Indian Mathematicians and Their Contributions

Indian Mathematicians and their Contributions are much more relevant and simultaneously significant in the modern context of development. Ancient to modern Indian mathematicians made immortal contributions to mathematics. They introduced concepts like the decimal system, zero, negative numbers, arithmetic, algebra, trigonometry, and much more. These are documented in the Sanskrit sutras that outline the different rules and problems related to mathematics.

In this article, we will discuss the famous Indian Mathematicians and Their Contributions in detail.

Let us discuss.

Indian Mathematicians and their Contributions

Table of Content

  • Indian Mathematicians and their Contributions – Overview
  • Top 7 Great Indian Mathematicians and Their Contributions
  • List of Famous Female Mathematicians of India
  • Famous Indian Mathematicians and their Inventions
  • List of the Best Indian Mathematicians in the World

Indian Mathematicians and their Contributions – Overview

Indian mathematicians have made so many significant contributions to the field of mathematics throughout history. They made so many classic contributions that spanned a diverse area. Their mathematical prowess left a long-lasting impact on the global mathematical landscape. Here is the detailed overview of those famous Indian mathematicians and Their Notable Contributions as mentioned below.

Indian Mathematicians and their Contributions – Overview

Mathematician Name

Contributions

Baudhayana

Approximation of the square root of 2. He proposed the he statement version of the Pythagorean Theorem.

Katyayana

Varttika, Vyakarana, later Sulba Sutras.

Pingala

Matrameru, binary numeral system, arithmetical triangle.

Aryabhata

Aryabhaṭiya, Arya-siddhanta

Varahamihira

Pancha-Siddhāntikā, Brihat-Samhita, Brihat Jataka

Yativrsabha

Wrote of the book Tiloyapannatti. It gives various units for measuring distances and time. Different concepts about infinity.

Brahmagupta

Zero, Brahmagupta’s theorem, Brahmagupta’s identity, Brahmagupta’s problem.

Bhaskara I

Sine approximation formula.

Shridhara

Rule for finding the volume of a sphere.

Mahavira

Highly approach to algebra. Emphasis on developing the techniques that are necessary to solve algebraic problems.

Pavuluri Maulana

Translated Ganitasara Samgraham into Telugu as Sara Sangraha Ganitamu.

Bhaskara II

Principles of differential calculus. Application to solve the astronomical problems.

Narayana Pandit

Arithmetical treatise also known as Ganita Kaumudi. The Algebraic treatise called Bijganita Vatamsa.

Madhava of Sangamagrama

Discovery of power series expansions of trigonometric functions; Notable works include Golavada, Madhyamanayanaprakara, Venvaroha.

Parameshvara

He discovered the drk-ganita. It is a mode of astronomy observations.

Nilakantha Somayaji

Notable works include Golasara, Candrachayaganita, Aryabhatiya-bhashya, Tantrasamgraha, Raghunatha Siromani.

Shankara Variyar

Notable works include Yukti-dipika, Laghu-vivrti, Kriya-kramakari.

Jyeshtadeva

Known for authorship of Yuktibhāṣā and Drkkarana.

Munishvara

Produced accurate sine tables.

Kamalakara

He proposed the combination of traditional Indian astronomy with Aristotelian physics and Ptolemaic astronomy.

Jagannatha Samrat

Notable works include Siddhanta-samrat, Yantra-prakara.

Radhanath Sikdar

Calculated height of Mount Everest.

Pathani Samanta

Known for Naked eye astronomy.

Ganesh Prasad

Established the culture of organised mathematical research in India.

Srinivasa Ramanujan

Known for various contributions including Landau–Ramanujan constant, Mock theta functions, Ramanujan conjecture, and more.

Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis

Mahalanobis distance, Feldman–Mahalanobis model.

Subbayya Sivasankaranarayana Pillai

Pillai’s conjecture, the Pillai’s arithmetical function and the Pillai prime.

