Sambodhi 2000 Vol 23

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

Page 35

DR. N. M. KANSARA
SAMBODHI
Concluding Remarks: In his recent article Dr. J. N. Kapurol has observed that the word 'all' in the sub-title 'Sixteen Simple Mathematical Formulae from the Vedas, the one-line answers to all mathematical problems' has led to a great deal of confusion. The book, viz., the VM, deals with arithmetic and computation, but mathematics should not be confused with computation. In the minds of a great many people the terms 'mathematics' and 'computation' are synonymous. To be a great mathematician' is to be a rapid computor'. However, in some branches of mathematics, calculations play a very minor, even negligible, role. If a mathematician has to answer a question which calls for a number, he may have to do some computation to obtain the required result. However, the essential part of the solution in the problem is not the computation, but the reasoning process which enables the solver to choose the appropriate computation. It is this intellectual effort of analysing the solution that constitutes the mathematical character of the problem. And Prof. Kapur's quotation from Court, can be supported by a remark from Bhāskara who states in his Bīja-ganita that the intelligent mathematicians should devise by their own sagacity all such artifices as will make the case for the method of the Square-nature and then determine the values of the unknowns.92
As per the assessment of Prof. Kaput,93 this book, the VM, is not concerned with those aspects of mathematics which do not depend on computation. However, most of the applicable parts of mathematics do require computation, but even here the real mathematical part is non-computational thinking and logical part, for which the present book does not provide any help. The book deals with only a small aspect of mathematics and its claim to give one-line answers to all mathematical problems is false, since most mathematical work in the VM consists of the following stages : doing experiments with numbers; recognising patterns and making conjectures; proving the conjectures; making these into theorems; generalising the theorems; and abstracting the results to give them a larger degree of applicability; it deals with the first two aspects in the mathematical process, in fact mainly the second aspect only. Apparently Swamiji spent years in doing experiments with numbers and recognised patterns which could simplify the computation process, and then be followed the Vedic tradition