Shaping a Mathematical Text in Sanskrit: H. T. Colebrooke, Sudhākara Dvivedin, and Pṛthūdaka’s Commentary on the Twelfth Chapter of the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta

In 1817, Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765–1837) published English translations of different Sanskrit mathematical texts, including a translation of the twelfth chapter of Brahmagupta’s Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta (‘Theoretical Treatise on the true Brahmā [school of astral science]’ 628 CE), with the help of Pṛthūdaka’s Vāsanābhāṣya (‘Commentary with explanations’ fl. 960). Almost ninety years later, in 1902, Sudhākara Dvivedin (1855–1910/11) published an edition of the Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta with his own commentary, which refers also to Pṛthūdaka’s commentary. Since both texts were crucial to the access one could have to Brahmagupta’s mathematics, their point of view durably marked the historiography. Dvivedin’s and Colebrooke’s publications are striking for the different ways they deal with the structure of Brahmagupta’s mathematical chapter, their relation to Pṛthūdaka’s commentary, or numerical practices. I will argue that these authors’ views on commentaries, structure and number went together with a specific idea of what a Sanskrit mathematical text was to be, informing their editorial choices, and shaping the views we have of the text today.