History topic: An overview of Indian

mathematics
It is without doubt that mathematics today owes a huge debt to the
outstanding contributions made by Indian mathematicians over many
hundreds of years. What is quite surprising is that there has been a
reluctance to recognize this and one has to conclude that many famous
historians of mathematics found what they expected to find, or perhaps
even what they hoped to find, rather than to realize what was so clear in
front of them.
We shall examine the contributions of Indian mathematics in this article,
but before looking at this contribution in more detail we should say
clearly that the "huge debt" is the beautiful number system invented by
the Indians on which much of mathematical development has rested.
Laplace put this with great clarity:The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of
ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value)
emerged in India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its
significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated. Its
simplicity lies in the way it facilitated calculation and placed arithmetic
foremost amongst useful inventions. The importance of this invention is
more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyond the two
greatest men of Antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius.
We shall look briefly at the Indian development of the place-value
decimal system of numbers later in this article and in somewhat more
detail in the separate article Indian numerals. First, however, we go back
to the first evidence of mathematics developing in India.
Histories of Indian mathematics used to begin by describing the
geometry contained in the Sulbasutras but research into the history of

Indian mathematics has shown that the essentials of this geometry were
older being contained in the altar constructions described in the Vedic
mythology text the Shatapatha Brahmana and the Taittiriya Samhita.
Also it has been shown that the study of mathematical astronomy in
India goes back to at least the third millennium BC and mathematics and
geometry must have existed to support this study in these ancient times.
The first mathematics which we shall describe in this article developed
in the Indus valley. The earliest known urban Indian culture was first
identified in 1921 at Harappa in the Punjab and then, one year later, at
Mohenjo-daro, near the Indus River in the Sindh. Both these sites are
now in Pakistan but this is still covered by our term "Indian
mathematics" which, in this article, refers to mathematics developed in
the Indian subcontinent. The Indus civilization (or Harappan civilization
as it is sometimes known) was based in these two cities and also in over
a hundred small towns and villages. It was a civilization which began
around 2500 BC and survived until 1700 BC or later. The people were
literate and used a written script containing around 500 characters which
some have claimed to have deciphered but, being far from clear that this
is the case, much research remains to be done before a full appreciation
of the mathematical achievements of this ancient civilization can be
fully assessed.
We often think of Egyptians and Babylonians as being the height of
civilization and of mathematical skills around the period of the Indus
civilization, yet V G Childe in New Light on the Most Ancient East
(1952) wrote:India confronts Egypt and Babylonia by the 3rd millennium with a
thoroughly individual and independent civilization of her own,
technically the peer of the rest. And plainly it is deeply rooted in Indian
soil. The Indus civilization represents a very perfect adjustment of
human life to a specific environment. And it has endured; it is already
specifically Indian and forms the basis of modern Indian culture.

We do know that the Harappans had adopted a uniform system of

weights and measures. An analysis of the weights discovered suggests
that they belong to two series both being decimal in nature with each
decimal number multiplied and divided by two, giving for the main
series ratios of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500.
Several scales for the measurement of length were also discovered
during excavations. One was a decimal scale based on a unit of
measurement of 1.32 inches (3.35 centimeters) which has been called
the "Indus inch". Of course ten units is then 13.2 inches which is quite
believable as the measure of a "foot". A similar measure based on the
length of a foot is present in other parts of Asia and beyond. Another
scale was discovered when a bronze rod was found which was marked in
lengths of 0.367 inches. It is certainly surprising the accuracy with
which these scales are marked. Now 100 units of this measure is 36.7
inches which is the measure of a stride. Measurements of the ruins of the
buildings which have been excavated show that these units of length
were accurately used by the Harappans in construction.
It is unclear exactly what caused the decline in the Harappan
civilization. Historians have suggested four possible causes: a change in
climatic patterns and a consequent agricultural crisis; a climatic disaster
such flooding or severe drought; disease spread by epidemic; or the
invasion of Indo-Aryans peoples from the north. The favorite theory
used to be the last of the four, but recent opinions favor one of the first
three. What is certainly true is that eventually the Indo-Aryans peoples
from the north did spread over the region. This brings us to the earliest
literary record of Indian culture, the Vedas which were composed in
Vedic Sanskrit, between 1500 BC and 800 BC. At first these texts,
consisting of hymns, spells, and ritual observations, were transmitted
orally. Later the texts became written works for use of those practicing
the Vedic religion.
The next mathematics of importance on the Indian subcontinent was
associated with these religious texts. It consisted of the Sulbasutras
which were appendices to the Vedas giving rules for constructing altars.

