Sthananga Sutra

Sthananga Sutra is a highly revered religious text belonging to the Jain religion. It is a part of the collection of texts containing Lord Mahavir’s teachings, collectively termed as Agam Sutras. It is believed to be written around 300 BC.

Sthananga Sutra mainly concentrates on Jain metaphysics. Apart from defining and cataloguing the major aspects in Jainism, this text also deals with mathematics. The author covers a total of ten major topics in mathematics. They are ‘parikarma’ (four fundamental operations), ‘vyavahara’ (subjects of treatment), ‘rajju’ (geometry), ‘rashi’ (measuring of solid bodies), ‘kalasavarna’ (fractions), ‘yavat-tavat’ (simple equations), ‘varga’ (quadratic equations), ‘ghana’ (cubic equations), ‘varga-varga’ (bi-quadratic equations) and ‘vikalpa’ (permutation and combination). There is also a detailed discussion on infinity and its varieties.