Pingala the anicent mathematician

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Pingala

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Pingala (पिङà¥à¤—ल piá¹…galá) was an Ancient Indian writer, famous for his work, the Chandas Shastra (chandaḥ-Å›Ästra, also Chandas Sutra chandaḥ-sÅ«tra), a Sanskrit treatise on prosody considered one of the Vedanga. He developed advanced mathematical concepts for describing the patterns of prosody.

In Indian literary tradition, Pingala is identified as the younger brother of Panini who according to tradition were born in Shalatula. Panini was the great grammarian who flourished in the 4th century BC. Other traditions identify him with Patanjali, the author of the Mahabhashya.

Mylius (1983:68) considers the Chandas-shastra as " very late " within

the Vedanga corpus. This would place it close to the beginning of the Common Era, likely post-dating Mauryan times (R. Hall, Mathematics of Poetry, has " c. 200 BC " ).

The shastra is divided into eight chapters. It was edited by Weber (1863). It is at the transition between Vedic meter and the classical meter of the Sanskrit epics. The 10th century mathematician Halayudha commented and expanded it. Pingala presents the first known description of a binary numeral system.

He described the binary numeral system in connection with the listing

of Vedic meters with short and long syllables. His discussion of the

combinatorics of meter, corresponds to the binomial theorem. Halayudha' s commentary includes a presentation of the Pascal's triangle (called meru-prastaara). Pingala's work also contains the basic ideas of Fibonacci number (called maatraameru ).

Use of zero

is sometimes mistakenly ascribed to Pingala due to his discussion of

binary numbers, usually represented using 0 and 1 in modern discussion,

while Pingala used short and long syllables. Four short syllables

(binary " 0000 " ) in Pingala's system, however, represented the number

one, not zero. Positional use of zero dates from later centuries and

would have been known to Halayudha but not to Pingala.

 

 

 

 

Contents

[hide]

1 Editions2 References

3 See also4 External links

 

 

 

 

 

[edit] Editions

A. Weber, Indische Studien 8, Leipzig, 1863.Bibliotheca Indica, Calcutta 1871-1874, reprint 1987.

Pingala also is referred to as another name of Deity Durga in the Indian Mythology

 

[edit] References

Amulya Kumar Bag, 'Binomial theorem in ancient India', Indian J. Hist. Sci. 1 (1966), 68–74.George Gheverghese Joseph (2000). The Crest of the Peacock, p. 254, 355. Princeton University Press.

Klaus Mylius, Geschichte der altindischen Literatur, Wiesbaden (1983).

 

[edit] See also

ChandasIndian mathematics

Indian mathematicians

 

[edit] External links

Math for Poets and Drummers, Rachel W. Hall, Saint Joseph's University, 2005.

Mathematics of Poetry, Rachel W. HallChandah Shaastram, Dr. Ranjani Parthasarathi and Dr. T. V. Geetha, Anna University.