Famous Indian Mathematicians from Ancient to Modern India

If we start off with the names right away, there would be a long list of mathematicians from ancient times till now who had their origins in India. Many Indian mathematicians are famous across the globe, and there are mathematicians from India who have become immortal for their contribution to the subject. 

Mathematics, if defined in simple terms, is the study of numbers or quantities. Although, it does not just deal with numbers. It is also the study of structures, spaces and changes. Talking about famous Indian mathematicians from ancient to modern India, you will get a long list of them in the latter part. 

If it comes to names, the most mentionable ones would be that of Aryabhata, Mahavira, Bhaskara II, Brahmagupta, Madhava of Sangamagrama, Nilakantha Somayaji, and many others. These are the names of the classical and most famous Indian mathematicians from ancient to modern India. Indians have been known since ancient times to excel in the subject, and these names exemplify the fact. 

Before we go on to the list of famous Indian mathematicians from ancient to modern India, let us know more about the chronology of famous Indian mathematicians and some other facts about them. 

A Brief History about Famous Indian Mathematicians 

The chronology of famous Indian mathematicians goes back as far as the Indus Valley Civilization. They were there during the era of the Vedas, right until modern times and till today. Indian mathematicians have made a lot of key contributions towards mathematics which had a significant and notable impact on how the subject appears in today’s time. Not just that, they have also been a great inspiration and influence for a lot of modern-day scientists and mathematicians, not just in India but all across the globe. 

Now, if we segregate or classify the list of famous Indian mathematicians from ancient India to modern times, there would be five different ages. Let us take a look at these ages,, to begin with. 

• Indian Mathematicians From The Ancient Age

• Indian Mathematicians From The Classical Age

• Indian Mathematicians From The Medieval Age

• Indian Mathematicians From The 19th Century 

• Indian Mathematicians From The 20th Century

List of Famous Indian Mathematicians From Ancient to Modern India: Classified into the Five Ages 

Before we talk about each of the most famous Indian mathematicians from India since ancient times and discuss their key contributions with individual focus, here is a classification of them into five different periods of time they belonged from. 

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Here is a List of the most Famous Indian Mathematicians from the Ancient Age: 

• Bharat Muni (300–200 BCE)

• Baudhayana (900 BCE)

• Pāṇini (520–460 BCE).

• Katyayana (300 BCE)

• Manava (fl. 750–650 BCE)

• Apastamba (600 BCE)

Famous Indian Mathematicians From the Classical Age

This list of Indian mathematicians consists of the names of mathematicians, who belonged from India and was alive during the Post-Vedic Sanskrit to Pala period (2nd century BCE to 11th century CE)

• Aryabhata (476–550 CE)

• Bhadrabahu (367 – 298 BCE)

• Yavaneśvara (2nd century)

• Śrīsheṇa, 4th century AD

• Vishnu Chandra, 4th century AD

• Umasvati

• Sarvanandi (458 CE)

• Pānduranga-svāmi

• Lātadeva

• Nishanku

• Yativrsabha (500–570)

• Varahamihira (505–587 CE)

• Yativṛṣabha

• Brahmagupta (598–670 CE)

• Virahanka (6th century AD)

• Bhaskara I (600–680 CE)

• Shridhara (between 650–850)

• Lalla (c. 720–790 CE)

• Virasena (792–853 CE)

• Govindasvāmi (c. 800 – c. 860)

• Prithudaka (c. 830 – c. 890)

• Śaṅkaranārāyaṇa, (c. 840 – c. 900 AD)

• Vaṭeśvara (born 880)

• Mahavira (9th century CE)

• Jayadeva (9th century)

• Aryabhata II (920 – c. 1000)

• Vijayanandi (c. 940–1010)

• Śrīpati (1019–1066)

• Halayudha 10th Century

• Brahmadeva (1060–1130)

• Abhayadeva Suri (1050 AD)

• Pavuluri Mallana (11th century CE)

• Hemachandra (1087–1172 CE)

• Udayadivākara 1073

• Gopala (11th century AD)

• Bhaskara II (1114–1185 CE)

• Ratnakar Ashanti (11th century AD)

• Someshvara III (1127–1138 CE)

Famous Indian Mathematicians from the Medieval Age 

In the medieval age, we have got a list of famous Indian mathematicians between the years 1200 to 1800 AD.

• Vedanta Desika ((1268–1369)

• Narayana Pandit

• Madhava of Sangamagrama

• Parameshvara (1360–1455)

• Nilakantha Somayaji (1444–1545)

• Raghunatha Siromani (1475–1550)

• Mahendra Suri (14th century)

• Shankara Variyar (c. 1530)

• Jyeshtadeva (1500–1610)

• Achyuta Pisharati (1550–1621)

• Munishvara (17th century)

• Kamalakara (1657)

Famous Indian Mathematicians from the 19th Century

Here are the famous mathematicians from India during the 19th century. 

• Radhanath Sikdar (1813–1870)

• Ramchandra (1821–1880)

• Pathani Samanta (1835–1904)

• Jadav Chandra Chakravarti (1855–1920)

• Ashutosh Mukherjee (1864–1924)

• Ganesh Prasad (1876–1935)

• Swami Bharati Krishna Tirtha (1884–1960)

• Srinivasa Ramanujan (1887–1920)

• A. A. Krishnaswami Ayyangar (1892–1953)

• Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis (1893–1972)

• Dinanath Atmaram Dalvi (1844–1897)

Famous Indian Mathematicians from the 20th Century

Here are the famous mathematicians from India during the 20th century. 