Raj Chandra Bose

Known for various contributions including Association scheme, Bose–Mesner algebra, Euler’s conjecture on Latin squares, and more.

Samarendra Nath Roy

Known for multivariate analysis.

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar

Known for various contributions including Chandrasekhar limit, Chandra X-ray Observatory, and more.

S. S. Shrikhande

Known for Euler’s conjecture.

Prahladbhai Chunilal Vaidya

Known for Vaidya Metric, Vaidya–Patel solution, Einstein field equations.

Anil Kumar Gain

Known for Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient, Vidyasagar University.

C. R. Rao

Cramér–Rao bound, the Rao–Blackwell theorem, the Orthogonal arrays and Score test.

Harish Chandra

Known for various contributions including Harish-Chandra’s c-function, character formula, homomorphism, and more.

Raghu Raj Bahadur

Bahadur efficiency, the Anderson–Bahadur algorithm, the Bahadur-Ghosh-Kiefer representation, etc.

Gopinath Kallianpur

Known for Fisher consistency.

Shreeram Shankar Abhyankar

Known for Abhyankar’s conjecture, lemma, Abhyankar–Moh theorem.

C.S. Seshadri

Known for Seshadri constant, Narasimhan–Seshadri theorem, standard monomial theory.

Vinod Behari Johri

Known for various contributions including power law inflation in Brans–Dicke theory, Theory of integrated tracking of quintessence fields, and more.

K. R. Parthasarathy

Known for Quantum stochastic calculus.

Veeravalli S. Varadarajan

Known for Trombi–Varadarajan theorem.

Vasanti N. Nayak

Known for Combinatorial design and Graph Theory.

Srinivasa Varadhan

Known for Martingale problems, large deviation theory.

Vashishtha Narayan Singh

Known for Reproducing Kernels and Operators with a Cyclic Vector.

Siddani Bhaskara Rao

Frequency partition, different Line graphs and Degree sequences.

N. M. Singhi

Known for Combinatorics and Graph Theory.

Sujatha Ramdorai

Developed the Non-commutative Iwasawa theory. Also worked on the Arithmetic of Algebraic varieties.

Narendra Krishna Karmarkar

Known for Karmarkar’s algorithm.

Manindra Agrawal

Known for AKS primality test.

Chandrashekhar Khare

Known for Proof of Serre conjecture.

Subhash Khot

Known for Unique games conjecture.

Dr. Neena Gupta

Provided a counter-example over a field of positive characteristic to the special Zariski Cancellation Problem.

Top 7 Great Indian Mathematicians and Their Contributions

400 CE to 1500 CE was the golden age of Indian Mathematics. This period is also known as the Classic Period of Indian Mathematics. Now we are going to discuss about the top 7 great Indian Mathematicians and Their Contributions in detail as mentioned below.

1. Aryabhata

  • Aryabhata was born in Kusumapura of ancient India.
  • He was the first mathematician who is considered as the first astronomer also of ancient India.
  • Aryabhata used the decimal number system to solve square and cube roots.
  • He evaluated an accurate value of pi up to 4 decimal places.
  • Aryabhata calculated and proved that a year comprises with 365 days.
  • He discovered the spherical shape of Earth and its rotation on its axis.
  • Aryabhata calculated Earth’s circumference which was 99.8 percent accurate.
  • Aryabhata’s contributions we can find across trigonometry, geometry, astronomy, and more.

2. Varahamihira

  • He was born in ancient Ujjain in the 6th century CE in India.
  • He was the first mathematician who discovered a version of Pascal’s triangle.
  • He also evaluated the binomial coefficients.
  • He enhanced the accuracy of Aryabhata’s sine tables in later times.
  • Varahamihira invented the 4×4 magic square.
  • Panchasiddhantika and Brihat Samhita are some notable mathematical scripts of Varahamihira.

