Sambodhi 2000 Vol 23

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

Page 24

Vol. XXIII, 2000
VEDIC SOURCES OF THE "VEDIC MATHEMATICS'
Whether or not the Vedas be believed as repositories of perfect wisdom, it is unquestionable that the Vedic race lived not merely as pastoral folk possessing half-or-quarter-developed culture and civilisation. The Vedic seers were, again, not mere 'navel-gazers' or 'nose-tip-gazers'. They proved themselves adepts in all levels and branches of knowledge, theoretical and practical. For example, they had their varied objective science, both pure and applied... The old seer scientist had both his own theory and art (technique) for producing the result, but different from those now prevailing. He had his science and technique, called Yajna, in which Mantra, Yantra and other factors must co-operate with mathematical determinateness and precision. For this purpose, he had developed the six auxiliaries of the Vedas in each of which methematical skill and adroitness, occult or otherwise, play the decisive role. The sūtras lay down the shortest and surest lines.41
In his Foreword of the General Editor, Dr. V. S. Agrawala has aptly pointed out41 that the question naturally arises whether the Sūtras which form the basis of this treatise, viz., the VM, exist any where in the Vedic literature as known to us. And we find that the Sutras in the form presented by BKTM, have not been found to form any part of the texts of the Atharvaveda Sarhitā, both Saunaka and Paippalāda, nor the Gopatha Brāhmaṇa, nor the Kausika Sutra, nor the Vaitāna Sūtra, nor in any of the Upanişads traditionally belonging to the Atharvaveda, nor in any of the extent Sulba Sūtras of both the Krsna and the Sukla Yajurveda Sākhās, nor in the Atharvaveda-parisistas. 42 But, says Dr. V. S. Agrawala, this criticism loses all its force if we inform ourselves of the definition of Veda given by BKTM himself as quoted of the definition of Veda given by BKTM himself as quoted above. It is the whole essence of his assessment of Vedic tradition that it is not to be approached from a factual standpoint but from the ideal standpoint, viz., that the Vedas as traditionally accepted in India are the repositary of all knowledge, and hence they should be, and not what they are, in human possession. That approach entirely turns the tables on all the critics, for the authorship of Vedic mathematics then need not be labouriously searched in the texts as preserved from antiquity.43 Even then, with due deference to the statements of a kind-hearted impartial scholarly saint like BKTM, we have yet to endeavour to trace the text of