Page:Indian mathematics, Kaye (1915).djvu/53

 An inscription found in a ruined temple at Pātna, a deserted village of Khandesh in the Bombay Presidency, refers to Bhāskara in the following terms: 'Triumphant is the illustrious Bhāskarachārya whose feet are revered by the wise, eminently learned&hellip;&hellip;who laid down the law in metrics, was deeply versed in the Vaiseshika system,&hellip;&hellip;was in poetics a poet, like unto the three-eyed in the three branches, the multifarious arithmetic and the rest&hellip;&hellip;Bhāskara, the learned, endowed with good fame and religious merit, the root of the creeper—true knowledge of the Veda, an omniscient seat of learning; whose feet were revered by crowds of poets, etc. The inscription goes on to tell us of Bhāskara's grandson 'Changadeva, chief astrologer of King Simghana, who, to spread the doctrines promulgated by the illustrious Bhāskarachārya, founds a college, that in his college the Siddhāntaśiromani and other works composed by Bhāskara, as well as other works by members of his family, shall be necessarily expounded.' Bhāskara's most popular work is entitled the Līlāvatī which means 'charming.' He uses the phrase "Dear intelligent Līlāvatī," etc., and thus have arisen certain legends as to a daughter he is supposed to be addressing. The legends have no historical basis. Bhāskara at the end of his Vīja gaņita refers to the treatises on algebra of Brahmagupta, Śrīdhara and Padmanābha as "too diffusive" and states that he has compressed the substance of them in "a well reasoned compendium, for the gratification of learners."