Brahmagupta [key], c.598–c.660, Indian mathematician and astronomer. He was among the first to meaningfully discuss the concepts of zero and of negative numbers. He wrote in verse the Brahma-sphuta-siddhanta [improved system of Brahma], a standard work on astronomy containing two chapters on mathematics that were translated into English by H. T. Colebrooke in Algebra … from the Sanskrit of Brahmagupta (1817). A shorter treatise, The Khandakhadyaka (tr. 1934), expounded the astronomical system of Aryabhata.
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