India’s contribution to the world of Knowledge

➖ For the modern world, it was the Greek mathematician Archimedes who produced the first-known summation of an infinite series.

➖ However, it was used by Madhava (c 1,400 CE) to find the approximate value of pi (p).

➖ The Arabic numeral system owes its origins to the Bakhshali Manuscript, the first surviving reference of the Indian numeral system. This system was transmitted to the Arab world by around 800 CE and was popularised by the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi and the philosopher Al-Kindi.

➖ From the Arab world, it was transmitted to Europe by around 1100 CE.

➖ It was Brahmagupta who established, way back in the 7th century CE, that “the product of a debt (negative number) and a fortune (positive number) is a debt (negative number)”.

➖ Similarly, be it the Fibonacci Series (ingenious work of Virahanka) or Pascal’s Triangle (Pingala’s Meru Prastara), ancient India’s contribution to modern mathematics has been dominant and consistent.