Halayudha

Halāyudha
Born	c. 10th century AD
Academic work
Main interests	Sanskrit mathematician
Notable works	Mṛtasañjīvanī and "Halāyudha trikoņa"

Halāyudha (Sanskrit: हलायुध) wrote the Mṛtasañjīvanī, a commentary on Pingala's Chandaḥśāstra, was an Indian Mathematician and poet who lived and worked in the 10th century.[1] The Chandaḥśāstra by the Indian lyricist Piṅgala (3rd or 2nd century BC) somewhat crypically describes a method of arranging two types of syllables to form metres of various lengths and counting them; as interpreted and elaborated by Halāyudha his "method of pyramidal expansion" (meru-prastāra) for counting metres is equivalent to Pascal's triangle.[2] [3]

Biography

Halayudha originally resided at the Rashtrakuta capital Manyakheta, where he wrote under the patronage of emperor Krishna III. His Kavi-Rahasya eulogizes Krishna III. Later, he migrated to Ujjain in the Paramara kingdom. There, he composed Mṛta-Sañjīvanī in honour of the Paramara king Munja.[4]

Works

Halayudha composed the following works:[4]

• Kavi-Rahasya, a book on poetics
• Mṛta-Sañjīvanī, a commentary on Pingala's Chandaḥ-śāstra
• Abhidhana-ratna-mala, a lexicon
• Halāyudha Kośa, a dictionary

See also

• Indian mathematicians

References

1. Maurice Winternitz, History of Indian Literature, Vol. III
2. Ramasubramanian, K (8 November 2019). Gaṇitānanda: Selected Works of Radha Charan Gupta on History of Mathematics. Springer. ISBN 9789811312298.
3. Gavin Hitchcock, Alexander Zawaira (31 October 2008). A Primer for Mathematics Competitions. Oxford University. ISBN 9780191561702.
4. Ganga Prasad Yadava 1982, p. 228.

Bibliography

History of Rashtrakutas

• Ganga Prasad Yadava (1982). Dhanapāla and His Times: A Socio-cultural Study Based Upon His Works. Concept. OCLC 9760817.