Sambodhi 2000 Vol 23

Author(s): Jitendra B Shah, N M Kansara
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

Page 14

Vol. XXIII, 2000
VEDIC SOURCES OF THE "VEDIC MATHEMATICS
He further clarified that 'Mathematical formulae' is the heading of the subject, and inside we are told that the tyrant king ruled over the people oppressively.19 And here too, the heading is "Ganita Sūtras', mathemaics formulae. So he thought there must be something. And for long years of meditation in the forest, and intense study of the lexicographies, lexicons of earlier times, 20 he devoted himself to the task of dicovering the mathematical meaning of the gañita-sūtras. He studied the old lexicons, including Visva, Amara, Arnava, Sabdakalpadruma, etc. With these he was able to find out the meanings; he got the key in that way in one instance, and one thing after another helped him in elucidation of the other sūtras, the other formulae. And he found to his extreme astonishment and gratification that the sūtras dealt with mathematics in all its branches; that only sixteen sūtras cover all the branches of mathematics, arithmatic, algebra, geometry, trigonometry, physics, plain and spherical geometry, conics, calculus, both differential and integral, applied mathematics of various kinds dynamics, hydrostatics, statics, kinematics, and all.21 In our endeavour to locate the portions of the Atharvaveda, that confronted Colebrooke, Wilson and Griffith and evoked the above-mentioned remarks from them, we have scanned through all the writings of H. Th. Colebrooke, which being more than a century old, could be available only in the very old libraries at Pune and Bombay, for personal reference and verification.
As regards Colebrooke, he is known to have remarked as follows :22 ".. the Vedas ... are too voluminous for a complete translation of the whole; and what they contain would hardly reward the labour of the reader; much less that of a translator. The ancient dialect in which they are composed, and especially that of the first three Vedas, is extremely difficult and obscure; ... its difficulties must long continue to prevent such an examination of the whole Vedas, as would be requisite for extracting all that is remarkable and important in those voluminous works.” During the course of his essays he has quoted generally from the Atharvaveda Samhitā of the Saunakīya Sākhā.
Horace Hayman Wilson, too, has referred to Colebrooke's opinion in his essays and lectures.23 The portion of the Atharvaveda generally referred to by him seems to be the last two books, i.e. the Kāndas XIX and XX.