Professional Documents
Culture Documents
.
apay adi system
*
1.1 The Kat
.
apay adi () system is an ancient method of alphabetical notation
where each consonant of the Sanskrit alphabet is given a numerical value. The system
is described in an anonymous line thus: k adi nava, t
.
adi nava, p adi pa nca, yady as
.
t
.
au,
, , , 0
9, the nine [consonants] starting with ka, the nine
starting with t
.
a, the ve starting with pa and the eight from ya [successively denote
the numbers 1 to 9]. But the line does not say how the zero is to be represented. The
Sadratnam al a (57), composed by
Sa nkara Varman (
) in 1819 AD,
1
gives a more comprehensive denition: na, na and the vowels are zero. The letters (of
the consonant groups) commencing with ka, t
.
a, pa and ya are digits. In conjunct letters
the last consonant is to be taken as the digit. A consonant not attached to a vowel is to
be ignored. This may be graphically shown in the following table:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
ka kha ga gha na ca cha ja jha na
t
.
a t
.
ha d
.
a d
.
ha n
.
a ta tha da dha na
pa pha ba bha ma
ya ra la va sa s
.
a sa ha
See footnote:
2
Though neither of the denitions expressly states, the numerals represented in this
systemare read fromthe right to the left. This is a neat and elegant method of expressing
*
Sreeramula Rajeswara Sarma, Kat
.
apay adi Notation on a Sanskrit Astrolabe, in: Indian Journal of
History of Science, 34, No. 4, 1999, pp. 273 287.
1
The Sadratnam al a, Garland precious Gems, is a well-knit astronomical manual (karan
.
a) in Sanskrit
composed by
San
.
kara Varman (1774 1839), an astronomer-prince of Malabar in North Kerala.
Though the work has been written only in 1819, at a time when western mathematics and astronomy
had been introduced in India and the author himself seems to have some knowledge thereof, the work
has been set out purely in the traditional style prevalent in Kerala. The work is divided into six chapters
and consists of 212 verses. It has also the advantage of having been commented, in Malayalam in
detail, by the author himself who supplies the rationale of several matters and also works out
examples. (Sadratnam al a of
Sa nkaravarman 57 akaravarmamahr-
javiracit sadratnaml. Critically Edited by K. V. Sarma. Indian National Science Academy, New
Delhi, 2001 = Indian Journal of History of Science, Vol. 36, Nos. 3 4, 2001, p. 1.)
2
K. V. Sarma, l. c., pp. 5 6: Numeral Notation in Sadratnam al a; p. 6: Ka-t
.
a-pa-y adi Table of Integers:
ya ra la va sa s
.
a sa ha [ l
.
a
all
vowels ]
2 The Kat
.
apay adi system
long numbers, more so because the chronograms,
3
apart from the numerical value they
represent, are otherwise also meaningful. An oft quoted example is of N ar ayana Bhat
.
t
.
a
( J), a great Sanskrit poet of Kerala, closing his devotional poem N ar ayan
.
yam
(
) with the expression ayur arogyasaukhyam. On the one hand, it is a prayer
for longevity ( ayur, ), health ( arogya, ) and happiness (saukhyam, ~
);
on the other it is a chronogram expressing the date of composition, viz., 17, 12, 211 [?]
civil days from the beginning of the Kali era.
4
1.2 What is the anitquity of this system and the geographical extent of its use? Perhaps
the earliest occurrence of this notation is in the Candra-V akyas [Moon Sentences, E:
m. la Lune [qui brille], T: n. parole, discours, langage] of Vararuci ( 6) who
is said to have lived in the fourth century AD.
5
In his commentary on the
Aryabhat
.
ya
( ), S uryadeva Yajvan persuasively argues that
Aryabhat
.
a ( ) must have
known the Kat
.
apay adi system, thereby implying that the system was already prevalent
in the fth century AD. However, the rst positive and datable occurrence is its use by
Haridatta () in his Grahac aranibandhana (R~), composed in 683 AD.
