Acarya Aryabhata

Summary

V.G. Nair’s essay seeks to recover the religious identity of Aryabhata, the celebrated mathematician‑astronomer who wrote the Āryabhaṭīya in A.D. 499. While modern scholarship often portrays Aryabhata as a Brahmin or a Hindu Vedāṅga astronomer, Nair compiles literary references suggesting that he was a Jain ascetic from Kerala. He notes that several Jain sadhus from the early centuries of the Christian era bore the honorific “Ārya” or “Bhata” in their names, including Ārya Vijaya, Ārya Suhasti and Ārya Magalāy, all revered teachers within the Jain monastic order. According to Jaina tradition, Aryabhata was born in the village of Kolli in Ernaculam district of Kerala and was initiated into the Jain path at a young age. Nair cites Kerala chronicles, such as Keralolpatti and the poems of Mahakavi Ullur, which claim that Jain sadhus introduced higher learning to Kerala and that Brahmins studied Ayurveda, astrology and architecture from them. In this milieu it is plausible that Aryabhata was a Jain monk who adopted the title “Bhata” after advanced study. The article also juxtaposes Aryabhata’s intellectual achievements with Jain philosophical concepts. Nair argues that Aryabhata’s use of place‑value notation, the concept of zero and the idea of the relative motion of the earth anticipate Jain doctrines of non‑absolutism (anekāntavāda) and relativism (syādvāda). Jain scriptures describe innumerable universes and cyclical time, themes echoed in Aryabhata’s cosmology where the earth rotates on its axis and planets follow elliptical paths. The essay reviews evidence from Sanskrit commentators such as Nilakantha Somayaji, who recorded local traditions that Aryabhata was born in Ashmaka (Nandivardhana) but offered no details about his sect; Nair suggests these gaps result from later Brahmanical appropriation of his legacy. He also notes that the only extant biographies of Aryabhata are found in Jain works like Suyagada, which depict him as a Jain sage. Although hard evidence is scarce, Nair concludes that the weight of indirect testimony—onomastic patterns, regional traditions and philosophical affinities—supports the view that Aryabhata belonged to the Jain ascetic community.