Vedic Mathematics

For developments in mathematics in the Vedic period, see Indian mathematics § Vedic period.

Vedic Mathematics
AuthorBharati Krishna Tirtha
SubjectMental calculation
PublisherMotilal Banarsidass
Publication date
1965
Publication placeIndia
ISBN978-8120801646
OCLC217058562

Vedic Mathematics is a book written by Indian Shankaracharya Bharati Krishna Tirtha and first published in 1965. It contains a list of mathematical techniques which were falsely claimed to contain advanced mathematical knowledge.[1] The book was posthumously published under its deceptive title by editor V. S. Agrawala,[2] who noted in the foreword that the claim of Vedic origin, made by the original author and implied by the title, was unsupported.[3]

Neither Krishna Tirtha nor Agrawala were able to produce sources, and scholars unanimously note it to be a compendium of methods for increasing the speed of elementary mathematical calculations sharing no overlap with historical mathematical developments during the Vedic period. Nonetheless, there has been a proliferation of publications in this area and multiple attempts to integrate the subject into mainstream education at the state level by right-wing Hindu nationalist governments.[4][5]

S. G. Dani of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay wrote that despite the dubious historigraphy, some of the calculation methods it describes are themselves interesting, a product of the author's academic training in mathematics and long recorded habit of experimentation with numbers.[3]

  1. ^ Cooke, Roger L. (2013). "Overview of Mathematics in India". The history of mathematics : a brief course. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. p. 212. ISBN 978-1-118-46029-0. OCLC 865012817.
  2. ^ Shukla (2019).
  3. ^ a b Dani (2006).
  4. ^ Cite error: The named reference Varma-2015 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference The Hindu-2001 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).