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The Most Famous

MATHEMATICIANS from India

This page contains a list of the greatest Indian Mathematicians. The pantheon dataset contains 823 Mathematicians, 18 of which were born in India. This makes India the birth place of the 11th most number of Mathematicians behind Switzerland and Hungary.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Indian Mathematicians of all time. This list of famous Indian Mathematicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Indian Mathematicians.

1. Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887 - 1920)

With an HPI of 74.93, Srinivasa Ramanujan is the most famous Indian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 92 different languages on wikipedia.

Srinivasa Ramanujan (22 December 1887 – 26 April 1920) was an Indian mathematician. Though he had almost no formal training in pure mathematics, he made substantial contributions to mathematical analysis, number theory, infinite series, and continued fractions, including solutions to mathematical problems then considered unsolvable. Ramanujan initially developed his own mathematical research in isolation. According to Hans Eysenck, "he tried to interest the leading professional mathematicians in his work, but failed for the most part. What he had to show them was too novel, too unfamiliar, and additionally presented in unusual ways; they could not be bothered". Seeking mathematicians who could better understand his work, in 1913 he began a postal correspondence with the English mathematician G. H. Hardy at the University of Cambridge, England. Recognising Ramanujan's work as extraordinary, Hardy arranged for him to travel to Cambridge. In his notes, Hardy commented that Ramanujan had produced groundbreaking new theorems, including some that "defeated me completely; I had never seen anything in the least like them before", and some recently proven but highly advanced results. During his short life, Ramanujan independently compiled nearly 3,900 results (mostly identities and equations). Many were completely novel; his original and highly unconventional results, such as the Ramanujan prime, the Ramanujan theta function, partition formulae and mock theta functions, have opened entire new areas of work and inspired further research. Of his thousands of results, most have been proven correct. The Ramanujan Journal, a scientific journal, was established to publish work in all areas of mathematics influenced by Ramanujan, and his notebooks—containing summaries of his published and unpublished results—have been analysed and studied for decades since his death as a source of new mathematical ideas. As late as 2012, researchers continued to discover that mere comments in his writings about "simple properties" and "similar outputs" for certain findings were themselves profound and subtle number theory results that remained unsuspected until nearly a century after his death. He became one of the youngest Fellows of the Royal Society and only the second Indian member, and the first Indian to be elected a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1919, ill health—now believed to have been hepatic amoebiasis (a complication from episodes of dysentery many years previously)—compelled Ramanujan's return to India, where he died in 1920 at the age of 32. His last letters to Hardy, written in January 1920, show that he was still continuing to produce new mathematical ideas and theorems. His "lost notebook", containing discoveries from the last year of his life, caused great excitement among mathematicians when it was rediscovered in 1976.

2. Brahmagupta (598 - 670)

With an HPI of 68.55, Brahmagupta is the 2nd most famous Indian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 97 different languages.

Brahmagupta (c. 598 – c. 668 CE) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer. He is the author of two early works on mathematics and astronomy: the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta (BSS, "correctly established doctrine of Brahma", dated 628), a theoretical treatise, and the Khaṇḍakhādyaka ("edible bite", dated 665), a more practical text. In 628 CE, Brahmagupta first described gravity as an attractive force, and used the term "gurutvākarṣaṇam (गुरुत्वाकर्षणम्)" in Sanskrit to describe it. He is also credited with the first clear description of the quadratic formula (the solution of the quadratic equation) in his main work, the Brāhma-sphuṭa-siddhānta.

3. Bhāskara II (1114 - 1185)

With an HPI of 67.76, Bhāskara II is the 3rd most famous Indian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 52 different languages.

