Ganitasara Sangraha of Mahavira

Author(s): Rangacharya
Publisher: Rangacharya

Page 25

* INTRODUCTION
BY
,
DAVID EUGENE SMITH, PROVESBOR OF MATHEMATICS IN TEACHERS' COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY,
New York,
We have so long been accustomed to think of Patalipatra on the Ganges and of Ujjain over towards the western coast of India as the ancient habitats of Hindu mathemation, that we experience a kind of sarprise at the idea that other centres equally important existed among the multitude of oities of that great empire. In the same way we have known for a century, chiefly through the labours of such soholars as Colebrooke and Taylor, the works of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara, and have come to feel
that to these men alone are due the poteworthy oontributions to • be found in native Hindu mathematice. Of course a little refloor tion shows this conolusion to be an incorreot one. Other great schools, partioularly of astronomy, did exist, and other mobolans 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 sobolans under the English supremaoy have done to 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 cortainly been owing to the absence of material, for Sanskrit matbematical mannsoripts are known, as are also Persian, Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese ; and many of these are well worth translating from the historioal standpoint. It has rather boon owing to the fact that it is hard to find a man with the requisito soholarship, who can afford to give his time to what is necessarily a labour of love.