Question

With reference to Golden Age of Indian Culture answer the following questions.
Give an account of the contribution of Aryabhatta, Varahamihira, and Brahmagupta.

Answer 1

Aryabhatta (AD 471-500) — He wrote two famous books Aryabhattiyam and Surya Siddhanta. He told that the earth moves round the sun. He also discovered the rule for finding the area of a triangle. He calculated the exact value of pi which was equal to 3.1416. The credit for the development of trigonometry should actually go to him. Aryabhatta was acquainted with the decimal system and the use of ‘zero’. The decimal system has numbers from 1 to 9 and zero.

Varahamihira — He composed two famous books Panch Siddhantika and Brihat Samhita. He proved that the moon rotates round the earth and earth rotates round the sun. He also studied movements of planets.

Brahmagupta — He wrote Brahma Sphutic Siddhanta and described the law of gravitation, several centuries before Newton. This system is now in use throughout the world.