From Concrete to Abstract in Indian Mathematics

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteur principal: Dasgupta, Jaidev
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Dasgupta, Jaidev
author_facet Dasgupta, Jaidev
contents Despite the extensive amount of scholarly work done on Indian mathematics in the last 200 years, the conditions under which it originated and evolved is still not clear. Often, one reads the ancient texts with the present concepts and methods in mind. The fact of absence of script over a long stretch of Indian history in ancient times also gets overlooked in such readings. The purpose of this article is to explore the journey of mathematics by examining what the ancient texts tell us about the nature of mathematics in their times. What one finds from the investigation of arithmetic, geometry and algebra is that while it was concrete and context bound, rooted in solving practical problems in ancient times, Indian mathematics transitioned to context free, abstract stage with the advent of algebra supported by writing.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_10147
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle From Concrete to Abstract in Indian Mathematics
Dasgupta, Jaidev
History and Overview
Despite the extensive amount of scholarly work done on Indian mathematics in the last 200 years, the conditions under which it originated and evolved is still not clear. Often, one reads the ancient texts with the present concepts and methods in mind. The fact of absence of script over a long stretch of Indian history in ancient times also gets overlooked in such readings. The purpose of this article is to explore the journey of mathematics by examining what the ancient texts tell us about the nature of mathematics in their times. What one finds from the investigation of arithmetic, geometry and algebra is that while it was concrete and context bound, rooted in solving practical problems in ancient times, Indian mathematics transitioned to context free, abstract stage with the advent of algebra supported by writing.
title From Concrete to Abstract in Indian Mathematics
topic History and Overview
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.10147