Bijaganita

Bijaganita was treatise on algebra by the Indian mathematician Bhāskara II. It is the second volume of his main work Siddhānta Shiromani alongside Lilāvati, Grahaganita and Golādhyāya.

Meaning

The title of the work,, which literally translates to "mathematics using seeds ", is one of the two main branches of mediaeval Indian mathematics, the other being, or "mathematics using algorithms". derives its name from the fact that "it employs algebraic equations which are compared to seeds of plants since they have the potentiality to generate solutions to mathematical problems."

The book is divided into six parts, mainly indeterminate equations, quadratic equations, simple equations, surds. The contents are:

Introduction
On Simple Equations
On Quadratic Equations
On Equations involving indeterminate Questions of the 1st Degree
On Equations involving indeterminate Questions of the 2nd Degree
On Equations involving Rectangles

In Bijaganita Bhāskara II refined Jayadeva's way of generalization of Brahmagupta's approach to solving indeterminate quadratic equations, including Pell's equation which is known as chakravala method or cyclic method. Bijaganita is the first text to recognize that a positive number has two square roots

Translations

The translations or editions of the Bijaganita into English include:

1817. Henry Thomas Colebrooke,
1813.
1813.

Two notable Scholars from Varanasi Sudhakar Dwivedi and Bapudeva Sastri studied Bijaganita in the nineteenth century.

Bijaganita

Meaning

Contents

Translations