A History of Sanskrit Literature c35.s5.4

c35.s5.4

The independence and originality of Indian mathematics have been defended on the score that the love of dealing with large numbers and making calculations is recorded early for India, where it is alleged the abacus¹ was invented, and that the numerals of the west are borrowed from India, where the place value system¹ was introduced. The abacus, on the other hand, is asserted to be of comparatively modern date, and it has been suggested that India borrowed it from Greece. The question of numbers is very dubious; the figures of the Brāhmī or Kharoṣṭhī notation have not place value, but their origin is uncertain. India knows, beside the unique system of Āryabhaṭa, the use of words for numbers, and place value is actually found in inscriptions from the ninth century onwards, but its earliest occurrence on an inscription of 595 is doubted, though the *Yogabhāṣya* clearly knows it, as did Āryabhaṭa and Varāhamihira.² But there is considerable antiquity for the tradition of the borrowing; the Indian figures were known in Syria in A.D. 662, and Mascūdi ascribes the origin to a congress of sages gathered together by king Brahma. The probability still remains that India did render a great service in this regard, and in any case excelled Greece. It is, of course, perfectly possible, and in view of the facts as regards astronomy and astrology not at all unlikely, that India borrowed its impulse to mathematics from Greece in the shape of those manuals whence she borrowed her astronomy, and this is certainly supported by the fact of Āryabhaṭa's evaluation of π, which is also ascribed to Puliça, and it was known to Apollonios and Ptolemy.