Mathematics and Indian Philosophy Math 199--- Independent Study

The present doldrums position and state of decadence, internal differences, external aggression (geographical and ideological), lack of self-confidence and dependence, illiteracy, political instability, economic disaster, lack of knowledge and wisdom, back benchers in science and technology, education, medicine, trade and business, banking system and defensive incapability of Muslim World prompted me to look at our principal sources of inspiration, which are, the Qur’an, Sunnah of the Prophet (SAW), and examples of the “enlightened Caliphs” and see what is Islam’s view about seeking knowledge, technology and inventions in general and mathematics’ education in particular. We will discuss the nature of mathematics and its scientific status. We will highlight the position of mathematics in Islamic classification of knowledge. We will also discuss the current state of mathematics and future suggestions. We have gathered together some of these impressions; these are all tentative, nothin...

History of Science in South Asia, 2018

The purpose of this paper is to review the general organization of knowledge in the Kriyākramakarī, a sixteenth-century treatise of Kerala mathematics. Specifically, I will argue that the authors' interest in justification or proof is integrative, rather than hierarchical or cumulative. In other words, the purpose of proofs in the Kriyākramakarī is to connect various different aspects of mathematics, rather than just establish results by means of previously known results.

2007

This paper explores the philosophical significance of the Keralese and Indian subcontinent contribution to history of mathematics. Identifying the most accurate genesis and trajectory of mathematical ideas in history that current knowledge allows should be the goal of every history of mathematics, and is consistent with any philosophy of mathematics. I argue for the need of a broader conceptualization of philosophy of than the traditional emphasis on scholastic enquiries into epistemology and ontology. For such an emphasis has been associated, though I add need not necessarily be so, with an ideological position that devalues non-European contributions to history of mathematics. The philosophy of mathematics needs to be broad enough to recognise the salient features of the discipline it reflects upon, namely mathematics.

Humanistic Mathematics Network Journal, 2001

Mathematicians and scientists have for a long time tried to understand why mathematics, a subjective creation of the human intellect, is so effective in the sciences, which study the objective, physical world. Satisfactory reasons have not been found because there has not been a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the subjective and the objective aspects of life. In this paper we will see that Maharishi's Vedic Science, by explaining the link between the subjective realm where mathematics is located and the objective world that science examines, can resolve this problem in a natural way.

2003

Mathematics is a highly praised discipline. Carl Friedrich Gauss, the great German scientist and mathematician, held mathematics to be the “queen of the sciences.” The Pythagoreans felt that “all is number” and the ancient Greeks included arithmetic and geometry as two of the four parts of the quadrivium, the core of their educational system. Jyotish Vedanga says, “Like the crest of a peacock, like the gem on the head of a snake, so is mathematics at the head of all knowledge.”

Historia Mathematica, 1992

The nineteenth century witnessed a number of projects of cultural rapprochement between the knowledge traditions of the East and West. This paper discusses the attempt to render elementary calculus amenable to an Indian audience in the indigenous mathematical idiom, undertaken by an Indian polymath, Ramchandra. The exercise is specifically located in his book A Treatise on the Problems of Maxima and Minima. The paper goes on to discuss the "vocation of failure" of the book within the context of encounter and the pedagogy of mathematics.

HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory

promoting alternative sciences-that is, traditional "scientific" systems as opposed to modern "Western" scienceare part of a wider reflection in South Asia on how to shape the future. History of science, then, is a very politicized affair. We will describe how two contrasting practices of numbers, measures and computations can be documented in South India as they appear in early Sanskrit mathematical treatises and commentaries (seventh-twelfth centuries) and also in elementary mathematical curricula in Tamil (seventeenth-twentieth centuries). We will question whether they should be described as two different mathematical ontologies.

Every culture has some sort of mathematical activities and it may look different in different contexts and cultures. Chundara, the occupational caste group, has lots of geometrical activities in their work place. The main objective of this paper is to observe the hidden mathematical knowledge of Chundara used in their everyday activities with references to the formal mathematical knowledge. To capture all the social settings of the Chundaras and their daily lives, I choose ethnography as the research which seeks to understand human behavior within its own social setting. Ethnography emphasizes a very detailed description of a different culture from the viewpoint of an insider in the culture to facilitate understanding it. In my study, the mathematical knowledge and ideas of Chundaras ', basically categorized as small m mathematics, have generally been excluded from discussions of formal and academic mathematics. Recognizing and valuing Chundaras ' cultural heritage significantly influences the development of teaching and learning of school mathematics, the capital M Mathematics.

Abstract At a time in the history of mankind when man became aware of his environment the changes he observed in the phenomena prompted him to wonder. Then he tried to speculate on what could be at the base of reality. This quest for knowledge came in two distinct forms: First some consider it only in the material aspect of being where as others based it on both material and immaterial aspects. Though it is relatively old for people of the developed nations, the discipline is also relatively new in the sense that the study comes with its discoveries in consonance with the age that studies it. The task of this paper is to examine the philosophy of mathematics and its relevance to national development.