Jyotihshastra: Astral and Mathematical Literature c5.s1.27

c5.s1.27

The earliest influence of Indian mathematics upon Islam presumably was contemporaneous with the earliest translations of Sanskrit astronomical texts into Arabic in the eighth century. The first concrete evidence that survives for that transmission is the work on performing arithmetical operations with the ten Indian number symbols written by al-Khwārizmī, probably at Baghdād, in the early ninth century; this is preserved in several recensions of a Latin translation of the early twelfth century.²² A large group of Arabic arithmetics characterized by the use of the Indian number symbols (for both integers and fractions) and the dust board (takht) were denominated al-ḥisāb al-hindī ("Indian calculation") by their authors. The oldest of these is the Kitāb al-fuṣūl fī al-ḥisāb al-hindī, composed by al-Uqlīdisī at Damascus in 952/3.²³ The precise relationship of such mathematical works to Indian texts on gaṇita is not as yet established.