They contained quite an amount of geometrical knowledge, but the

mathematics was being developed, not for its own sake, but purely for
practical religious purposes. The mathematics contained in the texts is
studied in some detail in the separate article on the Sulbasutras.
The main Sulbasutras were composed by Baudhayana (about 800 BC),
Manava (about 750 BC), Apastamba (about 600 BC), and Katyayana
(about 200 BC). These men were both priests and scholars but they were
not mathematicians in the modern sense. Although we have no
information on these men other than the texts they wrote, we have
included them in our biographies of mathematicians. There is another
scholar, who again was not a mathematician in the usual sense, who
lived around this period. That was Panini who achieved remarkable
results in his studies of Sanskrit grammar. Now one might reasonably
ask what Sanskrit grammar has to do with mathematics. It certainly has
something to do with modern theoretical computer science, for a
mathematician or computer scientist working with formal language
theory will recognize just how modern some of Panini's ideas are.
Before the end of the period of the Sulbasutras, around the middle of the
third century BC, the Brahmi
numerals had begun to appear.

Here is one style of the Brahmi

numerals..
These are the earliest numerals which, after a multitude of changes,
eventually developed into the numerals 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 used
today. The development of numerals and place-valued number systems
are studied in the article Indian numerals.
The Vedic religion with its sacrificial rites began to wane and other
religions began to replace it. One of these was Jainism, a religion and

philosophy which was founded in India around the 6th century BC.
Although the period after the decline of the Vedic religion up to the time
of Aryabhata I around 500 AD used to be considered as a dark period in
Indian mathematics, recently it has been recognized as a time when
many mathematical ideas were considered. In fact Aryabhata is now
thought of as summarizing the mathematical developments of the Jaina
as well as beginning the next phase.
The main topics of Jaina mathematics in around 150 BC were: the
theory of numbers, arithmetical operations, geometry, operations with
fractions, simple equations, cubic equations, quadratic equations, and
permutations and combinations. More surprisingly the Jaina developed a
theory of the infinite containing different levels of infinity, a primitive
understanding of indices, and some notion of logarithms to base 2. One
of the difficult problems facing historians of mathematics is deciding on
the date of the Bakhshali manuscript. If this is a work which is indeed
from 400 AD, or at any rate a copy of a work which was originally
written at this time, then our understanding of the achievements of Jaina
mathematics will be greatly enhanced. While there is so much
uncertainty over the date, a topic discussed fully in our article on the
Bakhshali manuscript, then we should avoid rewriting the history of the
Jaina period in the light of the mathematics contained in this remarkable
document.
If the Vedic religion gave rise to a study of mathematics for constructing
sacrificial altars, then it was Jaina cosmology which led to ideas of the
infinite in Jaina mathematics. Later mathematical advances were often
driven by the study of astronomy. Well perhaps it would be more
accurate to say that astrology formed the driving force since it was that
"science" which required accurate information about the planets and
other heavenly bodies and so encouraged the development of
mathematics. Religion too played a major role in astronomical
investigations in India for accurate calendars had to be prepared to allow
religious observances to occur at the correct times. Mathematics then

was still an applied science in India for many centuries with

mathematicians developing methods to solve practical problems.
Yavanesvara, in the second century AD, played an important role in
popularizing astrology when he translated a Greek astrology text dating
from 120 BC. If he had made a literal translation it is doubtful whether it
would have been of interest to more than a few academically minded
people. He popularized the text, however, by resetting the whole work
into Indian culture using Hindu images with the Indian caste system
integrated into his text.
By about 500 AD the classical era of Indian mathematics began with the
work of Aryabhata. His work was both a summary of Jaina mathematics
and the beginning of new era for astronomy and mathematics. His ideas
of astronomy were truly remarkable. He replaced the two demons Rahu,
the Dhruva Rahu which causes the phases of the Moon and the Parva
Rahu which causes an eclipse by covering the Moon or Sun or their
light, with a modern theory of eclipses. He introduced trigonometry in
order to make his astronomical calculations, based on the Greek epicycle
theory, and he solved with integer solutions indeterminate equations
which arose in astronomical theories.
Aryabhata headed a research centre for mathematics and astronomy at
Kusumapura in the northeast of the Indian subcontinent. There a school
studying his ideas grew up there but more than that, Aryabhata set the
agenda for mathematical and astronomical research in India for many
centuries to come. Another mathematical and astronomical centre was at
Ujjain, also in the north of the Indian subcontinent, which grew up
around the same time as Kusumapura. The most important of the
mathematicians at this second centre was Varahamihira who also made
important contributions to astronomy and trigonometry.
The main ideas of Jaina mathematics, particularly those relating to its
cosmology with its passion for large finite numbers and infinite
numbers, continued to flourish with scholars such as Yativrsabha. He
was a contemporary of Varahamihira and of the slightly older

