Jaina School Of Indian Mathematics

Author(s): Dipak Jadhav
Publisher: Indian Journal of History of Science

Page 3

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INDIAN JOURNAL OF HISTORY OF SCIENCE
Bibhutibhusan Datta appears to be the first historian of mathematics who wrote a paper of which title contains the name of the school. The paper, which he wrote in 1929, is "The Jaina school of mathematics" (Datta 1929). It was aimed at professing, although he did not claim so, an account of the mathematical achievements of the Jainas. It was based on those sources that he collected up to that time. Most of them were of the Svetāmbara tradition. In 1934, SK Das wrote "The Jaina school of astronomy” (Das 1934). It gave the details of the astronomical and cosmographical speculations of the Jainas. LC Jain produced four papers. The first was "On the Jaina school of mathematics" (Jain, LC, 1967). It was also aimed at professing a brief account of the mathematical achievements of the Jainas but the sources that he used were different from those used by Datta. Those sources were of the Digambara tradition. "Jaina school of mathematics" was the second one which he produced (Jain, LC, 1975). It was a study in Chinese influences and transmissions. The third one was "The Jaina schools of mathematical sciences" (Jain, LC, 1992). It describes that there have been two Jaina schools of mathematics in India, the Digambara and the Svetāmbara. The former held proficiency in the symbolico- mathematical theory of karma, whereas the latter seems to be more interested in astronomy and astrology. "The Jaina school of mathematical
atical philosophy" was the fourth paper (Jain, LC, 2000) which discussed how the Jainas approached their philosophy all the way through mathematics.
Apart from the above four papers, LC Jain wrote five more papers that contain the expression "Jaina school of mathematics” in their respective titles, namely (1) "Set theory in Jaina school of mathematics" (Jain, LC, 1973), (2) "On certain mathematical topics of the Dhavalā texts (the Jaina school of mathematics)” (Jain, LC, 1976), (3) "Perspective of system-theoretic technique in Jaina school of mathematics between 1400-1800
CE” (Jain, LC 1978), (4) "System theory in Jaina school of mathematics" (Jain, LC, 1979), and (5) "System theory in Jaina school of mathematics II" (Jain, LC and Jain, Meena 1989).
Despite all these publications, the expression "the Jaina school of mathematics" did not get an essential amount of exposure at international level. One of the reasons behind this situation may have been that the above papers were published in less known journals except in Indian Journal of History of Science. Another may be that it was not recognized that the mathematicians of Jaina faith shared common mathematical thoughts to a great extent mathematical thoughts irrespective of the languages they used to compose their treatises. For example, (1) the Jainas shared
1o as the value for it for the long period commencing from 500 BCE at least to the time of Todaramala (1720 CE-1767 CE) (Jadhav, 2013, pp. 502-517 and 528-538), and (2) Thakkura Pherū borrowed most of the rules into the Ganita-särakaumudi (“Moonlight of the essence of mathematics") composed by him in Apabhramsa from the Trisatikā composed by Sridhara in Sanskrit (see SAKHYA 2009)
With the assessment of the situation RC Gupta approves, while writing a note on the research work done by L C Jain, the expression "the Jaina school of mathematics" in the following words.
"The Jaina school of mathematics was one of the most remarkable institutions of ancient India. Its contribution in the development of scientific thought especially as part of philosophicmathematical thinking may be regarded as quite significant and is a known fact to some extent. But the paradoxical situation is that it is yet to find due place in the historical expositions of the development of mathematics in India, what to say of that in the world. Nevertheless, in the pursuit of scientific thinking the depth of Jain philosopher-mathematicians is comparable to that of Greece. For