Bhāskara II (c. 1114–1185), also known as Bhāskarāchārya ("Bhāskara, the teacher"), and as Bhāskara II to avoid confusion with Bhāskara I, was an Indian mathematician, astronomer and inventor. From verses in his main work, Siddhāṁta Śiromaṇī (सिद्धांतशिरोमणी), it can be inferred that he was born in 1114 in Vijjadavida (Vijjalavida) and living in the Satpuda mountain ranges of Western Ghats, believed to be the town of Patana in Chalisgaon, located in present-day Khandesh region of Maharashtra by scholars. He is the only ancient mathematician who has been immortalized on a monument. In a temple in Maharashtra, an inscription supposedly created by his grandson Changadeva, lists Bhaskaracharya's ancestral lineage for several generations before him as well as two generations after him. Colebrooke who was the first European to translate (1817) Bhaskaracharya II's mathematical classics refers to the family as Maharashtrian Brahmins residing on the banks of the Godavari. Born in a Hindu Deshastha Brahmin family of scholars, mathematicians and astronomers, Bhaskara II was the leader of a cosmic observatory at Ujjain, the main mathematical centre of ancient India. Bhāskara and his works represent a significant contribution to mathematical and astronomical knowledge in the 12th century. He has been called the greatest mathematician of medieval India. His main work Siddhānta-Śiromaṇi, (Sanskrit for "Crown of Treatises") is divided into four parts called Līlāvatī, Bījagaṇita, Grahagaṇita and Golādhyāya, which are also sometimes considered four independent works. These four sections deal with arithmetic, algebra, mathematics of the planets, and spheres respectively. He also wrote another treatise named Karaṇā Kautūhala.

4. Augustus De Morgan (1806 - 1871)

With an HPI of 67.17, Augustus De Morgan is the 4th most famous Indian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 48 different languages.

Augustus De Morgan was a British mathematician and logician. He formulated De Morgan's laws and introduced the term mathematical induction, making its idea rigorous. De Morgan's contributions to logic have been important in set theory, probability theory, computer science, and numerous other fields.

5. S. R. Ranganathan (1892 - 1972)

With an HPI of 58.87, S. R. Ranganathan is the 5th most famous Indian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 31 different languages.

Shiyali Ramamrita Ranganathan ( 9 August 1892 – 27 September 1972) was a librarian and mathematician from India. His most notable contributions to the field were his five laws of library science and the development of the first major faceted classification system, the colon classification. He is considered to be the father of library science, documentation, and information science in India and is widely known throughout the rest of the world for his fundamental thinking in the field. His birthday is observed every year as the National Librarian Day in India.He was a university librarian and professor of library science at Banaras Hindu University (1945–47) and professor of library science at the University of Delhi (1947–55). The last appointment made him director of the first Indian school of librarianship to offer higher degrees. He was president of the Indian Library Association from 1944 to 1953. In 1957 he was elected an honorary member of the International Federation for Information and Documentation (FID) and was made a vice-president for life of the Library Association of Great Britain.

6. Madhava of Sangamagrama (1350 - 1425)

With an HPI of 53.90, Madhava of Sangamagrama is the 6th most famous Indian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Mādhava of Sangamagrāma (Mādhavan) (c. 1340 – c. 1425) was an Indian mathematician and astronomer who is considered as the founder of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics in the Late Middle Ages. Madhava made pioneering contributions to the study of infinite series, calculus, trigonometry, geometry, and algebra. He was the first to use infinite series approximations for a range of trigonometric functions, which has been called the "decisive step onward from the finite procedures of ancient mathematics to treat their limit-passage to infinity".

7. Bhāskara I (600 - 680)

With an HPI of 50.14, Bhāskara I is the 7th most famous Indian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 22 different languages.

Bhāskara (c. 600 – c. 680) (commonly called Bhāskara I to avoid confusion with the 12th-century mathematician Bhāskara II) was a 7th-century Indian mathematician and astronomer who was the first to write numbers in the Hindu–Arabic decimal system with a circle for the zero, and who gave a unique and remarkable rational approximation of the sine function in his commentary on Aryabhata's work. This commentary, Āryabhaṭīyabhāṣya, written in 629 CE, is among the oldest known prose works in Sanskrit on mathematics and astronomy. He also wrote two astronomical works in the line of Aryabhata's school: the Mahābhāskarīya ("Great Book of Bhāskara") and the Laghubhāskarīya ("Small Book of Bhāskara"). On 7 June 1979, the Indian Space Research Organisation launched the Bhāskara I satellite, named in honour of the mathematician.

