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अनेकान्त 64/1, जनवरी-मार्च 2011
55
था। प्रो. एल. सी. जैन गणित इतिहास का विशिष्ट अन्वेषण करते हुए इस संबन्ध में कुछ रोचक जानकारियां प्रस्तुत की हैं जो इस प्रकार हैं:
(1) ऐसा प्रतीत होता है कि ईसा से (प्राय: 582-500 वर्ष) मिस्र में प्रबल स्वेच्छा से रहते हुए पाइथागोरस ने जिनके संसर्ग में स्वयं को विभिन्न विज्ञानों से (a lot of knowledge without intellect) परिचित किया था, उनके मिशन का प्रभाव उनके नैतिक जीवन में पशु के प्रति (मुक्ति हेतु), विशुद्ध दया की छाप छोड़ बैठा था:
"But this crazy crank Pythagorus had made quite a fuss when he saw one of the prominent citizens taking a stick to his dog. "Stop beating that dog! he had shouted like a madman. "In his howls of pain I recognise the voice of a friend who died in Memphis twelve years ago. For a sin such as you are committing he is now the dog of a harsh master. By the next turn of the Wheel of Birth, he may be the master and you the dog. May he be more merciful to you than you are to him. Only thus can he escape the Wheel. In the name of Apollo my father, stop, or I shall be compelled to lay on you the tenfold curse of the tetractys."
(2) इस चदुचंकमण (tetractys), चतुर्गति बंधन (स्वस्तिक प्ररूपणा) से विमुक्ति हेतु पाइथागोरस और आगे बढ़कर हरे पौधों के प्रति भी ममता प्रदर्शित करता है: ___"Than, too, there was all this talk about what he ate, or rather about what he would not eat. What could the man possibly have against beans? They were a staple of everyon's diet; and here was Pythagorus rufusing to touch them because they might harbour the souls of his dead friends.... He had even deterred a cow from trampling a patch of beans by whispering some magic word in its ear."
इसी प्रकार, (एकेंद्रिय जीव, बालों से निर्मित) ऊनी कपड़ों से संबन्धित अभ्युक्ति निम्न प्रकार है
"He also tells that the Pythagoreans did not bury their dead in woollen clothing. This looks more like religious rutual than like mathematics. The Pythagoreans, who were held up to ridicule on the stage, were presented as superstitious, as filthy vegetarians, but not as mathematicians".
(3) पुनः, मांस-भक्षण निषेध की शैली में आत्मा की नियत संख्या के रूप में गणित का प्रवेश है:
"The thought of all the souls they might have left shivering in the void by devouring their own goats and swine made the good Samians extremely unhappy. A few weeks more of these upsetting suggestions and they would all be strict vegetarians- except for beans.
Equally upsetting was the ghastly thought that some of their own children might be malicious little monsters with no souls to restrain their bestial
