The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c6.2

c6.2

While it is generally conceded that the scientific development of astronomy among the Hindus towards the beginning of the Christian era rested upon Greek¹ or Chinese² sources, yet their ancient literature testifies to a high state of civilization, and to a considerable advance in sciences, in philosophy, and along literary lines, long before the golden age of Greece. From the earliest times even up to the present day the Hindu has been wont to put his thought into rhythmic form. The first of this poetry — it well deserves this name, being also worthy from a metaphysical point of view³ — consists of the Vedas, hymns of praise and poems of worship, collected during the Vedic period which dates from approximately 2000 B.C. to 1400 B.C.⁴ Following this work, or possibly contemporary with it, is the Brahmanic literature, which is partly ritualistic (the Brāhmaṇas), and partly philosophical (the Upanishads). Our especial interest is in the Sūtras, versified abridgments of the ritual and of ceremonial rules, which contain considerable geometric material used in connection with altar construction, and also numerous examples of rational numbers the sum of whose squares is also a square, i.e. “Pythagorean numbers,” although this was long before Pythagoras lived. Whitney¹ places the whole of the Veda literature, including the Vedas, the Brāhmaṇas, and the Sūtras, between 1500 b.c. and 800 b.c., thus agreeing with Bürk² who holds that the knowledge of the Pythagorean theorem revealed in the Sūtras goes back to the eighth century b.c.