3. Brahmagupta

  • Brahmagupta was born in Ujjain.
  • He introduced zero in the world of mathematics. It was a brilliant concept where he defined Mathematics as “nothing” without zero.
  • He was the first mathematician to provide a mathematical formula for the Cyclic Quadrilateral.
  • Brahmasphutasiddhanta was the earliest text to acknowledge zero as a numerical entity which was written by him.

4. Srinivasa Ramanujan

  • Srinivasa Ramanujan was born in Tamil Nadu whose theories and concepts change the idea of mathematics during the early 20th century.
  • He earned the nickname “The man who knew Infinity.”
  • Ramanujan sent 120 Theorems to Professor Hardy of Cambridge University. For this he got an invitation to work there.
  • The number 1729 is now also known as the Hardy–Ramanujan number jointly.

5. P.C.Mahalanobis

  • Mahalanobis improved the process of statistical surveys. He introduced the concept of pilot and large-scale surveys.
  • Recognized as the “Father of Indian Statistics”.
  • He founded the Indian Statistical Institute of India.
  • He served as a member of India’s inaugural Planning Commission.

6. Satyendra Nath Bose 

  • SN Bose laid the foundation for theoretical physics in India.
  • He made so many significant contributions to quantum mechanics.
  • He particularly established the groundwork for Bose-Einstein statistics.
  • He discovered the Bose-Einstein condensate, the concept of bosons, development of Single field theory, research on the diffraction of X-rays, and exploration of electromagnetic waves.

7. Shakuntala Devi

  • She was born in Bengaluru, Karnataka who was famous as the “Human Computer” for her extraordinary mental calculating abilities.
  • She honored with a place in The Guinness Book of World Records in its 1982 edition.

List of Famous Female Mathematicians of India

Here are the list of female Mathematicians of India as mentioned below.

  • Raman Parimala
  • Neena Gupta
  • Shakuntala Devi
  • Sujhata Ramdorai
  • Mangala Narlikar
  • Vanaja Iyengar
  • Renuka Ravindra
  • Ajit Iqbal Singh
  • T. A. Sarasvati Amma
  • Bhama Srinivasan

Famous Indian Mathematicians and their Inventions

Here are some famous Indian mathematicians and their notable inventions as mentioned below.

Famous Indian Mathematicians and their Inventions

Mathematicians Name

Notable Inventions

Aryabhata

(a + b) ^2 = a^2 + 2ab+ b^2

Brahmagupta

Number 0

Srinivasa Ramanujan

Partition Function

P.C. Mahalanobis

Mahalanobis Distance

C.R. Rao

Theory of Estimation

D.R. Kaprekar

Devlali numbers

Kaprekar numbers

Harshad and Demlo numbers

Harish Chandra

Representation theory

Harmonic analysis

Satyendra Nath Bose

Modern theoretical physics in India

Bhaskara

Any number divided by zero will infinity.

The sum of any number and infinity will give infinity as a result.

Narendra Karmarkar

Karmarkar’s algorithm

List of the Best Indian Mathematicians in the World

Here are some best Indian mathematicians who are also famous in the World as metioned below.

Bhaskara I

  • He was known for his significant contributions to world mathematics.
  • He invented the Hindu decimal system.
  • Wrote ‘Aryabhatiyabhasya’ in 629 CE, oldest Sanskrit math/astronomy work.
  • He also wrote Mahabhaskariya and Laghubhāskarīya.
  • He have done some notable works on cosine, sine relationships, sin x approximation.
  • He also done some notable research on planetary longitudes, conjunctions, eclipses, stars, lunar phases, risings and settings.
  • Explained the sine relationship for angles >90°, >180°, >270°.
  • Bhaskara 1 also gave the Pell Equation (8x² + 1 = y²).