• Subbayya Sivasankaranarayana Pillai (1901–1950)

• Raj Chandra Bose (1901–1987)

• Tirukkannapuram Vijayaraghavan (1902–1955)

• Dattaraya Ramchandra Kaprekar (1905–1986)

• Samarendra Nath Roy (1906–1964)

• Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi (1907–1966)

• Sarvadaman Chowla (1907–1995)

• Lakkoju Sanjeevaraya Sharma (1907–1998)

• Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910–1995)

• S. S. Shrikhande (1917–2020)

• Prahalad Chunnilal Vaidya (1918–2010)

• Anil Kumar Gain (1919–1978)

• Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao (born 1920)

• Harish-Chandra (1923–1983)

• P. K. Srinivasan (1924–2005)

• Raghu Raj Bahadur (1924–1997)

• Gopinath Kallianpur (1925–2015)

• Shreeram Shankar Abhyankar (1930–2012)

• Surindar Kumar Trehan (1931–2004)

• C.S. Seshadri (1932–2020)

• M. S. Narasimhan (1932–2021)

• Srinivasacharya Raghavan (born 1934)

• K. S. S. Nambooripad (1935–2020)

• Ramaiyengar Sridharan (born in 1935)

• Vinod Johri (1935–2014)

• K. R. Parthasarathy (born in 1936)

• S. N. Seshadri (1937–1986)

• Ramdas L. Bhirud (1937–1997)

• S. Ramanan (born 1937)

• Pranab K. Sen (born in 1937)

• Veeravalli S. Varadarajan (1937–2019)

• Jayanta Kumar Ghosh (1937–2017)

• C. P. Ramanujam (1938–1974)

• V. N. Bhat (1938–2009)

• S. R. Srinivasa Varadhan (born in 1940)

• M. S. Raghunathan (born in 1941)

• Vashishtha Narayan Singh (1942–2019)

• C. R. Rao (born in 1920)

• S. B. Rao (born in 1943)

• Phoolan Prasad (born in 1944)

• Gopal Prasad (born in 1945)

• Vijay Kumar Patodi (1945–1976)

• S. G. Dani (born in 1947)

• Raman Parimala (born in 1948)

• Singhi Navin M. (born in 1949)

• Sujatha Ramdorai

• R. Balasubramanian (born in 1951)

• M. Ram Murty (born in 1953)

• Alok Bhargava (born in 1954)

• Rattan Chand (born in 1955)

• V. Kumar Murty (born in 1956)

• Rajendra Bhatia (born in 1952)

• Narendra Karmarkar (born in 1957)

• Dipendra Prasad (born in 1960)

• Dinesh Thakur (born in 1961)

• Manindra Agrawal (born 1966)

• Madhu Sudan (born in 1966)

• Chandrashekhar Khare (born in 1968)

• U. S. R. Murty

• Ramji Lal (born in 1945)

• L. Mahadevan

• Kapil Hari Paranjape

• Vijay Vazirani (born in 1957)

• Umesh Vazirani

• Mahan Mj (born in1968)

• Santosh Vempala (born in 1971)

• Kannan Soundararajan (born in 1973)

• Kiran Kedlaya (born in 1974)

• Manjul Bhargava (born in 1974)

• Ritabrata Munshi (born in1976)

• Amit Garg (born in 1978)

• Subhash Khot (born in 1978)

• Sourav Chatterjee (born in 1979)

• Akshay Venkatesh (born in 1981)

• Sucharit Sarkar (born in 1983)

• Neena Gupta (born in 1984)

• Nayandeep Deka Baruah (born in 1972)

A-List of Famous Indian Mathematicians from Ancient to Modern India: the Key Names and their Contributions

Aryabhatta (476-550 CE)

Key Contributions: He is most probably the most famous Indian mathematician. He is known for a wide range of contributions in the field of mathematics. It included the explanation of lunar eclipse and solar eclipse, the rotation of the Earth on its own axis, as well as the reflection of light by the moon. He is also known for logical explanations of sinusoidal functions, solution of single-variable quadratic equation, the value of π accurate up to 4 decimal places, the circumference of Earth with a 99.8% accuracy, and the calculation of the length of the sidereal year. He also had some mentionable disciples including Pānduranga-svāmi, Lātadeva, and Nishanku.

Yativṛṣabha (6th-century)

Key Contributions: He is the writer of the famous book “Tiloyapannatti'' which consists of the different units to measure distance and time. It also has different concepts about infinity.

Brahmagupta (598–670 CE)

Key Contributions: He brought the concept of zero in arithmetic. He is also Brahmagupta's theorem, Brahmagupta's identity, Brahmagupta's problem, Brahmagupta-Fibonacci identity, and Brahmagupta's interpolation formula. 

Shridhara (between 650–850)

Key Contributions: He formulated a rule to find the volume of a sphere.

Parameshvara (1360–1455)

Key Contributions: He discovered drk-ganita, a mode of astronomy that is based on observations. 

Jyeshtadeva (1500–1610)

Key Contributions: The author of Yuktibhāṣā.

Katyayana (around 300 BC)

Key Contributions: Varttika, Vyakarana, and Sulba Sutras. 

Varahamihira (505–587 CE)

Key Contributions: Pancha-Siddhāntikā, Brihat-Samhita, Brihat Jataka

Bhaskara (600–680 CE)

Key Contributions: Sine approximation formula

Mahavira (9th century CE)

Key Contributions: He is known for his syncopated approach to algebra and for developing advanced techniques necessary to solve algebraic problems.