Scientific Secrets of Jainism

Author(s): Nandighoshvijay
Publisher: Research Institute of Scientific Secrets from Indian Oriental Scriptures Ahmedabad

Page 128

Limitations Of Mathematics In Jain Philosophy And....
considered to be helpful to spiritual knowledge.
In discussions in Chandogya Upanisad mathematics was spoken of as Rāśividyā (the knowledge of quantity) and astronomy was spoken of as Nakṣatravidyā (the knowledge of planets). Mathematics is their English name. The popular name of mathematics in India has continued to be "Ganita' since ancient times.
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Researchers today believe that the familiar numerals including zero and the decimal system were invented, applied and put on solid foundation during 400 B.C. to 400 A.D. In those days geometry was called field arithmetic and arithmetic was called 'Dhuli-Ganita", "Dhuli-Karma" or 'Pāți-Ganita'.
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It is strange but true that from the beginning of their numerical thinking, ancient Indian mathematicians used ten as the base for counting. Even before the process of writing was invented, Indians used very large numbers with ten as base. These numbers are one (1), ten (10), hundred (100), thousand (1000), ten thousands (10,000) etc. upto a hundred thousand billions (100,000,000,000,000,000).
In an ancient book entitled 'Lalita-Vistarā", we find 100 fold series. The book was composed in about 100 B.C.
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In ancient times, almost all treatises written on mathematics as well as the literature on other subjects was written in verse. That is why letters of alphabets, symbolic words used in Sanskrit or words directly used for numbers namely one, two, three etc. are mentioned in verses.
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The words sun, moon, Brahma, earth etc. were used for 1, Eyes, ears, nose, hands, feet were used for 2. Tenses, worlds, Guna etc. were used for 3. Similarly, different words were used for four, five, six, seven, eight, nine etc. Zero was represented by the sky and its different synonyms.. According to the rule अङ्कानां वामतो गति: (ankānām vāmatā gatih) the number, 1230 can be shown in words by using the words kha(), guṇa(), nētra(a), surya (f).(0,3,2,1)
Even today eulogical articles and documents and in the colophons of manuscripts written in Sanskrit prose or verse literature, the year of writing, the year of composition, the day of writing etc. are mentioned in this way.