Yativr?s?abha
YATIVṚṢABHA
(fl. India, sixth century)
cosmography, mathematics.
Yativrsabha (in Prākrit, Jadivasaha) was a Jain author who studied under Arya Manksu and Nagahastin, and compiled several works in Prakrit expounding Jain traditions. One of these, the Tiloyapannatti a description of the universe and its parts, is of some importance to historians of Indian science because it incorporates formulas representative of developments in Jain mathematics between the older canonical works and the later texts of the ninth and following centuries. Unfortunately, almost nothing is known of Yativrsabha himself; his lifetime is fixed by the general character of his work, as well as by his references to the Loyavibhaga (Probably that written by Sarvanandin in 458) and by the reference to him by Jinabhadra Ksamasramana (fl. 609). Yativrsabha’s statement that the end of the Gupta dynasty occurred after 231 years of rule must refer to a contemporary event in Gupta Era 231 (A.D.551).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Tiloyapannatti was edited by Adinatha Upadhyaya and Hiralala Jaina with a Hindi paraphrase by Balchandra, 2 vols. (Solapura, 1943-1951; I, 2nd ed., 1956). There is a study in Hindi of the mathematics of Yativrsabha by Laksmicandra Jaina, Tiloyapannatti ka ganita (Solapura, 1958).
David Pingree