"Combination" in Indian Mathematics

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Combinatorics has been a standard topic in jyoti.h"saastra since at least
the Liilaavatii, where Bhaaskara gives the examples of combining the six
medical rasas (flavours), and also of how many different ways eight
windows on the front of a house may be open or shut (ans: 255).  Vagbhata
also knows the combinatorics of rasas, so the knowledge can be pushed back
to ca. AD 600 at the latest, and must be considerably earlier.

A thesis on this topic was written by Takanori Kusuba under David Pingree.
Title: "Combinatorics and magic squares in Naaraaya.na Pa.n.dita's
Ga.nitakaumudii".

All the best,
Dominik

--
Dominik Wujastyk            Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine
email: d.wujastyk at ucl.ac.uk       183 Euston Road, London NW1 2BE, England
<URL: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~ucgadkw/>                 FAX: 44 171 611 8545
--
"To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?"