Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development c7.11

c7.11

The Saracens learnt from the Hindus both the system of numeration and the method of computation. Even in the time of Caliph Walid (705–15) the Saracens had to depend on alphabetical symbols. They had no figures for numbers yet. A Hindu scientific mission reached Mansur’s court from Sindh in 773. This introduced the Moslems to Hindu astronomical tables. The Saracen astronomical work thus compiled was abridged by Musa, the Librarian of Caliph Mamun (813–33). “And he studied and communicated to his countrymen the Indian compendious method of computation, i.e., their arithmetic, and their analytic calculus.”⁷