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VEDIC SOURCES OF THE 'VEDIC MATHEMATICS'
Dr. N. M. Kansara Director, Akshardham Centre for Applied Research
in Social Harmony (AARSH), Akshardham, Gandhinagar - (382 020)
gadguru Shankaracharya Swami Shri Bharati Krishna Tirthaji Maharaja of ovardhan Peeth Matha, Puri, wrote or dictated a book entitled "Vedic (athematics' based on 29 Sūtras, of which 16 deal with the 'general case', hile the rest 13 treat the special cases.
ooking to the Sutras themselves, they seem to differ from similar ones in other ūtra works in the point that they do not seem to constitute a single compact xt of some such work, because they do not contain any reference as to the ibject or any statement about the purpose, terminology, extent of the work and c. They seem to be rather stray Sūtras collected from a body of a text, and nce they are divided by the Swamiji into two sets, viz., Principal ones and le subordinate ones, our conjecture as stated above is rather supported, because
the Sutra works the system is to start the work with the words 'Atha' and nd it with the repitition of the last word of the last sutra, with the concluding jord Iti'. Thus, it seems the Swamiji culled his Sutras from some Sulba work, nd discovered his own mathematical significance and interpretation of them all, nd presented his discovery in the form of the Sutras and their application to arious mathematical problems, along with the proofs' as expected from a eteran mathematician like him. The declaration of the Sutras as “Vedic" or as belonging to the Vedas, articularly to the Atharvaveda, and his claim that “the Sutras (aphorisms) pply to and cover each and every part of each and every chapter of each ind every branch of mathematics including arithmatic, algebra, geometry - plane and solid, trigonometry - plane and spherical, conics - geometrical and inalytical, astronomy, calculus - differential and integral etc., etc.”, and that 'there is no part of mathematics, pure or applied, which is beyond their urisdiction" has raised a controversy amongst the mathematicians of India, some of whom have questioned the Vedicity of the Sutras on the ground of heir language, and the level of mathematics it deals with. It is endeavoured here to deal with the problem in all possible aspects, and examine the validity or otherwise of the claim.
