What is the Shridhar Acharya Method? Give a brief explanation.
Answers
Sridhara is now believed to have lived in the ninth and tenth centuries. However, there has been much dispute over his date and in different works the dates of the life of Sridhara have been placed from the seventh century to the eleventh century. The best present estimate is that he wrote around 900 AD, a date which is deduced from seeing which other pieces of mathematics he was familiar with and also seeing which later mathematicians were familiar with his work. We do know that Sridhara was a Hindu but little else is known. Two theories exist concerning his birthplace which are far apart. Some historians give Bengal as the place of his birth while other historians believe that Sridhara was born in southern India.
Sridhara is known as the author of two mathematical treatises, namely the Trisatika (sometimes called the Patiganitasara ) and the Patiganita. However at least three other works have been attributed to him, namely the Bijaganita, Navasati, and Brhatpati. Information about these books was given the works of Bhaskara II (writing around 1150), Makkibhatta (writing in 1377), and Raghavabhatta (writing in 1493). We give details below of Sridhara's rule for solving quadratic equations as given by Bhaskara II.
There is another mathematical treatise Ganitapancavimsi which some historians believe was written by Sridhara. Hayashi in, however, argues that Sridhara is unlikely to have been the author of this work in its present form.