पाटीगणित (श्रीधराचार्य - प्राचीन संस्कृत टीका एवं प्रो. कृपाशंकर शुक्ल सविस्तार व्याख्या)

INTRODUCTION iii
The following topics, though mentioned by the author
in the list of contents, are totally missing from the manuscript :
(1) Determinations pertaining to excavations (khâta-
vyavahâra), (2) Determinations pertaining to piles of bricks
(citi-vyavahâra), (3) Determinations pertaining to sawn pieces
of timber (krâkaca-vyavahâra), (4) Determinations pertaining
to heaps of grain (râśi-vyavahâra), (5) Determinations pertain-
ing to shadow (châyâ-vyavahâra), and (6) The mathematics of
zero (śûnya-tatva).
The available text of the Pâṭīgaṇita comprises altogether
251 verses, of which 118 contain definitions and rules and
133 contain examples.
The manuscript is fairly complete in so far as it goes.
A serious lacuna, however, occurs after verses 18-20 embodying
rules for multiplication, which extends over the entire com-
mentary to those three verses and also over the following exam-
ple and part of the commentary to that example. There was,
however, little difficulty in substituting the missing example
from the author's smaller work on the subject. The surviving
commentary to the missing example was sufficient to indicate
which example it was. Thus inspite of the above-mentioned
lacuna little damage was caused to the text of the Pâṭīgaṇita,
only a little portion of the commentary was lost.
The editing of an ancient Sanskrit work on the basis of
of a single manuscript, especially when it is full of errors and
inaccuracies, is indeed a difficult task. In editing the above
manuscript we have followed the principle of least interference
and have aimed at removing the defects of the manuscript
by making as few alterations as possible. With this end in
view we had to read the manuscript several times to find the
correct meaning of the text so as to be able to ascertain the
nearest substitutes for the incorrect words or phrases occurring
in the manuscript. As far as the numerical figures were con-
cerned there was not much difficulty in rectifying them, as
they could be verified mathematically. In the case of non-