Manava (c. 750 BC – 690 BC) is an author of the

Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...

geometric Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ca ...

text of ''

Sulba Sutras The ''Shulva Sutras'' or ''Śulbasūtras'' (Sanskrit: शुल्बसूत्र; ': "string, cord, rope") are sutra texts belonging to the Śrauta ritual and containing geometry related to fire-altar construction. Purpose and origins The ...

.'' The Manava

Sulbasutra The ''Shulva Sutras'' or ''Śulbasūtras'' (Sanskrit: शुल्बसूत्र; ': "string, cord, rope") are sutra texts belonging to the Śrauta ritual and containing geometry related to fire-altar construction. Purpose and origins The ...

is not the oldest (the one by Baudhayana is older), nor is it one of the most important, there being at least three Sulbasutras which are considered more important. Historians place his lifetime at around 750 BC. Manava would have not have been a mathematician in the sense that we would understand it today. Nor was he a scribe who simply copied manuscripts like

Ahmes Ahmes ( egy, jꜥḥ-ms “, a common Egyptian name also transliterated Ahmose) was an ancient Egyptian scribe who lived towards the end of the Fifteenth Dynasty (and of the Second Intermediate Period) and the beginning of the Eighteenth Dyna ...

. He would certainly have been a man of very considerable learning but probably not interested in mathematics for its own sake, merely interested in using it for religious purposes. Undoubtedly he wrote the ''Sulbasutra'' to provide rules for religious rites and it would appear almost a certainty that Manava himself would be a

priest. The mathematics given in the ''Sulbasutras'' is there to enable accurate construction of altars needed for sacrifices. It is clear from the writing that Manava, as well as being a priest, must have been a skilled craftsman. Manava's ''Sulbasutra,'' like all the ''Sulbasutras,'' contained approximate constructions of circles from rectangles, and squares from circles, which can be thought of as giving approximate values of π. There appear therefore different values of π throughout the ''Sulbasutra,'' essentially every construction involving circles leads to a different such approximation. The paper of R.C. Gupta is concerned with an interpretation of verses 11.14 and 11.15 of Manava's work which give π = 25/8 = 3.125.

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Ancient Indian mathematicians Geometers 750s BC births 690 BC deaths 7th-century BC mathematicians Ancient Indian mathematical works {{asia-mathematician-stub