The Hindu Temple v1.c4.s2.39

v1.c4.s2.39

²² The main subjects included in the general education of a Hindu were: Lipi or Lekhā (the alphabet, reading and writing), Rūpa (drawing and geometry) and Gaṇanā (arithmetic). These subjects were taught from the age of 5 till the age of 12, and in their higher stages up to the age of twenty-five. The Hathigumpha inscription, 163 B.C. says that King Khāravela spent 9 years, from the age of 16 onwards in the study of Lekhā, Rūpa, Gaṇanā. A knowledge of form (rūpa), number and proportion was an indispensable equipment; mathematics and architecture had their root in the Vedic altar. The indissoluble connection of number and form remained a consciously employed knowledge throughout. In the middle of the ninth century A.D. the mathematician Mahāvīra, in his 'Gaṇitasāra-saṃgraha', I. 9-19, speaks of the use of the science of number (gaṇita) in architecture and in all that constitutes the peculiar value of the arts (B. B. Datta and A. N. Singh, 'History of Hindu Mathematics', Pt. I, p. 5).