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Brahmagupta

Indian mathematician and astronomer (c. 598 – c. 668 CE)

Fame71.8
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India rank#135
Academics rank#125
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Lived 598–670, aged 72India

India AcademicsAcademic

Wikipedia
117 languages
Cross-language footprint
Rank in India
#135
Academics
Era
598–670
Aged 72

Summary

Updated 2026-06-08

He gave mathematics the number that meant nothing—and changed everything. Brahmagupta formalized zero as a concept, not just a placeholder, in 7th-century India, and handed later centuries the arithmetic they'd need to build the world.

Biography

About

Brahmagupta lived and worked in India during the early 7th century, producing two major texts that reshaped mathematics and astronomy. In 628 he completed the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta, a theoretical treatise that laid out the first clear description of the quadratic formula and established rules for operating with zero—treating it as a number in its own right, not merely a mark of absence. He was also the first Indian scholar to describe gravity as an attractive force, using the Sanskrit term "gurutvākarṣaṇam." Thirty-seven years later, in 665, he published the Khandakhadyaka, a more practical ma…

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In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Brahmagupta

Brahmagupta

saidundated

The sum of two positive quantities is positive; of two negative is negative; of a positive and a negative is their difference; or, if they are equal, zero.

Brahmagupta

saidundated

In subtraction, the less is to be taken from the greater, positive from positive; negative from negative.

Brahmagupta

saidundated

The product of a negative quantity and a positive is negative; of two negatives, is positive; of two positives, is positive.

Brahmagupta

saidundated

Positive, divided by positive, or negative by negative, is positive. Zero, divided by zero, is zero. Positive, divided by negative, is negative.

Brahmagupta

saidundated

The square of negative or positive is positive; of zero, is zero. The root of a square is such as was that from which it was raised [i.e. either positive or negative]. (37).

— Brahmagupta, Brahmasphutasiddhanta quoted in : Bhaskar Kamble, The Imperishable Seed: How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and why this

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