Talk:Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta

Should this article be merged?

The Brahmagupta page has a much better treatment of the book, including advanced topics such as cyclic quadrilaterals. This page is adding relatively little. I think it should be merged into Brahmagupta. - Kautilya3 (talk) 04:58, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I think it would be fine to merge. If we accumulate a large enough amount of material about the book specifically (too large for Brahmagupta article), then we can split it back again. Shreevatsa (talk) 14:48, 12 May 2015 (UTC)

Citation correct?

I don't find the cited part in the source. Please compare p. 339 of Algebra, with Arithmetic and Mensuration, from the Sanscrit of Brahmegupta and Bháscara. --Lefschetz (talk) 21:29, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Which cited part? Shreevatsa (talk) 05:37, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

″The sum of two positive quantities is positive

...

Zero divided by zero is zero″

P. 339 of the cited translation doesn't include any statement concerning the number zero. Or is the word "cipher" used as a synonym of "zero"?

"Negative, taken from cipher, becomes positive; and affirmative becomes negative".

Following the translation of the Indian Institute of Astronomical and Sanskrit Research (Delhi 1966) the part of subtraction is

From the greater should be subtracted the smaller; (the final result is) positive, if positive from positive, and negative, if negative, from negative. If, however, the greater is subtracted from the less, that difference is reversed (in sign), negative becomes positive and positive becomes negative. When positive is to be subtracted from negative or negative from positive, then they must be added together. (p. 201)

May be, that you can read also the original language in Brahmagupta’s Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta, edited by Sudhākara Dvivedin (1902).

--Lefschetz (talk) 15:04, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Our article on cipher says The word "cipher" in former times meant "zero" and had the same origin. - Kautilya3 (talk) 15:37, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you very much. A good example for the advantage of looking first to WP instead in a dictionary. Therefore it seems that the second translation (cited above) is incomplete.--Lefschetz (talk) 16:28, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

Well, (modern) Indians tend to treat 0 as a positive number, thus reducing the number of signs to 2. (Note that it is not claimed to be an exact translation!) - Kautilya3 (talk) 16:49, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

written c. 628 ?

Written !! Are you sure ? Perhaps we have a book in Brahmi alphabet !! Or rather oral composition written centuries later in nagari (XI century a.d.) or in devanagari (after XIII century a.d.) ?

Article ignores astronomical content

The article totally neglects the astronomical content of the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta, which makes up the majority of the work's twenty-five chapters. Someone needs to look into the literature on Indian astronomy. --SteveMcCluskey (talk) 15:12, 10 July 2016 (UTC)