Sambodhi 2000 Vol 23

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

Page 19

DR. N. M. KANSARA
SAMBODHI
of Panini's Grammar, states that there were as many as 1131 or 1137 different schools of the Veda; in particular, there were 21 different schools of the Rgveda, 101 schools of the Yajurveda, 1,000 of the Sāmaveda, and 9 Or 15 of the Atharvaveda 31 But most of them are now lost.
At present we know, however, of only seven Sulba-sūtras, those belonging to the Srauta-sútras of Baudhayana, Apastamba, Katyāyana, Mānava, Maitrāyana, Vārāha and Vadhula, while we find only the reference to two other works. viz., Masaka and Hiranyakesi, in the commentary of Karvindaswami on the Apastamba Sulba (xi. 11). As related to the different Vedas, the Sulba-sūtras of Baudhāyana, Apastamba, Mānava, Maitrāyana and Vārāha belong to the Krsna Yajurveda; and the Kātyāyana Šulba-sutra to the Sukla Yajurveda. 32
As regards their importance, the available Sulba-sūtras can sharply be divided into two classes. The first class will include the manuals of Baudhāyana, Apastamba and Kātyāyana. They give us an insight into the early state of Hindu geometry before the rise and advent of the Jaina sect(500-300 B.C.). The Sulba-sūtras of Mānava, Vārāna, Maitrāyaṇa and Vādhula, comprising the second class, add particularly very little to our stock of information in this respect.33 It was perhaps primarily in connection with the construction of the sacrificial altars of proper size and shapes that the problems of geometry and also of arithmatic and algebra presented themselves, and were studied in ancient India, just as the study of astronomy is known to have begun and developed out of the necessity for fixing the proper time for the sacrifices and agriculture. At any rate, from the Sulba-sūtras we get a glimpse of the knowledge of geometry that the Vedic Hindus had. Incidentally they furnish us with a few other subjects of much mathematical interest.34
Vedic Sources of the VM-Sutra Terminology : The VM sutras contain some very common mathematical terminology, which has so far been hardly examined from this point of veiw. Dr. Satyakama Varma has concluded in his research paper35 that though the term employed in these sūtras cannot be claimed to be of the Vedic origin, yet they are later synonyms of the equivalent original Vedic terms, that the Vedic texts include much of the scientific and mathematical statements, which can make