CK Raju | 'Pre-colonial appropriations of Indian ganita: epistemic lessons'

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Megh Kalyanasundaram

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Mar 16, 2020, 1:50:33 AM3/16/20
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Megh Kalyanasundaram

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Mar 16, 2020, 4:16:42 AM3/16/20
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Screen Shot 2020-03-16 at 1.07.55 pm.png
"But Plofker herself uses euphemisms like, you know, sort of pre-calculus, very brilliant but is it calculus, you know, that kind of very ambiguous terminology to describe what Madhava did. And part of my purpose is to remove such misunderstandings. That is the reason for the choice of my title.": P.P. Divakaran (almost verbatim) in https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1826&v=yWZ15EKElH0&feature=emb_logo (@~30:26)

On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 11:20 AM Megh Kalyanasundaram <kalyanasun...@gmail.com> wrote:

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Manogna Sastry

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Mar 18, 2020, 12:42:30 PM3/18/20
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Chapters 5 (by Dhruv Raina), 14 (by Agathe Keller) of this 2012 book,  The History of Mathematical Proof in Ancient Traditions adds to the conversation on this thread in my view, book attached as well.



On 16-Mar-2020, at 9:16 AM, Megh Kalyanasundaram <kalyanasun...@gmail.com> wrote:

The History of Mathematical Proof in Ancient Traditions (2012, Cambridge University Press).pdf

Irene Galstian

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Mar 18, 2020, 2:07:15 PM3/18/20
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Consider also Tim Gowers' essay The Two Cultures of Mathematics:




On Wednesday, March 18, 2020 at 4:42:30 PM UTC, manognashastry wrote:
Chapters 5 (by Dhruv Raina), 14 (by Agathe Keller) of this 2012 book,  The History of Mathematical Proof in Ancient Traditions adds to the conversation on this thread in my view, book attached as well.


On 16-Mar-2020, at 9:16 AM, Megh Kalyanasundaram <kalyanasu...@gmail.com> wrote:


<Screen Shot 2020-03-16 at 1.07.55 pm.png>
"But Plofker herself uses euphemisms like, you know, sort of pre-calculus, very brilliant but is it calculus, you know, that kind of very ambiguous terminology to describe what Madhava did. And part of my purpose is to remove such misunderstandings. That is the reason for the choice of my title.": P.P. Divakaran (almost verbatim) in https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1826&v=yWZ15EKElH0&feature=emb_logo (@~30:26)

On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 11:20 AM Megh Kalyanasundaram <kalyanasu...@gmail.com> wrote:

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Megh Kalyanasundaram

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Mar 18, 2020, 11:45:21 PM3/18/20
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rniyengar

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Mar 19, 2020, 4:46:28 AM3/19/20
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There have been objective historical assessment of Indian vs Greek approaches by some German mathematicians and thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Hankel and others. See the 136 page long but highly readable and informative paper (If you need a copy send a private mail)

Sanskrit versus Greek `Proofs': History of Mathematics at the Crossroads of Philology and Mathematics in Nineteenth-Century Germany.  By

Ivahn Smadja, Revue d’Histoire des Mathématiques, 21,1,2015.

Language plays a big role in thinking and ideation, prior to Science developing as a method. Our policy makers for Sanskrit Universities have to reboot Indian Mathematics that is GaNita through Sanskrit based thinking and learning. I hope the new three (Central) Sanskrit Universities will take it as their responsibility to not just read the works of Brahmagupta, Bhaskara, Nilakantha and others, but take their legacy to still greater heights. 

RN Iyengar

On Thursday, March 19, 2020 at 9:15:21 AM UTC+5:30, Megh Kalyanasundaram wrote:
On Mon, Mar 16, 2020 at 11:20 AM Megh Kalyanasundaram <kalyanasu...@gmail.com> wrote:

Irene Galstian

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Mar 19, 2020, 5:43:10 AM3/19/20
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I hope it happens as Prof Iyengar says. Piecemeal parallels can be misleading.

Megh Kalyanasundaram

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Mar 19, 2020, 10:00:42 AM3/19/20
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Appreciate your thoughts, Dr. Iyengar. 

With no immediately apparent conflict, I also appreciate Dr. Raju's perspectives and to mention just one here, his point about "the double standards of evidence." 

Not a response to anyone but if it is indeed easy to establish Euclid's historicity, I wonder what what stops anyone from claiming INR 2,00,000/- prize C.K. Raju has instituted? 

"Let me take a simple example. The fake church-story of Euclid is used today to teach formal mathematics by glorifying metaphysical reasoning in the manner of the church theology, and contrary to common sense. The story is fake and NCERT or anyone else in the world is unable to provide serious evidence for Euclid despite my Rs 2 lakh prize for such evidence. There are five lies in that false claim about “Euclid” (see the related section on five lies in my IIT-BHU talk)." 
http://ckraju.net/blog/?cat=5 

It is, of course, not my point that the prize not being claimed alone is to have proven anything. That said,  when we meet next Prof. Iyengar, I would love to pick your mind on the responses received from NCERT in the matter of enquiry about primary-source based evidence for Euclid's historicity.  

The first time I read the following portion from Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee's Indology: The Origins of Racism in the Humanities – Part 2, at least I was reminded of Dr. Raju's prize: 

"Such a lengthy criticism of R-F’s work would not have been necessary were greater issues—ethical and philosophical—not at stake. By adopting categories from the natural sciences, the humanities have sought to legitimize and justify themselves. Tragically, this has crippled them in three ways. As a “science,” Indology has failed to provide either objective criteria for its investigations, or a clarification of its methods, or a logical argument for its conclusions. As a discipline in the humanities, it has failed to provide a reliable, objective history in either the Rankean sense of restricting oneself to documents alone or in the Burckhardtian sense of providing pedagogy. The histories of texts as important as the Mahābhārata provided by the Indologists proved to be so many fictions (Adluri and Bagchee 2014). Finally, Indology has also betrayed the humanities by failing to cultivate ethical values and aesthetic appreciation of texts and to enable the education or formation (Bildung) of all members of society. While claiming to be a “historical-critical” discipline, Indology has failed to provide an honest and critical assessment of its own history, above all its role in fostering the nascent discourses of race and nationalism (Wilhelm 1961; Rocher 1995). Indologists have indulged in a false and self-serving dichotomy between the professor-expert and the most ignorant layman." [Emphasis mine]

Sincerely,
Megh



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