Mathematics

When we talk about the role played by mathematics in different fields, we don’t really appreciate that we are actually making use of mathematics. But the soul of mathematics seems to be the decimal place value system, which has been invented by Indians and where does it occur? how do we know that the Indians did this ? So the source is Vedas.

So the enormous amount of simplification that has been done by decimal place value system is not something which has been recognized or the role of Zero which is one of the major contributions of India. This is something which is known, but much more has been done in Sulbasutras which is not well known. So the earliest text that we have with us to demonstrate that Indians have been excelling in Geometry, Arithmetic, as well as Algebra is Sulbasutras. Where does these Sulbasutras come in the corpus of Vedic knowledge? So let me just tell you, so we have a very interesting passage in Mundaka Upanishad. So which says, which actually broadly divides Vidya into two types,

द्वे विद्ये वेदितव्ये इति ह स्म यद्ब्रह्मविदो वदन्ति परा चैवापरा च ॥ तत्रापरा ऋग्वेदो यजुर्वेदः सामवेदोऽथर्ववेदः शिक्षा कल्पो व्याकरणं निरुक्तं छन्दो ज्योतिषमिति ।