Shridhara

Shridhara

(flourished c. 750, India) Highly esteemed Hindu mathematician who wrote several treatises on Indian mathematics. His extant works are the partially preserved Patiganita (“Mathematics of Procedures”), Ganitasara (“Essence of Mathematics”), and Ganitapanchavimashi (“Mathematics in 25 Verses”). Patiganita consists of versified mathematical rules, without proofs. The first part treats arithmetic operations (including the calculation of squares, square roots, cubes, and cubic roots) for both integers and fractions, reductions of fractions, and proportions. The second part presents mixture problems and various series before it breaks off in the midst of rules for plane figures. He composed Ganitasara and Ganitapanchavimashi as epitomes of a larger work, which may or may not have been Patiganita. He gave the first correct formulas in India for the volume of a sphere and of a truncated cone.