Pingala

Pingala
Bornc. 3rd or 2nd century BCE
Academic work
EraMaurya or post-Maurya
Main interests
Sanskrit prosody, Indian mathematics, Sanskrit grammar
Notable works
Author of the "Chandaḥśāstra" (also called Pingala Sutras), the earliest known treatise on Sanskrit prosody, Creator of Pingala's formula
Notable ideas
Mātrāmeru, Binary numeral system, Meru Prastāra

Acharya Pingala (Sanskrit: पिङ्गल, romanized: Piṅgala; c. 3rd–2nd century BCE) was an ancient Indian scholar, poet, grammarian and mathematician whose master work Chandaḥśāstra (Sanskrit: छन्दःशास्त्र, lit. 'A Treatise on Prosody'), also called the Pingala Sutras (Sanskrit: पिङ्गलसूत्राः, romanized: Piṅgalasūtrāḥ, lit. 'Pingala's Formulae'), is the foundational text of Chandas (prosody and metrics)—one of the six Vedāngas (auxiiiary science) of traditional Indian scholarship.

The Chandaḥśāstra is a work of eight chapters written in the late Sūtra style, that relies on explanatory commentaries for full comprehension. Dated to the final centuries BCE this was elaborated in 10th century CE by Halayudha in his commentary, the Mṛtasañjīvinī. According to Indian tradition and historical accounts, Maharshi Pingala is described as the younger brother of Pāṇini, the famous Sanskrit grammarian of Vyākaraṇa. Others traditions identify him with Patanjali, the 2nd-century BCE scholar who authored the Mahābhāṣya.

Combinatorics

The Chandaḥśāstra presents a recursive method to systematically enumerate metres by generating all possible combinations of light (laghu) and heavy (guru) syllables for a verse of syllables, producing a binary representation. Pingala systematized Sanskrit metrics using six algorithmic procedures known as Pratyayas:

Metrical combinations generated via Prastāra for length
Word length ( characters) Total meters ()Combinatorial sequence (Prasatāra order)
1 2G L
2 4GG LG GL LL
3 8GGG LGG GLG LLG GGL LGL GLL LLL

Pingala is also credited with an early explicit use of zero, using the Sanskrit word śūnya to refer to the number. His binary system increases from left to right, rather than right to left as in modern binary notation. Four short syllables "0000" is the first pattern and corresponds to the value one. The numerical value is obtained by adding one to the sum of place values. The combinatorial rules for metres developed by Pingala that were based on moraic time units (mātrās) were the mathematical foundation for the sequence known as Fibonacci numbers in the West. This sequence of numbers was later formalized by Indian mathematicians Virahānka (c. 6th–8th century CE) and Hemachandra (c. 1150 CE), centuries prior to Fibonacci.

Editions

Notes

  1. 1 2 Plofker, Kim (2009). Mathematics in India. Princeton University Press. pp. 55–56. ISBN 978-0-691-12067-6.
  2. ↑ Singh, Parmanand (1985). "The So-called Fibonacci Numbers in Ancient and Medieval India" (PDF). Historia Mathematica. 12 (3). Academic Press: 232. doi:10.1016/0315-0860(85)90021-7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-07-24. Retrieved 2018-11-29.
  3. ↑ "Pingala – Timeline of Mathematics". Mathigon. Retrieved 2021-08-21.
  4. ↑ Vaman Shivaram Apte (1970). Sanskrit Prosody and Important Literary and Geographical Names in the Ancient History of India. Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 648–649. ISBN 978-81-208-0045-8.
  5. ↑ Mylius, Klaus (1983). Geschichte der altindischen Literatur. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 68. ISBN 978-3-447-02324-5.
  6. ↑ R. Hall, Mathematics of Poetry, has "c. 200 BC"
  7. ↑ Mylius (1983:68) considers the Chandas-shāstra as "very late" within the Vedānga corpus.
  8. ↑ Matilal, Bimal Krishna (1990). The Word and the World: India's Contribution to the Study of Language. Oxford University Press. pp. 12–15. ISBN 978-0-19-562515-8.
  9. 1 2 Shah, Jayant (2008). "A History of Piṅgala's Combinatorics" (PDF). Northeastern University, Boston. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-07-06.
  10. ↑ van Nooten, B. (1993). "Binary Numbers in Indian Antiquity". Journal of Indian Philosophy. 21 (1): 31–50. doi:10.1007/BF01092744.
  11. ↑ Hall, Rachel Wells (February 2008). "Math for Poets and Drummers". Math Horizons. 15 (3). Taylor & Francis: 10–12. doi:10.1080/10724117.2008.11974752. JSTOR 25678735. S2CID 3637061. Retrieved 27 May 2022.
  12. 1 2 Singh, Parmanand (1985). "The So-called Fibonacci Numbers in Ancient and Medieval India". Historia Mathematica. 12 (3): 229–244. doi:10.1016/0315-0860(85)90021-7.
  13. ↑ Plofker (2009), pp. 54–56: "In the Chandah-sutra of Pingala, dating perhaps the third or second century BC, [...] Pingala's use of a zero symbol [śūnya] as a marker seems to be the first known explicit reference to zero. ... In the Chandah-sutra of Pingala, dating perhaps the third or second century BC, there are five questions concerning the possible meters for any value "n". [...] The answer is (2)7 = 128, as expected, but instead of seven doublings, the process (explained by the sutra) required only three doublings and two squarings – a handy time saver where "n" is large. Pingala's use of a zero symbol as a marker seems to be the first known explicit reference to zero."
  14. ↑ Stakhov, Alexey; Olsen, Scott Anthony (2009). The mathematics of harmony: from Euclid to contemporary mathematics and computer science. World Scientific. ISBN 978-981-277-582-5.
  15. ↑ B. van Nooten, "Binary Numbers in Indian Antiquity", Journal of Indian Studies, Volume 21, 1993, pp. 31–50
  16. ↑ Susantha Goonatilake (1998). Toward a Global Science. Indiana University Press. p. 126. ISBN 978-0-253-33388-9. Virahanka Fibonacci.
  17. ↑ Bag, Amulya Kumar (1966). "Binomial theorem in ancient India". Indian Journal of History of Science. 1 (1): 68–74.
  18. ↑ Chhanda Sutra – Pingala.
  19. ↑ Pingalacharya (1938). Chand Shastra.

See also

References

Internet Archive, The Prosody of Pingala