Talk:Indian mathematics/Archive 2

message: User India rising has made a number of recent changes which need to be clarifies.  First, s/he has removed the criticism of "Vedic Mathematics," moved the "Vedic Mathematics" section itself to the end of the article, and replaced the criticism by Amartya Sen and Michael Witzel by a link to an article by S. G. Dani.  
The problem is that user India rising has the two "Vedic Mathematics" confused.  The "Vedic Mathematics" that Sen and Witzel are criticizing is the broad  program revisionist history involving Vedic Science and Vedic Mathematics (i.e. all kinds of claims for mathematics—for example, diophantine equations and the decimal place value system—originating in the Vedas) that was given a lot of publicity in the late 1990s, especially after the BJP government was formed in India, and even introduced in textbooks for children.  The "Vedic Mathematics" that S. G. Dani is writing about is specifically about a book of that title, by Swamiji etc. etc.  That book has been around since the mid-60s and Dani's criticism is not the first.  Other critics have noted that the methods in that book are similar to the so called Tractenberg system.  
I am surprised that user India rising got the two confused, especially since the section on Vedic Mathematics made a note of this fact.  As for user India risings contention that Sen and Witzel are not qualified, I am not sure what is entailed in being "qualified?"  Witzel is one of the world's foremost scholars on Rig Vedic sanskrit (and is Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard); Sen, while primarily an economist and philosopher, is also a cultural critic, and his last book, The Argumentative Indian: Essays on Indian Culture and History is specifically about such topics.  The quote from Witzel and Farmer was not included in order to be polemical, but rather to point out a number of authors (for example, S. Kak) who are involved in creating this revisionist literature.  
As for the section "Vedic Mathematics" (and the Dani link) created by user India rising, it is really irrelevant, since it addresses one particular book, not the broad program of finding mathematics—created much later—in the Vedas. 
I am therefore removing the new section on Vedic Mathematics created by user India rising and reinstating some of the text from the previous version of the article.  Fowler&fowler«Talk» 10:02, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: India Rising has been indef-blocked for being a sock account of the banned user Hkelkar. - Aksi_great (talk) 11:15, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Yes, they do.  We are not talking about "Harmonic Analysis of Semi-Simple Lie Groups" or some other 20th century topic in mathematics.  This is basic, like whether the decimal place value system was stated in the Vedas, or whether Diophantine equations were solved in the Vedas.  As for India rising's edit, as I explained above, he has confused "Vedic Mathematics" (i.e.  the broad revisionist and political program of claiming all kinds of mathematical credit for the Vedas) with a hackneyed book Vedic Mathematics that has been around since the mid-60s, whose author use to travel around India giving demonstrations.  S. G. Dani's well-written criticism applies to that book, but that is not what is being discussed here.  Basically, there are two options: either do away with the section on "Vedic Mathematics" (which doesn't have any citations anyway) or admit the critical appraisal.  Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

text: The last 2 ip edits were made by Hkelkar. Both IPs have been blocked. Please feel free to revert their edits. - Aksi_great (talk) 09:42, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Changes made by India rising

message: I am removing two unsourced claims about the Sulba Sutras containing trigonometric functions.  There is no evdidence of this.  Since these claims were made in the WP page on trigonometric functions as well, I decided to probe it more and realized that the source provided was G. G. Joseph's book The Crest of the Peacock: The Non-European Roots of Mathematics (p. 232).  However what is provided in Joseph's book is a modern-day proof of some results stated in the Sulba sutras, and that proof uses \sin \theta, (and that too a little redundantly since the angle is 45 degrees and he is really talking about the diagonal of a square).  However, there is no indication in Joseph's book anywhere that sine, cosine, or anything resembling trigonometric functions is mentioned in the Sulbasutras.  What is mentioned in the Sulbasutras is: "Divide the diameter of a circle into 15 equal part and take 13 of them to be the side of the square," (for "squaring the circle").  The Sulbasutras say that and nothing else (and no indication is given of how the result was discovered.) That is not evidence for knowledge of trigonometric functions.  Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:04, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Sulba Sutras