Basic Mathematics

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

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ascribed to the early Greek philosophers was known many centuries before, though without the accompanying evidence of any formal method which the mathematicians of the fourth century would have called a proof... ... It seems to me characteristic, however, that Archytas of Tarentum could make the statement that not geometry but arithmetic alone could provide satisfactory proofs,"39
(e) India :
The team work of Datta and Singh40 as well as that of Bose, Sen and Subbarayappa41 have brought to light several main contributions of the Indians to mathematics since -3000. In their recent contributions, Yushkevich. Shukla, Gupta, Kupanna-Shastri, Bag, Saraswathi, Jha, Volodarsky, Pingri, Sharma and Lishk, Sen, Sharma, Majumdar, Ansari, Rambehari and Jain, Kulkarni and others have been continuously contributing articles and research papers on Indian ancient and medieval mathematics in the Indian Journal of History of Science and other Journals. The publication of works by Brahmgupta, Aryabhata, Bhaskara I, Sridhara, Nārāyana, Nilakantha, Parameśvara, then philosophical series of texts as Şatkhandāgama, Tiloyapaņņatti and Kasāyapāhuda alongwith their translations into contemporary language have added enormously to the spade work of Datta and Singh,
It is now well recognized that alongwith Assyria, Babylon and Egypt, India was one of the earliest seat of culture. The study of excavations of ancient settlements of Mohenjodaro and Harappa round about the Indus civilization sites had led the scholars to accept that the inhabitants apart from having mathematical and scientific knowledge, knew the fundamentals of construction, metallurgy, shipbuilding and navigation. India also played a great part in linking this knowledge with the East and the West in far off lands.
Since 1925, the excavations at the sites of Indus Civilization, neither texts concerned with mathematics have come to light, nor the pictograph inscriptions, seals and stone weights could be deciphered so far. Regarding arithmetic, in all probability, decimal numbering can be seen from a ruler
39. Cf, ibid., p. 148. 40. History of Hindu Mathematics, Pts I & II, Bombay, 1962. 41. Op. cit. Cf. also Bag, A. K., Symbol for Zero in Mathematical Notation
in India, Boletin de la Academia Nac. de Ciencias, Córdoba, T. 48, 1970, 247-254.
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