Basic Mathematics

Author(s): L C Jain
Publisher: Rajasthan Prakrit Bharti Sansthan Jaipur

Page 18

THE JAINA SCHOOL OF EXACT SCIENCES
PART I
BASIC MATHEMATICS
CHAPTER 1.
INTRODUCTION
"Mathematics is the science of the functional laws and transformations which enable us to covert figured extension and rated motion into number". -Howison, G. H.1
According to J. J. Sylvester, there are three ruling ideas, three to say, spheres of thought, which pervade the whole body of mathematical science, to some one or other of which, or to two or all three of them combined, every mathematical truth admits of being referred; these are the three cardinal notions, of Number, Space ond Order. Arithmetic has for its object the properties of number in the abstract. In algebra, viewed as a science of operations, order is the predominant idea. The business of geometry is with the evolution of the properties of space, or of bodies viewed as existing in Space2.
(a) Object :
To a human intellect two worlds have been manifest for study of the cosmos. One has been the micro world and the other macro one. The observables could be calculated for their motion and transformations through postulated non-observables.
With this object, in India, the Jaina scientific thought contributed to Jaina astronomy as well as to Jaina Karma theory with mathematical approach. One of the works on basic mathematics became world known,
1. Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 5, p. 164.
2. Collected Mathematical Papers, Vol. 2, p. 5.
1