Amartya Kumar Dutta is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. His research interest is in commutative algebra.

In this series of articles, we intend to have a glimpse of some of the landmarks in ancient Indian mathematics with special emphasis on number theory. This issue features a brief overview of some of the high peaks of mathematics in ancient India. In the next part we shall describe Aryabhata's general solution in integers of the equation ax-by=c. In subsequent instalments we shall discuss in some detail two of the major contributions by Indians in number theory. The climax of the Indian achievements in algebra and number theory was their development of the ingenious chakravala method for solving, in integers, the equation x^2-y^2= 1, erroneously known as the Pell equation. We shall later describe the partial solution of Brahmagupta and then the complete solution due to Jayadeva and Bhaskaracharya.

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Address for Correspondence

Amartya Kumar Dutta
Indian Statistical Institute
203, BT Road
Kolkata 700 032, India.