The Science of the Shulba: A Study in Early Hindu Geometry c6.10

c6.10

It was perhaps primarily in connexion with the construction of the sacrificial altars of proper size and shape that the problems of geometry and also of arithmetic and algebra presented themselves, and were studied in ancient India, just as the study of astronomy is known to have begun and developed out of the necessity for fixing the proper time for the sacrifice.² At any rate, from the *Śulba-sūtras*, we get a glimpse of the knowledge of geometry that the Vedic Hindus had.³ Incidentally they furnish us with a few other subjects of much mathematical interest.