An ancient math book studied by Amartya Sen shared by official handle for Nobel prize

Sraboni Modak
2 min readOct 19, 2020

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Pages from the ancient mathematics book ‘Lilavati’
Two Pages of Lilavati

A rare photo of the pages of a book read by Indian Economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen was recently shared on the Nobel Prize’s Instagram site.

The official handle for the Nobel prize often shares various unknown information about the Nobel laureates. In a recent post, a page of a mathematics book read by Amartya Sen during his school days is uploaded here. From the content of pages it is believed to be part of ‘Lilavati’, an ancient text on mathematics written in 1150 by the vedic mathematician and astronomer Bhaskaracharya.

“Mathematics is important in many scientific fields, especially in economics, a field where Amartya Sen conducted groundbreaking studies. Sen used these math text books when he was at school. They are written in Sanskrit, although this is not the most common language spoken in West Bengal, where he grew up”, the official handle shared with the pages of book. When the organization shared with the pages of ‘Lilavati’ on their official Instagram site, they asked netizens in the description part, Can you read what it wants to say here?

The two pages of the ‘Lilavati’ that have been shared are an archival image taken from the Nobel prize Museum.

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Sraboni Modak

Interested in Science, Technology and curious about recent activities.