Mathematics
represents a very high level of abstraction attained by human brain. In
ancient India, roots to mathematics can be traced to Vedic literature,
which are around 4000 years old. Between 1000 BC and 1000 AD, a
number of mathematical treatises were authored in India.
Will Durant, American historian (1885-1981) said that India was the mother of our philosophy of much of our mathematics.
It
is now generally accepted that India is the birth place of several
mathematical concepts, including zero, the decimal system, algebra and
algorithm, square root and cube root. Zero is a numeral as well as a
concept. It owes its origin to the Indian philosophy which had a concept
of 'sunya', literal translation of which is 'void' and zero emerged as a
derivative symbol to represent this philosophical concept.
Geometrical
theories were known to ancient Indians and find display in motifs on
temple walls, which are in many cases replete with mix of floral and
geometric patterns. The method of graduated calculation was documented
in a book named "Five Principles" (Panch-Siddhantika) which dates to 5th
Century AD.A. L. Basham, an Australian Indologist, writes in his book,
The Wonder That was India that "... the world owes most to India in the
realm of mathematics, which was developed in the Gupta period to a stage
more advanced than that reached by any other nation of antiquity.
The
success of Indian mathematics was mainly due to the fact that Indians
had a clear conception of the abstract number as distinct from the
numerical quantity of objects or spatial extension.
Algebraic
theories, as also other mathematical concepts, which were in
circulation in ancient India, were collected and further developed by
Aryabhatta, an Indian mathematician, who lived in the 5th century, in
the city of Patna, then called Pataliputra. He has referred to Algebra
(as Bijaganitam) in his treatise on mathematics named Aryabhattiya.
Another
mathematician of the 12th century, Bhaskaracharya also authored several
treatises on the subject - one of them, named Siddantha Shiromani has a
chapter on algebra. He is known to have given a basic idea of the
Rolle's theorum and was the first to conceive of differential calculus.
In
1816, James Taylor translated Bhaskaracharya's Leelavati into English.
Another translation of the same work by English astronomer Henry Thomas
Colebruke appeared next year in 1817.
The
credit for fine-tuning and internationalizing these mathematical
concepts - which had originated in India - goes to the Arabs and
Persians. Al-Khawarizmi, a Persian mathematician, developed a technique
of calculation that became known as "algorism." This was the seed from
which modern arithmetic algorithms have developed. Al-Khwarizmi's work
was translated into Latin under the title Algoritmi de numero Indorum,
meaning The System of Indian Numerals. A mathematician in Arabic is
called Hindsa which means from India.
The
14th century Indian mathematician Madhava of Sangamagrama, along with
other mathematicians of the Kerala school, studied infinite series,
convergence, differentiation, and iterative methods for solution of
non-linear equations.
Jyestadeva
of the Kerala school wrote the first calculus text, the Yuktibhasa,
which explores methods and ideas of calculus repeated only in
seventeenth century Europe.
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