The Imperishable Seed - How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and Why This History Was Erased, published by Garuda Prakashan

 

Namaste. My name is Bhaskar Kamble. I am a former theoretical physicist currently working as a data scientist in Berlin.

My book on Hindu Mathematics, titled "The Imperishable Seed-How Hindu Mathematics Changed the World and Why This History Was Erased", was published by Garuda Publications last year and is available at grpr.in/tis.

Why I wrote the book and what the book is about

Today, names like Gauss, Newton etc are household names. However, hardly anyone has heard of names such as Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Bhaskara etc., even though the latter created some of the most foundational mathematics, without which none of modern mathematics and the related scientific and technological progress would have been possible. Even in mainstream historical mathematical accounts, mention of Hindu mathematics, if at all, is briefly made in a condescending, off-hand way, with the consequence that hardly anyone is aware of the long and thriving tradition of mathematics in the Hindu civilization. One of the reasons for writing the book was that I wanted to bring this knowledge into the mainstream and correct the usual narrative of the history of mathematics.

The books which do deal with Indian mathematics mostly carry the implicit assumption that the western way of doing mathematics is the universal and the only correct way of doing mathematics (even though many of the foundational aspects of mathematics such as numbers system, arithmetic, algebra, calculus arose not in Western society but in the Hindu civilization). Discussion of Indian mathematics is couched in the western terminology and value judgements are carried out with the assumption that the western way is the correct way, without regard to the unique cultural and civilizational ethos that made this mathematics possible in the first place. Questions such as why concepts such as zero, infinity (khahara) and calculus (viz. the mathematics of Aryabhata finally culminating in the Kerala mathematics) and algebra developed in the Hindu civilization first, before being transmitted to other civilizations are glibly skipped over. However, the fact is that mathematical developments in India were closely aligned with the cultural philosophical and religious background. The philosophical, metaphysical and religious tenets of the Hindu civilization and the framework of knowledge were instrumental in creating this mathematical knowledge. One of the aims in writing the book was to emphasize this aspect. 

The history of Hindu mathematics is also the history of why the tradition came to a stop and why it is ignored and suppressed in modern historical accounts. Hardly any of the books that deal with Indian mathematics address these aspects to my knowledge. This is the third point I have addressed in this book.