6
3
Cf. Richard Salomon, Indian epigraphy: a guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and
the other Indo-Aryan Llnaguages, New York: OUP, 1998, p. 173 note 32: In some later southern
Indian inscriptions, chronograms were composed according to the kat
.
apay adi system; see BIP 86-7,
SIE 222 and 234, and BPLM 123). Such kat
.
apay adi chronograms follow the usual right-to-left
principle; vowels have no value, and only the last consonant in a conjunct is counted. Thus, e. g.,
J. F. Fleet, The Katapayadi System of Expressing Numbers, in: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
of Great Britain and Ireland, (July, 1911), pp. 788 794, here p. 789 and p. 791.
8
Richard Salomon, Indian Epigraphy, Oxford 1998, p. 173: numerals run leftward; M. D. Pandit,
Mathematics as Known to the Vedic Samhitas, Delhi 1993, p. 153: the understanding of the numerals
in the reverse way.
The Kat
.
apay adi system 5
A third system
*
for verbal representation of numbers was the so-called kat
.
apay adi
notation, where the thirty-three Sanskrit consonants are mapped not to consecutive
numbers but to decimal digits, as shown in table 4.3. Here, the consonants k, t
.
, p, and
y all stand for the digit 1 hence the name kat
.
apay adi, beginning with k, t
.
, p, and
y. As in the concrete number system, numbers are usually read starting with the least
signicant digit.
Vowels have no numerical signicance in the kat
.
apay adi convention, and neither
do consonants that appear in conjunction with a following consonant or at the end of a
word. Only a consonant that is immediately followed by a vowel has a numerical value.
The exibility of the system means that authors can encode digit sequences in actual
Sanskrit words. For example, the word bhavati (), becomes, is decoded as the
sequence 4-4-6, implying the number 644.
It is unclear when and bow the kat
.
apay adi system originated.
9
We do know that
it forms the basis of the so-called v akya or sentence genre of astronomical texts
that were popular in Kerala in southern India. In these texts, planetary positions at
regular intervals were encoded in kat
.
apay adi sentences. The rst such work known is
traditionally considered to be the Candra-vaky ani or Moon-sentences of Vararuci,
who is traditionally although somewhat doubtfully assigned to the fourth century CE.
Sometime in the early rst millennium is probably a reasonable estimate for the date
of origin of kat
.
apay adi notation.
A variant of the kat
.
apay adi system appears in the Mah a-siddh anta (4~) of
the second
Aryabhat
.
a ( 3, aryabhat
.
a dvitya) around the eleventh century
10
,
where it is described as follows:
The digits starting from unity are the sounds beginning with k, t, p, and y, in the
order of the sounds. Both n and n are zero.
Mah a-siddh anta 1.2.
*
Kim Plofker, Mathematics in India, Princeton and Oxford, 2009, p. 75 76..
9
A commentator on the
Aryabhat
.
ya, S uryadeva Yajvan, claimed that
Aryabhat
.
as own system was
derived from kat
.
apay adi, but S uryadeva lived in the thirteenth century and may have been just
guessing about the information available to
Aryabhat
.
a. A claim that the seventh-century [the rst]
Bh askara (P 9, bh askara prathama) employed kat
.
apay adi notation appears to have been
based on an interpolated later verse.
10
M. M. Pt. Sudhakar Dvivedi, Mahasiddhanta (A Treatise on Astronomy) of Aryabhata, 1995.
There are eighteen chapters in the Mah asiddh anta of
Aryabhat
.
a. In the rst chapter which
treats of Madhyam adhik ara [madhyam a: the average or mean position of planets; adhik ara:
chapter], representation of numbers by alphabet is rst explained, and then the revolutions and other
properties of the planets, and the number of solar and other days in a Kalpa [kalpa: one thousand
times a Mah ayuga (43,20,000 = 432 10
4
years), i. e. 432 10
7
years], have been shown. In the
eleventh Sloka [~, sloka: a metered and often rhymed poetic verse or phrase, especially a verse in
anus
.
t
.
ubh meter, i. e. consisting of four quarter-verses of eight syllables each] of this chapter on the
revolutions of planets, the numbers of revolutions of the Great Bear and Ayanagraha [ayanagraha:
the planets longitude as corrected for ecliptic-deviation], in a Kalpa, are given to be 1599998 and
578159 respectively.
