A Panoramic Revisit to “Lilabati”

Abstract

Lilavati is the first part of the Mathematical Treatise "Siddhanta Siromoni” authored by Bhaskaracharya (Bhaskara II / Bhaskara) in 1150 B.C. Bhaskara named this part Lilavati in his daughter's name. It contains mainly Arithmetic and Measurement, besides Algebra, Geometry & Mensuration, Number Theory, Diophantine Equation, Combinatorics, etc. The presentation was unique and lively when he asked questions about addressing “Oh friend", “Oh Lilavati", “Dear friend" etc. This is the difference between asking questions contrary to the present day’s rough, challenging approach. Lilavati is a poetic Mathematics book with 278 verses in terse Sanskrit; they found permanent places in memory. The Lilavati having entirely accurate (Arithmetic) procedure, elegant sentences whose sections are adorned with excellent [rules for] reduction of fraction and multiplication & squaring, this is the essence of Lilavati’s elegancy with accurate linguistic presentation, made the book a treasure. A few examples from Lilavati have been cited and solved in this paper, which will attract the simplicity of presenting the problems. This is the uniqueness of Bhaskaracharya’s approach. In Bhaskaracharya’s “Siddhanta Siromoni", the other three parts are 'The Bijaganita’; ‘The Grahaganita’ and ‘The Goladhyaya'. He was able to define plane geometry and solid geometry clearly. Even he calculated the value of π with further accurate suggestions of the ratio  = 3.1416. He also derived the most significant number as Parardha = 100 thousand billion out of many essential derivations. All his computations were of a class of genius mathematicians.