Baudhayana

Who is Baudhayana?

Baudhāyana, was the author of the Baudhayana sūtras, which cover dharma, daily ritual, Vedic sacrifices, etc. He belongs to the Yajurveda school, and is older than the other sūtra author Āpastambha.

He was the author of the earliest Sulba Sūtra—appendices to the Vedas giving rules for the construction of altars—called the Baudhāyana Śulbasûtra. These are notable from the point of view of mathematics, for containing several important mathematical results, including giving a value of pi to some degree of precision, and stating a version of what is now known as the Pythagorean theorem.