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INTRODUCTION
BY
DAVID EUGENE SMITH
PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN TEACHERS' COLLEGE,
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York.
We have so long been acoustomed to think of Pataliputra on the Ganges and of Ujjain over towards the Western Coast of India as the ancient habitats of Hindu mathematics, that we experience a kind of surprise at the idea that other centres equally important existed among the multitude of cities of that great empire. In the same way we have known for a century, ohiefly through the labours of such scholars as Colebrooke and Taylor, the works of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and Bhāskara, and have come to feel that to these mon alone are due the noteworthy contributions to be found in native Hindu mathematics. Of course a little reflection shows this conolusion to be an incorrect one. Other great schools, particularly of astronomy, did exist, and other scholars taught and wrote and added their quota, small or large, to make up the sum total. It has, however, been a little discouraging that native scholars under the English supremacy have done so little to bring to light the ancient mathematical material known to exist and to make it known to the Western world. This neglect has not certainly been owing to the absence of material, for Sanskrit mathematical manuscripts are known, as are also Persian, Arabio, Chinese, and Japanese; and many of these are well worth translating from the historical standpoint. It has rather been owing to the fact that it is hard tof ind a man with the requisite scholarship, who can afford to give his time to what is necessarily a labour of love.
It is a pleasure to know that such a man has at last appeared and that, thanks to his profound scholarship and great pereseverance,
