Thread: Puranic puzzle

Once draupadi had an akshay patra(vessel)
She thought for sweets. It came.
she took a spoon and gave 5 spoons of sweets to bhima.
remaining sweets in the vessel doubled.
She gave 4 spoons to arjuna.
remaining sweets in the vessel doubled.
She gave 3 spoons to dharma
remaining sweets in the vessel doubled.
She gave 2 spoons to nakula
remaining sweets in the vessel doubled.
She gave 1 spoon to sakadeva
remaining sweets in the vessel doubled.
It was exactly equal to spoonful of sweets.
Question is how many sweets were present initially?
Each spoon contains how many sweets?
please give the answer with the medthodology.
Thanks
knramesh AT gmail dot com

I can't get this to come to a whole number. Here is my attempt.

Originally Posted by knramesh

Once draupadi had an akshay patra(vessel)
She thought for sweets. It came.

Call the number of spoons of sweets "n"

she took a spoon and gave 5 spoons of sweets to bhima.

Okay, so now we have n- 5 spoons left.

remaining sweets in the vessel doubled.

Shazam! It magically changes to 2(n- 5)= 2n- 10!

She gave 4 spoons to arjuna.

(2n- 10)- 4= 2n- 14

remaining sweets in the vessel doubled.

2(2n- 14)= 4n- 28

She gave 3 spoons to dharma

(4n- 28)- 3= 4n- 31

remaining sweets in the vessel doubled.

2(4n- 31)= 8n- 62

She gave 2 spoons to nakula

(8n- 62)- 2= 8n- 64

remaining sweets in the vessel doubled.

2(8n- 64)= 16n- 128

She gave 1 spoon to sakadeva

(16n- 128)- 1= 16n- 129

remaining sweets in the vessel doubled.

2(16n- 129) = 32n- 254

It was exactly equal to spoonful of sweets.

So 32n- 254= 1? If so then 32n= 255 but 255 is not a multiple of 32. At best, n= 7.96875. If it had been "2 spoonfuls of sweets", n would be 8.

Question is how many sweets were present initially?
Each spoon contains how many sweets?
please give the answer with the medthodology.
Thanks
knramesh AT gmail dot com

Originally Posted by HallsofIvy

I can't get this to come to a whole number.

I suppose she didn't need to have thunk a whole number of spoonfuls into existence. But a spoonful presumably is a whole number of sweets. And maybe the fact that that number would need to be a multiple of 32 is half an answer to the second part of the question. But it looks like we can't give a whole number of answers!

Btw we have a small typo - I'm making it 259/32, i.e. 8 whole spoons plus 3/32 of a spoon.

There isn't a typo. If we start with 259 sweets and 32 sweets fit onto a spoon, the sequence will be
remove 5 spoons of sweets and double = 2(259-5*32)=198
remove 4 spoons of sweets and double = 2(198-4*32)=140
remove 3 spoons of sweets and double = 2(140-3*32)=88
remove 2 spoons of sweets and double = 2(88 -2*32)= 48
remove 1 spoon of sweets and double = 2(48 - 32) = 32
and that's one spoonful.

Exactly.

I was merely pointing out (unsuccessfully) a trivial arithmetic slip by H of I.