We own a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made. -Albert Einstein

Leelavati was found of flowers, especially lotus flowers. She loved to watch the lovely lotus that stood straight in water. Sometimes, it swayed with the wind … She also liked the peacock with its beautiful tail feathers. It flew only as high as the branches of trees. When it spied a serpent a sliding by, how fast it swooped upon the serpent …

She gazed and gazed at the graceful swan that glided upon the lake …she laughed when she watched the antics of the monkeys … And she loved maths! Surprising, isn’t it? Not really, because Leelavati lived in India hundreds of years ago and studied maths from a book which was very very poetic! The book, too, was called ‘Leelavati’.

The sums in it brought to Leelavati’s mind all the beautiful things she loved. Here’s an example: *A peacock was sitting on a straight coconut tree that stood …. tall. It saw a serpent moving to its hole. It flew straight at the serpent and caught it just as it was about to enter the hole. If it flew a distance of …., how far away was the hole from the tree?

Indians have been skilled mathematicians for thousands of years. India was the birthplace of many important mathematical concepts. For example, the concept of zero originated in India. It is from India that the word learned the decimal system. Indians knew how to calculate square roots and aware of these concepts. Indians have known algebra, geometry and trigonometry for hundreds of years, much before the others.

There have been many great mathematicians in India. The mathematics they knew was advanced, even by today’s standards. You may have heard the names of Aryabhatta and Bhaskaracharya. Bhaskaracharya lived in the 12 th century. He wrote ‘Leelavati’ a book that teaches arithmetic through interesting examples are written in the form of verses! ‘Leelavati’ was used for centuries, as a textbook of mathematics in many parts of India.