Aryabhata. We should also note that the two schools at Kusumapura and
Ujjain were involved in the continuing developments of the numerals
and of place-valued number systems. The next figure of major
importance at the Ujjain school was Brahmagupta near the beginning of
the seventh century AD and he would make one of the most major
contributions to the development of the numbers systems with his
remarkable contributions on negative numbers and zero. It is a sobering
thought that eight hundred years later European mathematics would be
struggling to cope without the use of negative numbers and of zero.
These were certainly not Brahmagupta's only contributions to
mathematics. Far from it for he made other major contributions in to the
understanding of integer solutions to indeterminate equations and to
interpolation formulas invented to aid the computation of sine tables.
The way that the contributions of these mathematicians were prompted
by a study of methods in spherical astronomy is described in [25]:The Hindu astronomers did not possess a general method for solving
problems in spherical astronomy, unlike the Greeks who systematically
followed the method of Ptolemy, based on the well-known theorem of
Menelaus. But, by means of suitable constructions within the armillary
sphere, they were able to reduce many of their problems to comparison
of similar right-angled plane triangles. In addition to this device, they
sometimes also used the theory of quadratic equations, or applied the
method of successive approximations. ... Of the methods taught by
Aryabhata and demonstrated by his scholiast Bhaskara I, some are
based on comparison of similar right-angled plane triangles, and others
are derived from inference. Brahmagupta is probably the earliest
astronomer to have employed the theory of quadratic equations and the
method of successive approximations to solving problems in spherical
astronomy.
Before continuing to describe the developments through the classical
period we should explain the mechanisms which allowed mathematics to
flourish in India during these centuries. The educational system in India

at this time did not allow talented people with ability to receive training
in mathematics or astronomy. Rather the whole educational system was
family based. There were a number of families who carried the traditions
of astrology, astronomy and mathematics forward by educating each
new generation of the family in the skills which had been developed. We
should also note that astronomy and mathematics developed on their
own, separate for the development of other areas of knowledge.
Now a "mathematical family" would have a library which contained the
writing of the previous generations. These writings would most likely be
commentaries on earlier works such as the Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata.
Many of the commentaries would be commentaries on commentaries on
commentaries etc. Mathematicians often wrote commentaries on their
own work. They would not be aiming to provide texts to be used in
educating people outside the family, nor would they be looking for
innovative ideas in astronomy. Again religion was the key, for
astronomy was considered to be of divine origin and each family would
remain faithful to the revelations of the subject as presented by their
gods. To seek fundamental changes would be unthinkable for in asking
others to accept such changes would be essentially asking them to
change religious belief. Nor do these men appear to have made
astronomical observations in any systematic way. Some of the texts do
claim that the computed data presented in them is in better agreement
with observation than that of their predecessors but, despite this, there
does not seem to have been a major observational programme set up.
Paramesvara in the late fourteenth century appears to be one of the first
Indian mathematicians to make systematic observations over many
years.
Mathematics however was in a different position. It was only a tool used
for making astronomical calculations. If one could produce innovative
mathematical ideas then one could exhibit the truths of astronomy more
easily. The mathematics therefore had to lead to the same answers as had
been reached before but it was certainly good if it could achieve these
more easily or with greater clarity. This meant that despite mathematics

