476-550

Indian Mathematician and Astronomer

His Aryabhatiya assumed a level of significance among Indian mathematicians comparable to that of Euclid's Elements in the West, but as was typical of many Hindu thinkers, Aryabhata considered mathematics of secondary importance to astronomy. Indeed, most of his achievements in math were in service to his study of the planets, yet it was as a mathematician that he had his greatest impact on the thinking of scholars in India, and later in Arabia. Thanks largely to Aryabhata, Indian mathematics passed out of the "S'ulvastra period," when math fell primarily under the control of priests, and into the more scientifically oriented "astronomical period" that lasted until about 1200.

During the sixth century, at a time when Europe was descending into darkness and Arabia had not yet awakened, India had the beginnings of a thriving scientific community at the city of...