Baudhayana

Baudhayana, (circa 800 BC), was a Vedic Indian mathematician/scribe. He is the author of one of the earliest and most important Sulbasutras, appendices to the Vedas giving rules for the construction of altars, called the Baudhayana Sulbasutra.

The Baudhayana Sulbasutra contains one of the earliest references to what is known today as the Pythagorean theorem.

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

This is a special case of the Pythagorean theorem for a 45° right triangle.

The Katyayana Sulbasutra, written about 200 BC, gives a more general version of the theorem:

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 of the sides.

References

• J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson, Baudhayana
• J. J. O'Connor and E. F. Robertson, The Indian Sulbasutras

See also

• Indian mathematicians