only being used as a computational tool for astronomy, the brilliant

Indian scholars were encouraged by their culture to put their genius into
advances in this topic.
A contemporary of Brahmagupta who headed the research centre at
Ujjain was Bhaskara I who led the Asmaka school. This school would
have the study of the works of Aryabhata as their main concern and
certainly Bhaskara was commentator on the mathematics of Aryabhata.
More than 100 years after Bhaskara lived the astronomer Lalla, another
commentator on Aryabhata.
The ninth century saw mathematical progress with scholars such as
Govindasvami, Mahavira, Prthudakasvami, Sankara, and Sridhara. Some
of these such as Govindasvami and Sankara were commentators on the
text of Bhaskara I while Mahavira was famed for his updating of
Brahmagupta's book. This period saw developments in sine tables,
solving equations, algebraic notation, quadratics, indeterminate
equations, and improvements to the number systems. The agenda was
still basically that set by Aryabhata and the topics being developed those
in his work.
The main mathematicians of the tenth century in India were Aryabhata II
and Vijayanandi, both adding to the understanding of sine tables and
trigonometry to support their astronomical calculations. In the eleventh
century Sripati and Brahmadeva were major figures but perhaps the
most outstanding of all was Bhaskara II in the twelfth century. He
worked on algebra, number systems, and astronomy. He wrote beautiful
texts illustrated with mathematical problems, some of which we present
in his biography, and he provided the best summary of the mathematics
and astronomy of the classical period.
Bhaskara II may be considered the high point of Indian mathematics but
at one time this was all that was known [26]:For a long time Western scholars thought that Indians had not done any
original work till the time of Bhaskara II. This is far from the truth. Nor

has the growth of Indian mathematics stopped with Bhaskara II. Quite a
few results of Indian mathematicians have been rediscovered by
Europeans. For instance, the development of number theory, the theory
of indeterminates infinite series expressions for sine, cosine and tangent,
computational mathematics, etc.
Following Bhaskara II there was over 200 years before any other major
contributions to mathematics were made on the Indian subcontinent. In
fact for a long time it was thought that Bhaskara II represented the end
of mathematical developments in the Indian subcontinent until modern
times. However in the second half of the fourteenth century Mahendra
Suri wrote the first Indian treatise on the astrolabe and Narayana wrote
an important commentary on Bhaskara II, making important
contributions to algebra and magic squares. The most remarkable
contribution from this period, however, was by Madhava who invented
Taylor series and rigorous mathematical analysis in some inspired
contributions. Madhava was from Kerala and his work there inspired a
school of followers such as Nilakantha and Jyesthadeva.
Some of the remarkable discoveries of the Kerala mathematicians are
described in [26]. These include: a formula for the ecliptic; the NewtonGauss interpolation formula; the formula for the sum of an infinite
series; Lhuilier's formula for the circumradius of a cyclic quadrilateral.
Of particular interest is the approximation to the value of which was
the first to be made using a series. Madhava's result which gave a series
for , translated into the language of modern mathematics, reads
R = 4R - 4R/3 + 4R/5 - ...
This formula, as well as several others referred to above, was
rediscovered by European mathematicians several centuries later.
Madhava also gave other formulae for , one of which leads to the
approximation 3.14159265359.
The first person in modern times to realise that the mathematicians of
Kerala had anticipated some of the results of the Europeans on the

calculus by nearly 300 years was Charles Whish in 1835. Whish's

publication in the Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great
Britain and Ireland was essentially unnoticed by historians of
mathematics. Only 100 years later in the 1940s did historians of
mathematics look in detail at the works of Kerala's mathematicians and
find that the remarkable claims made by Whish were essentially true.
See for example [15]. Indeed the Kerala mathematicians had, as Whish
wrote:... laid the foundation for a complete system of fluxions ...
and these works:... abound with fluxional forms and series to be found in no work of
foreign countries.
There were other major advances in Kerala at around this time.
Citrabhanu was a sixteenth century mathematicians from Kerala who
gave integer solutions to twenty-one types of systems of two algebraic
equations. These types are all the possible pairs of equations of the
following seven forms:
x + y = a, x - y = b, xy = c, x2 + y2 = d, x2 - y2 = e, x3 + y3 = f, and x3 - y3 =
g.
For each case, Citrabhanu gave an explanation and justification of his
rule as well as an example. Some of his explanations are algebraic, while
others are geometric. See [12] for more details.
Now we have presented the latter part of the history of Indian
mathematics in an unlikely way. That there would be essentially no
progress between the contributions of Bhaskara II and the innovations of
Madhava, who was far more innovative than any other Indian
mathematician producing a totally new perspective on mathematics,
seems unlikely. Much more likely is that we are unaware of the

contributions made over this 200 year period which must have provided
the foundations on which Madhava built his theories.
Our understanding of the contributions of Indian mathematicians has
changed markedly over the last few decades. Much more work needs to
be done to further our understanding of the contributions of
mathematicians whose work has sadly been lost, or perhaps even worse,
been ignored. Indeed work is now being undertaken and we should soon
have a better understanding of this important part of the history of
mathematics.
Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
November 2000
MacTutor History of Mathematics
[http://www-history.mcs.standrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Indian_mathematics.html]

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