Eurocentrism Killed Aryabhatta: Follow Up

No, I still have yet to receive the book I mentioned below. But before I did that I did some of my own research into these claims. Bhaiyya Joshi, notwithstanding his conspiracy theories, did pique my curiosity on the subject.

So, where does one begin looking for these kinds of things? Of course, the only places to start are Wikipedia and Google. As it turns out, there are quite a few resources out there about the subject. Furthermore, there are tremendous contributions by Indians to mathematics, so it seems. So, what are they? I'll get into that, but first, a disclaimer: I am, by no means, an expert on the history of math, and furthermore, I haven't actually verified any of the stuff I found.

Ok, so as I was saying, it seems that Indian contribution to mathematics was tremendous. Einstein, himself, said,

We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.

Even Laplace (the 19th century French mathematician, whose known to me for his contributions to probability theory) said,

The ingenious method of expressing every possible number using a set of ten symbols (each symbol having a place value and an absolute value) emerged in India. The idea seems so simple nowadays that its significance and profound importance is no longer appreciated. Its simplicity lies in the way it facilitated calculation and placed arithmetic foremost amongst useful inventions. the importance of this invention is more readily appreciated when one considers that it was beyond the two greatest men of Antiquity, Archimedes and Apollonius.

According to Wikipedia, one of the earliest acknowledgements to contributions by Indians to mathematics was made (or rather not made - see the phrasing of the quote) in 662 AD or CE by a Syrian bishop by the name of Severus Sebokt (also spelled Sebokht) whose main claim to fame was to translate Aristotle's Logic and, among other things, play some role in bringing the Indian numbering system to the Arab nations. The proof of that, lies in this passage written by him:

I shall not speak here of the science of the Hindus, who are not even Syrians, and not of their subtle discoveries in astronomy that are more inventive than those of the Greeks and of the Babylonians; not of their eloquent ways of counting nor of their art of calculation, which cannot be described in words — I only want to mention those calculations that are done with nine numerals. If those who believe, because they speak Greek, that they have arrived at the limits of science, would read the Indian texts, they would be convinced, even if a little late in the day, that there are others who know something of value.

So, clearly, I am (as usual) a little late in catching on to these things. However, there are several periods in the Indian contribution to mathematics, including the Harappan period, the Vedic period described mainly in the Sulba Sutras, the Jain period, the Classical period and the more recent Kerala mathematics. One could probably write a book on each of the individual periods, so sufficeth to say that each of these periods have made some contribution or another. These include topics as diverse as (of course) the number system, the calculation of pi, the concept of infinity, what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem (a primitive form of which was originally devised in the Sulba Sutras to construct sacrificial altars, of all things), logarithms, differential calculus and much much more. I should also mention that there were contibutions to mathematical logic as well, and one of the main contributions to this area comes from Panini who contributed through his work on linguistics and grammar. On his work, Wikipedia has said that:

A consequence of his grammar's focus on brevity is its highly unintuitive structure, reminiscent of contemporary "machine language" (as opposed to "human readable" programming languages).

This, of course, completely explains why Indians are so good at anything IT-related (note: facetious tone).
Also, as I have come to realize, that the charges of Eurocentrism are quite well-known and backed up by people like Florian Cajori a 20th century Swiss math historian who taught at several places in the US, including UC Berkeley. Here's what Wikipedia had to say about the Eurocentrism:

Unfortunately, Indian contributions have not been given due acknowledgement in modern history, with many discoveries/inventions by Indian mathematicians now attributed to their western counterparts, due to Eurocentrism.

Even Ian G. Pearce, a student of mathematics who has written about the history of Indian mathematics, has a chapter on the "Possible transmission of Keralese mathematics to Europe." He says that Indians may have been instrumental in European navigation techniques.

There were significant financial rewards for 'anyone' who could 'assist' in the improvement of navigation techniques. It is thought 'information' was sought from India in particular due to the influence of 11th century Arabic translations of earlier Indian navigational methods.

Does anyone see the irony here? We may well have led to the improvement of the very techniques that were used to get to India and eventually colonize us! A final note on Eurocentrism from Wikipedia:

More recently, evidence has been unearthed that reveals that the foundations of calculus were laid in India, at the Kerala School. Some scholars have suggested that calculus and other mathematics of India were transmitted to Europe through the trade route from Kerala by traders and Jesuit missionaries. Kerala was in continuous contact with China, Arabia, and from around 1500, Europe as well, thus transmission would have been possible. There is no direct evidence by way of relevant manuscripts but the evidence of methodological similarities, communication routes and a suitable chronology for transmission is hard to dismiss.

Interesting stuff, to say the least...