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Showing posts from December 24, 2013

Oral Tradition of Sanskrit – Scientific Tradition

Oral Tradition of Sanskrit – Scientific Tradition Indian contribution to science and technology is substantial. Most of us relate to the ‘creating’ zero and to knowledge of Pythagorean Theorem before Pythagoras. The areas of excellence extended quite wide and the knowledge acquired quite deep. Mathematics, astronomy, medicine and metallurgy are such major areas, at least in the first two the knowledge was through analytical reasoning. The Indian exploration has started from the Vedic times. Sulbasutra-s were the basis for building ritual altar. They were so complex and required knowledge of geometry, which even by standard of later Renaissance period, was quite advanced. Numbers and presentation of numerical data through a number of numerical systems, calculations with zero, knowledge of infinity, use of fractions, square- and cube-roots etc are some of the areas in mathematics. These were for practical applications can be seen in the permutation-combination, interest - simple and