Indians were 500 years ahead of Pythagoras!

Pythagoras theorem is used by everyone at some point of their lives. But how many of us actually know that the same theorem was discovered by an Indian 500 years before Pythagoras?

Pythagoras Theorem

Yes, Indian priest and mathematician, Baudhayana stated this theorem in his book called 'Baudhāyana Śulbasûtra' around 800 BC.

Referring the 'Baudhāyana Śulbasûtra', we get the following statement:

"A rope stretched along the length of the diagonal produces an area which the vertical and horizontal sides make together." 

In other words:

The diagonal of a rectangle produces by itself both (the areas) produced separately by its two sides.

Baudhayana

This is the earliest explanation to what we familiarly refer to as the Pythagoras theorem. Though this discovery was made atleast 500 years before Pythagoras, the world still refers to this important mathematical axiom as the "Pythagorean" theorem rather than Baudhayana's theorem.