Mahāvīra (or Mahaviracharya, "Mahavira the Teacher") was a 9th-century Indian Jain mathematician possibly born in Mysore, in India.
[1][2][3] He authored Gaṇita-sāra-saṅgraha (Ganita Sara Sangraha) or the Compendium on the gist of Mathematics in 850 CE.
[6] He is highly respected among Indian mathematicians, because of his establishment of terminology for concepts such as equilateral, and isosceles triangle; rhombus; circle and semicircle.
[12] Arithmetic operations utilized in his works like Gaṇita-sāra-saṅgraha(Ganita Sara Sangraha) uses decimal place-value system and include the use of zero.
[14] This follows the use of unit fractions in Indian mathematics in the Vedic period, and the Śulba Sūtras' giving an approximation of √2 equivalent to
In this, the bhāgajāti section (verses 55–98) gives rules for the following:[14] rūpāṃśakarāśīnāṃ rūpādyās triguṇitā harāḥ kramaśaḥ / dvidvitryaṃśābhyastāv ādimacaramau phale rūpe //When the result is one, the denominators of the quantities having one as numerators are [the numbers] beginning with one and multiplied by three, in order.