6 The Kat
.
apay adi system
Kat
.
apay adi system
*
The third system of expressing numbers is used in south India, especialy in Kerala. The
name of this system, kat
.
apay adi (that which begins with ka, t
.
a, pa, and ya), is easily
understood from Table IV.
In this system one syllable represents one number and vowels play no part except
in the initial position. In case more than two consonants are clustered only the last
consonant has a numerical value. In other words, a consonant which is not followed by
a vowel has no numerical value. Neither the visarga nor the anusv ara has numerical
value.
The numerals expressed in this system are read in the reverse order, namely, the
rst (i. e leftmost) syllable stands for the number in the lowest decimal place and the
last (i. e. rightmost) syllable for that in the highest decimal place. In this system it is
quite easy to express numbers by a word or sentence which is meaningful in Sanskrit.
For example, sarra (, body) = 225, bh askara (P, sun) = 214, and nlar upa
(-, blue color) = 1230.
The earliest text that uses this system is Haridattas Grahac aranibandhana which is
dated A.D. 683.
11
This is the basic text of the Parahita (, useful to laymen) system
of astronomy prevalent in south India
12
. This system was followed by the v akya system
of astronomy in Kerala. The special feature of the latter is to give astronomical tables
in sentences (v akyas). The earliest existing v akya is the Candrav akhyas
13
(Sentences
for the Moon), which consists of 248 v akyas, each giving the daily lunar position in
signs, degrees, and minutes.
14
The rst three v akyas are:
~ gr nah
.
sreyah
.
Our song is richest. 0
s
1203'
~ dhenavah
.
sr Cows are fortune. 0
s
2409'
65
F rudras tu namyah
.
But Rudra is to be saluted. 1
s
0622'
The last v akya is
, bhavet sukham, which means There be happiness,
besides 0
s
2744' as number.
*
Michio Yano, Oral and Written Transmission of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit, in: Journal of Indian
Philosophy 34, 2006, pp. 143 160, here pp. 150 152.
11
Grahac aranibandhana or Parahitacagan
.
ita of Haridatta, ed. by K. V. Sarma, Madras 1954.
12
D. Pingree, Jyotih
.
s astra, 1981, p. 47
13
Kunhan Raja, Candrav akya of Vararuci, reprint fromHaricarita, Adya Library Studies No 63, Adyar
Library, 1948.
14
This is what O. Neugebauer reported in his The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 2nd ed. page 166. The
period of nine months which is roughly equal to 248 days was known in Babylonian astronomy, too.
The Kat
.
apay adi system 7
The
*
Kat
.
apay adi system was used by Indian astronomers in order to encode compli-
cated numbers (mathematical and astronomical constants) into words and verses that
were easy to remember. The system was developed in Kerala in South-India, probably
in the ninth century CE.
The Kat
.
apay adi system works as follows. To each digit between 0 and 9, a small
group of consonants of the Sanskrit alphabet is assigned (see the list below). This
Kat
.
apay adi system can be compared to, but is more complicated than the modern
telephone keypad system 1 = ABC, 2 = DEF, and so on. To encode a digit between 0
and 9, we choose any Sanskrit consonant from the group belonging to this digit. For
the digit 1, for example, we can choose among the four possibilities k, t, p, and y (this
is why the system is called Kat
.
apay adi). Of course, each consonant can encode at most
one digit. We list the possible encodings in detail (abbreviations such as d
.
h represent a
single Sanskrit consonant):
1 = k, t
.
, p, y;
2 = kh, t
.
h, ph, r;
3 = g, d
.
, b, l;
4 = gh, d
.
h, bh, v;
5 = n, n, m, s;
6 = c, t, s
.
;
7 = ch, th, s;
8 = j, d, h;
9 = jh, dh;
0 = n, n.
To make words and verses, the following rules are added:
If two successive consonants (such as vr) are placed in a word, only the last
consonant r counts, and the v is ignored.
