Baudhayanas

Baudhayanas refers to the tradition or lineage associated with the sage Baudhayana, traditionally credited with composing the Baudhāyana Śulba Sūtra. This text is one of the Śulba (rope) sutras, a class of ritual geometry within the Kalpa Vedanga, and it governs the construction of ritual altars for Vedic sacrifices.

The Baudhāyana Śulba Sūtra describes how to lay out and construct geometrically shaped altars using cords and stakes. It covers square, rectangular, and circular configurations and provides procedures to ensure right angles and proportional relationships. The procedures encode geometric rules that are often described as early forms of the Pythagorean ideas, enabling accurate measurement and alignment for ceremonial structures.

Dating and influence: Most scholars place the Baudhayana Śulba Sūtra in the early part of the first millennium BCE (roughly 8th to 5th centuries BCE). As part of the broader Śulba literature, it influenced later Indian mathematical thought and ritual geometry, contributing to the tradition of geometric construction and measurement in early Indian science. The term Baudhayanas can also denote the broader circle of scholars associated with Baudhayana and his sutras, though in practice it most often refers to the Baudhayana Śulba tradition.