History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v6.c82.799

v6.c82.799

¹¹⁰² Vide ‘Legacy of Egypt’ (Glanville p 166), E S A by Neugebauer p. 20, Sarton in ‘a History of Science’ p 69, Prof Neugebauer in JAOS. vol. 61 pp 213-215 avers that strong arguments exist for the assumption that the Babylonian methods of calculation went, together with Greek Astronomy, to India, and that, sometime in the first centuries of the Christian era, the corresponding decimal place value notation in India, which through the Arabs gave rise to the modern system of Europe With great respect the author must demur to these assertions. The learned writer endeavours to show that a peculiar sign was used for zero in Mesopotamian cuneiform texts The important questions that must be answered are, who discovered the symbol for zero now used almost throughout the world, whether the so-called sign for zero which Prof Neugebauer asserts he has discovered in cuneiform texts was ever used in Europe or for that matter anywhere in the world except in Mesopotamia, what direct relation exists between the Indian zero symbol and the recently discovered zero symbol (which no one had found so far), whether the symbols for 1 to 9 in India bear any resemblance to the Mesopotamian symbols for these numbers, whether the Greeks (who admittedly borrowed many things from Mesopotamia) used the Mesopotamian zero symbol and, if so, when The 19th century was distinguished by the theories of Western Scholars claiming that science, philosophy and arts began in Greece and that other nations borrowed these from the Greeks That bubble of Greek primacy in these matters has now been pricked. The twentieth century appears to be heading for giving to Mesopotamia the place once assigned to the Greeks The Mesopotamian bubble raised by some scholars may be pricked in course of time, particularly as regards others borrowing from them.