One among the 9 jewels of King Vikramaditya’s court, Varahmihir was the one who predicted the exact date the method of King Vikramaditya’s son’s death.

Born in 505 AD, in Ujjain to father Adityadas, Mihir was given the title of Varah (the boar) by the King Vikramaditya, when the prophesy of his son’s death at the age of 18, by the attack of boar, became true.

Desiciple of Aryabhatta, Varahmihir was not only an astrologer, a mathmatician, a geologist but a biologist too. His three works Brihat Samhita, Brihat Jataka and Panch samhita which has three parts- Surya, Romaka, Paulisa, Paitamana Siddhanta, Vasistha are most famous.

He was the one to predict the water on Mars, the first to calculate the diameter of Mars and other planets. The diameter of Mars calculated by Varahmihir was 3772 miles, according to today’s geologist’s it is 4280 miles with only 11 percent error.

In his book Brihat Samhita, he has described about 550 comets.

He improved trigonometric tables, defined the algebraic property of “0” and also gave the concept of negative numbers.

He gave 4 columned magic square, Pascal’s triangle, Improved sine formulas.

He also told that the shift of equinox was 50.32 seconds and was the first to tell that the Moon and other heavenly bodies illuminate because of Sun’s light. In Surya Samhita he explained the concept of Solar and Lunar eclipse.

In the field of Biology, he was the first one to predict that ants and termites are found near the water.

Our India has always been the treasure of great scientists, but ironically we still look upon the west and consider them as the inventors of great things. Now here the actual reality lies, the you can discriminate between imposters and the real scholars.

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