Aryabhata: Life and Contributions

This book examines life and work of Aryabhata, one of the greatest mathematicians and astronomers of all times, and father of the renaissance of mathematics and science in ancient India.  It is true that Indian mathematics and astronomy had great achievements to their credit even before Aryabhata's time, but contributions in these fields were usually made by groups of saint-scholars, who combined in their writings mathematics, astronomy, astrology, religious rituals, science and spiritual knowledge, in a more or less integrated manner. Aryabhata, for the first time, had the courage to break with this tradition. He studied thoroughly and completely all the mathematics and astronomy known in his time, systematized it, found the gaps in the knowledge of these disciplines and filled these gaps with his own researches. He had the courage to reject the accepted values of astronomical parameters, if these were inconsistent with his and others' observations. In this sense, he was a true scientist uninhibited by any consideration, other than that of search for truth.  The uniqueness of this work lies in the fact that it is neither so short as to be sketchy, nor so detailed as to be of interest only to scholars in the history of mathematics and astronomy. It will be useful to all educated persons in India and abroad, who are interested in knowing about ancient India's glory in the fields of mathematics and science.