods.

Our special thanks are due to Prof. V. Kannan, Pro-Vice Chancellor, Hyderabad Central University, Hyderabad, whose continuous encouragement and guidance made this volume a reality and whose enlightening foreword added value and vigor to the volume.

We are deeply indebted to all our sponsors, advertisers and volunteers, whose encouragement and continuous help are the real life force of this volume. Mr. B. Sai Kiran, Director, IMPACT deserves a special mention for his encouragement. Sri M. Sitarama Rao, our research coordinator and my co-editor of this volume, deserves all the credit for the beautiful outcome of this volume. I thank all of them.

Even though there were some earlier attempts on the theme of this volume, combined effort of several experts of the field and an effort to focus on comparative Study are, hopefully, the specialties of this volume and I am sure this attempt will lead to the furtherance of the efforts to evolve modern applications from the ancient lines of thinking.