Investigating the development of arithmetic and algebra in Vedic India: tribute to Swami Dayananda Saraswati (Q2869447)

In this paper, the author explores Indian mathematics during the Vedic period. In those days mathematical equations and formulae were composed in Sanskrit. According to the author, incorrect translations from Sanskrit appeared to be the main reason for the lack of recognition and appreciation of Vedic works; the ancient Sanskrit mantras underlying Vedic messages were not properly understood by European mathematicians. Vedic Indians have made lasting contributions in several areas such as philosophy, grammar and the number system. The symbol of `zero', discovered by ancient Indians as a placeholder, is well documented by many researchers. Vedic Indians made significant contributions to arithmetic and invented algebra. Vedic Indians knew the trigonometric functions such as `sin' and `cos' and gave its values for various angles. Vedic Indians were familiar with the existence of negative numbers, very large numbers and the concept of infinity. Aryabhata was the first to give the usual approximation of the value of \(\pi\). It seems Vedic Indians had calculated the speed of light close to the value found by astrophysicists today. Recently, researchers of the NASA have elevated the ancient language of Sanskrit to a rather high level of linguistic development. The author compares the achievements of Indians with others such as Greeks. The paper concludes by including some implications for mathematics education based on the perspective of historical growth of knowledge. The paper is easy to read and will be of interest to those researchers who are working in the field of history of mathematics and related areas.