Person: Hemchandra, Acharya

Hemchandra was a Sanskrit scholar who published works on science, languages and philosophy.

The name Hemchandra was one he took later in life and he was named Candradeva after he was born.
When Candradeva was ordained in 1110 into the Shvetambara (White-robed) sect of Jainism and he was given the name Acharya Hemchandra.
King Siddharaja made excellent use of Hemchandra's great skills, knowledge and learning in ruling Gujarat.
King Kumarapala succeeded King Siddharaja and from 1125 he was advised by Hemchandra.
Of course as a spiritual leader, Hemchandra was in a strong position to see that his ideas were put into practice and indeed this led to Gujarat becoming considerable more advanced in culture and learning.
Hemchandra was a strong believer in non-violence and Gujarat flourished in peace for many years.
Hemchandra convinced the King to make the Jain religion the official religion of Gujarat.
One might reasonably ask at this point why we have included Hemchandra in an archive of mathematicians.
Hemchandra asks: How many different combinations of short and long syllables are possible in a line of length nnn?
Hemchandra then finds the answer explicitly.
Before we rush to try to change the name of the Fibonacci numbers into Hemchandra number it is worth noting that Gopala had studied these numbers in about 1135 and Indian mathematicians as early as the 7th century had looked at sequences which are produced by the familiar Fibonacci rule.

Born 1089, Dhandhuka, Gujarat, India. Died 1173, Gujarat, India.

View full biography at MacTutor

Ancient Indian, Origin India

Epochs: 1

Thank you to the contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0!

O’Connor, John J; Robertson, Edmund F: MacTutor History of Mathematics Archive