A double consonant such as jj counts only once.
Vowels and consonants that do not occur in the list do not have a numerical meaning,
so they can be inserted anywhere without changing the numerical value of the word
or verse.
Thus the system was very exible, and it was not difcult to compose words or
verses for complicated (series of) numbers. The digits were encoded in reverse order.
A fteenth century example from Kerala in South-India is the verse:
vidv am
.
s
tunnabalah
.
kav sanicayah
.
sarv artha slasthiro
nirviddh an
.
ganarendraru.
15
The verse means:
*
Jan Hogendijk, Vedic Mathematics and the Calculations of Guru Trthaj, in: Pi in the Sky, no. 8
(December 2004), pp. 24-27.
15
Gold, D. and D. Pingree: A hitherto unknown Sanskrit work concerning M adhavas derivation of
the power series for sine and cosine, in: Historia Scientiarum, 42 (1991), 49-65, here p. 53; cf.
David Pingree, The Logic of Non-Western Science: Mathematical Discoveries in Medieval India, in:
Daedalus, Vol. 132, No. 4, On Science (Fall, 2003), pp. 45 53, here p. 50.
8 The Kat
.
apay adi system
The wise ruler whose army has been struck down gathers together the best of
advisers and remains rm in his conduct in all matters; then he shatters the (rival)
king whose army has not been destroyed.
16
This verse consists of ve Sanskrit words, and the letters that carry numerical values
[consonants immediately preceding vowels] are vv = 44, tnbl = 6033, kv sncy = 145061,
sv(th) sl(th)r = 7475372, nv(dh)gnrrr = 04930222. Because the digits were encoded in
reverse order, the ve words encode the sexagesimal numbers
44/60
3
,
33/60
2
+ 06/60
3
,
16/60 + 05/60
2
+ 41/60
3
,
273/60 + 57/60
2
+ 47/60
3
,
2220/60 + 39/60
2
+ 40/60
3
,
which astronomers wanted to memorize because they occur in an expression used for
computation of the Indian sine, equivalent to a modern Taylor series. These numbers
are written in terms of the rst three powers of 1/60, and they are rounded values of (in
modern terms)
90
11!
(
2
)
10
,
90
9!
(
2
)
8
,
90
7!
(
2
)
6
,
90
5!
(
2
)
4
, and
90
3!
(
2
)
2
respectively.
[1] Chandra Hari, K., 1999: A critical study of Vedic mathematics of
Sankarac arya
Sr
Bh arat Kr
.
s
.
n
.
a Trthaj Ma
is known about M adhavas personal history and education. He was born probably
in the second half of the fourteenth century, and worked for some decades before
and after 1400 in an illam at Iri njalakkud
.
a [sic!] (, iri n n alakkut
.
a) near
modern Kochi (Malayalam: , Kocci, pronounced [koti], before 1996 known
as Cochin; Hindi , kocna). The only writings of M adhava currently known to
survive are some astronomical treatises, some of which are dated in the rst few
years of the fteenth century. But he is now most renowned for his discoveries in
trigonometric power series, preserved only in a fewisolated verses. These verses, along
with other parts of M adhavas work, were studied and expounded upon in an illam not
far fromM adhavas home by M adhavas own pupil Parame svara and Parame svaras son
D amodara. There D amodara taught Nlakan
.
t
.
ha and Jyes
.
t
.
hadeva, students from other
nearby illams, both of whom in their turn gave instruction to another scholar named
Sa nkara V ariyar, who worked near the middle of the sixteenth century.
The power series that M adhavas followers so carefully elucidated were equivalent
to what we know as Maclaurin series expansions for the sine, cosine, and arctangent. In
particular, M adhava found what is essentially Leibniz innite series for the ratio of the
circumference of a circle to its diameter, and also derived a numerical value equivalent
to = 3.14159265359.
Nothing
Kim Plofker, Mathematics in India, in: Victor J. Katz, Annette Imhausen (Eds.), The mathematics
of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam: a sourcebook, Princeton 2007, p. 481f.