Lilavati – a readable version
Bhaskaracharya the great mathematician and astronomer of twelfth-century India gave to the world works that shaped mathematics for generations. Among them, Lilavati stands apart not only because it is a text on arithmetic and geometry but also because it carries the name of his beloved daughter.
Lilavati’s story also has threads of astrology. Legends say that Bhaskaracharya, using his knowledge of the stars, tried to calculate the auspicious moment for his daughter’s marriage. Fate, however, played differently, and perhaps in memory of her, he gave her name to his mathematical masterpiece. the time of her wedding, he prepared a water clock a sacred vessel filled with water, much like a Shivpindi, from which drops would fall through a fine hole. The exact moment the vessel emptied was to signal the most auspicious time for her marriage rites. But fate took its course through innocence.
Out of childlike curiosity, Lilavati bent over the vessel to peer inside. As she leaned close, a grain of rice slipped from her head into the tiny hole. The passage clogged, the flow of water halted, and time itself stood still. The auspicious moment silently passed, and the wedding was performed at an ill-fated hour. Soon after, misfortune struck her husband died, leaving Lilavati widowed at the threshold of her married life.
Bhaskaracharya, though heartbroken, sought to console his daughter in the only way he knew best through knowledge. To ease her sorrow and engage her sharp mind, he composed a remarkable treatise on mathematics, dedicating it tenderly in her name.
Geometry, as presented in Lilavati, was never dry or mechanical. Bhaskaracharya wove imagination into mathematics. Take for example the famous Pythagoras theorem problem: a peacock perches on top of a coconut tree. At the base, a snake moves towards its hole. The peacock dives in a straight line to seize it. In this picture, the height of the tree, the distance of the snake, and the flight of the peacock form a right-angled triangle. Their relation is given as:
AB^2 + BC^2 = AC^2
Conclusion
Lilavati is not just a book of numbers it is a bridge between mathematics, nature, and stories. To study her problems is to see how learning can be made lively, memorable, and full of imagination. May the generations to come look at mathematics not with fear, but with curiosity, and find inspiration in Lilavati’s legacy.
