The Compendium of the Essence of Mathematics

Seal of the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, and an institutional stamp "SL-B".

work. Although incorrect in many places, it proved to be of great value on account of its being complete and containing the Kanarese commentary; and my thanks are specially due to Mr. A. Mahadeva Sastri for his leaving it sufficiently long at my disposal. A fifth manuscript, denoted by B, is a transcription on paper in Kanarese characters of a palm-leaf manuscript found in a Jaina monastery at Mudbidri in South Canara, and was obtained through the kind effort of Mr. R. Krishnamacharyar, M.A., the Sub-assistant Inspector of Sanskrit Schools in Madras, and Mr. U. B. Venkataramanaiya of Mudbidri. This manuscript also contains the whole work, and gives, like K, in Kanarese a brief statement of the problems and their answers. The endeavour to secure more manuscripts having proved fruitless, the work has had to be brought out with the aid of these five manuscripts; and owing to the technical character of the work and its elliptical and often riddle-like language and the inaccuracy of the manuscripts, the labour involved in bringing it out with the translation and the requisite notes has been heavy and trying. There is, however, the satisfaction that all this labour has been bestowed on a worthy work of considerable historical value.

It is a fortunate circumstance about the Gaṇita-sāra-saṅgraha that the time when its author Mahāvīrācārya lived may be made out with fair accuracy. In the very first chapter of the work, we have, immediately after the two introductory stanzas of salutation to Jina Mahāvīra the 24th Tirthankara of Jainism, six stanzas describing the greatness of a king, whose name is said to have been Cakrikā-bhañjana Destroyer of the Circle/King, and who appears to have been commonly known by the title of Amōghavarṣa Nṛpatuṅga a Rashtrakuta king; and in the last of these