D R Kaprekar

  • Kaprekar was also known as ‘Ganitananda’.
  • He won the Wrangler R. P. Paranjpe Mathematical Prize.
  • Kaprekar published his research papers on magic squares, recurring decimals, and integers with special properties.
  • The number 6174 is the Kaprekar Constant in the modern mathematics.
  • Kaprekar also worked and described various classes of natural numbers.

Mahavira

  • Mahavira was an Indian mathematician of the 9th century.
  • He worked on the differences between mathematics and astrology.
  • He told that square roots do not apply to negative numbers.
  • He wrote the ‘Ganitasarasangraha’. It covered so mant contemporary mathematical procedures.
  • He was the inventoe of naming concepts of differnt geometrical structures.

Narendra Karmarkar

  • Karmarkar was renowned for inventing polynomial algorithms.
  • His work changed the solution process for linear programming queries.

C.R. Rao

  • C.R. Rao became famous for his “Theory of Estimation.”
  • He became famous for his contributions in fields of medicine, economics, and demography.
  • He won the Chandrasekara Iyer Scholarship and earned a gold medal in MD in Statistics in 1943 from the Indian Statistical Institute.

Harish Chandra

  • He is an Indian American physicist and mathematician.
  • He described the fundamental work in representation theory.
  • He contributed in harmonic analysis of semisimple Lie groups.

Ashutosh Mukherjee

  • Ashutosh Mukherjee, notable Indian mathematician.
  • Identified talents of S. Radhakrishnan and C.V. Raman.
  • Broadened math spectrum in India.
  • Achieved zenith position in eminent mathematicians’ list.
  • Contributed through numerous research papers in physics and mathematics.
  • Part of national and international academic societies.
  • Founded Calcutta Mathematical Society in 1908.

Ganesh Prasad

  • Ganesh Prasad worked on “Functions of Bessel and Lame” and “A Treatise for Spherical Harmonics.”
  • He was an expert in hypothesis of functions of a real variable, theory of potentials, Fourier .
  • He is the “father of mathematical research in India.”

Conclusion – Indian Mathematicians and their Contributions

Mathematics involves exploring concepts like numbers, patterns, geometry, and transformations. We provide a comprehensive list of Indian mathematicians spanning from ancient times to modern-day, highlighting their notable achievements. In this article we have discussed about the Indian Mathematicians and their Contributions in detail.

FAQs – Indian Mathematicians and their Contributions

Who are the top 10 mathematician of India?

  1. Srinivasa Ramanujan
  2. C. R. Rao
  3. Harish-Chandra
  4. S. S. Shrikhande
  5. M. S. Narasimhan
  6. Manjul Bhargava
  7. Vashishtha Narayan Singh
  8. Satyendra Nath Bose
  9. Raghavan Narasimhan
  10. Anil Kumar Gain

Who is father of mathematics in India?

Aryabhatta is the father of Indian mathematics. Aryabhatta’s major work like Spherical trigonometry, plane trigonometry. Determined the value of π correct to four decimal places.

Who is the Indian mathematician who contributed?

Indian mathematics boasts many luminaries who have contributed significantly to various branches of the field. One of the most renowned mathematicians in Indian history is Srinivasa Ramanujan, whose extraordinary contributions to number theory, mathematical analysis, infinite series, and continued fractions are celebrated worldwide. Ramanujan’s remarkable insights and conjectures have profoundly influenced modern mathematics and continue to inspire mathematicians to this day.

Who is king of maths in India?

Srinivasa Ramanujan is the king of maths in India.

What are the 5 names of mathematicians?

5 names of mathematician are Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Mahavira, Bhaskara II, Madhava of Sangamagrama and Nilakantha Somayaji.

Who discovered zero first?

Aryabhatta introduced zero in 5th century and Brahmagupta introduced zero in calculations in around 628 AD.

Who discovered trigonometry?

Hipparchus discovered trigonometry. Trigonometry in the modern sense began with the Greeks.

Who is the Indian mathematician woman?

Shakuntala Devi is the Indian mathematician woman.



Contact Us