Baudhayana and the 'Pythagorean' theorem
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The Baudhayana Sulba Sutra states the rule about the diagonal of a rectangle before Pythagoras' time. Babylonian tablets show the rule was in use even earlier.
Independent discoveriesMathematics & astronomy
Indian claim
The theorem should be called the Baudhayana theorem: the Sulba Sutra stated it before Pythagoras.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- The Baudhayana Sulba Sutra, a manual for building Vedic fire altars, says the diagonal of a rectangle produces both areas that its two sides produce separately.
- The Sulba Sutras list number triples such as (3, 4, 5) and (5, 12, 13) and give a very close value for the square root of 2.
- Its date is uncertain; estimates run from about 800 BCE to 500 BCE or later. Scholars call it the earliest surviving general verbal statement of the rule.
Commonly credited to
The theorem is named after the Greek Pythagoras, and Euclid gave the classic proof around 300 BCE.
Evidence for the other claim
- The Babylonian tablet Plimpton 322 (c. 1800 BCE) lists Pythagorean triples, showing the rule was used more than a thousand years earlier.
- Pythagoras left no writings; the proof attributed to his school is known from later Greek sources, and Euclid's Elements (c. 300 BCE) gives a formal proof.
- Some historians (e.g. Boyer) suggested Mesopotamian influence on the Sulba Sutras; others see Indian work as independent.
What historians and scientists say
The rule was known in Babylonia, India, China and Greece. Baudhayana's statement is earlier than Pythagoras and probably independent, but neither India nor Greece was first overall. Greek mathematics is credited with the first formal proof.