8. Jai Singh II (1688 - 1743)

With an HPI of 49.81, Jai Singh II is the 8th most famous Indian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Sawai Jai Singh II (3 November 1688 – 21 September 1743), was the 29th Kachwaha Rajput ruler of the Kingdom of Amber, who later founded the fortified city of Jaipur and made it his capital. He became the ruler of Amber at the age of 11, after the death of his father, Mirza Raja Bishan Singh, on 31 December 1699. Initially, Raja Jai Singh served as a vassal of the Mughal Empire. He was given the title of "Sawai" by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb before the siege of Khelna Fort in Deccan."Sawai" means one and a quarter times superior to his contemporaries. He received the title of Maharaja Sawai, Raj Rajeshwar, Shri Rajadhiraj in the year 1723; this was in addition to the title of Saramad-i-Raja-i-Hindustan, conferred on him on 21 April 1721 In the later part of his life, Jai Singh broke free from Mughal hegemony, and to assert his sovereignty, performed the Ashvamedha sacrifice, an ancient rite that had been abandoned for several centuries. He moved his kingdom's capital from the town of Amber to the newly established walled city of Jaipur in 1727, and performed two Ashwamedha sacrifices, one in 1734, and again in 1741. Sawai Jai Singh II had a profound interest in mathematics, architecture and astronomy. He commissioned the Jantar Mantar observatories at multiple places in India, including his capital Jaipur. He had Euclid's "Elements of Geometry" translated into Sanskrit.

9. Nilakantha Somayaji (1444 - 1544)

With an HPI of 49.39, Nilakantha Somayaji is the 9th most famous Indian Mathematician. His biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Keļallur Nīlakaṇṭha Somayāji (14 June 1444 – 1544), also referred to as Keļallur Comatiri, was a major mathematician and astronomer of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics. One of his most influential works was the comprehensive astronomical treatise Tantrasamgraha completed in 1501. He had also composed an elaborate commentary on Aryabhatiya called the Aryabhatiya Bhasya. In this Bhasya, Nilakantha had discussed infinite series expansions of trigonometric functions and problems of algebra and spherical geometry. Grahapariksakrama is a manual on making observations in astronomy based on instruments of the time. Known popularly as Kelallur Chomaathiri, he is considered an equal to Vatasseri Parameshwaran Nambudiri.

10. Sulochana Gadgil (1944 - )

With an HPI of 47.50, Sulochana Gadgil is the 10th most famous Indian Mathematician. Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Sulochana Gadgil is an Indian meteorologist who retired as Professor from the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (CAOS) in Bangalore, India. She has studied the how and why of monsoon, including farming strategies to cope with rainfall variability and modeling ecological and evolutionary phenomena. Her research led to the discovery of a basic feature of the sub-seasonal variation in the monsoon cloud bands. She demonstrated that the monsoon is not a gigantic land-sea breeze but instead is a manifestation of the seasonal migration of a planetary scale system which is seen over non-monsoonal regions as well. In collaboration with the farmers she derived farming strategies which are tailored to the rainfall variability of different regions in India.

People

Pantheon has 18 people classified as mathematicians born between 598 and 1981. Of these 18, 5 (27.78%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living mathematicians include Sulochana Gadgil, S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan, and Bhama Srinivasan. The most famous deceased mathematicians include Srinivasa Ramanujan, Brahmagupta, and Bhāskara II. As of April 2022, 4 new mathematicians have been added to Pantheon including Sulochana Gadgil, Radhanath Sikdar, and Bhama Srinivasan.