From The Times of India or India Times

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With Vedic Maths, you can do it double quick

Geetha Rao

Don't be nettled if your child refuses to learn beyond the nine times tables -- he's not an utter failure in life. Just teach him Vedic mathematics and he need not go beyond the nine times tables at any time.

Yet, he will solve the most intricate problems in arithmetic, algebra or geometry, and at lightning speed. Vedic Maths has caught the attention of experts, and has been conceptualised in a short-duration documentary by the Films Division, government of India, based on the work done by a Bangalorean, P R Srinivas, who has been conducting workshops on the subject for the last few years. The setting was Om Shanti Dhama, near Meke Daatu.

When every little edge counts in a competitive world, and every nanosecond marks the difference between success and failure as in competitive exams, Vedic mathematics can help you be a winner, says P R Srinivas, an engineer by profession who conducts camps in Vedic mathematics in schools and colleges like Mount Carmel, Surana College, and Kumaran's school.

Retrieved by Sri Sri Bharati Krishna Thirthaji of Govardhana Matha, Puri, from its hoary past - the Atharvana Vedas - it has come to be accepted, especially by the West, as something that is of immense value in areas like space technology because of its precision. Bharati Krishna Tirthaji worked extensively on it and formulated 16 sutras and 13 subsutras. Through the application of these simple sutras, one can solve the most intricate problems in arithmetic, algebra and Calculus. Not only that, through the navasesh technique, one can even check the answers most easily.

"Vedic mathematics can be used for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, squaring, cubing, finding square roots, cube roots, and several other areas," says Srinivas.

It automatically cuts down on working time. For example, while multiplying a100-digit number by a 100-digit number, the number of operations is 100, while with the `Urdhav Tiryak Sutra' employs only 19 operations. Children who find the concept of fractions laborious can use the Urdhva Tiryak Sutra.

The Sulva Sutra deals only with geometry. Using this, you can convert a square into circle and a circle into a square. Further, the method of constructing the `sreechakra' is so accurate that it was used for the construction of pyramids. Today, this can be done only by Computer Aided Design (CAD), claims Srinivas.

A shloka in Vedic Maths helps to work out the value of pi by 10 to the 32nd place. It is this kind of accuracy which makes it specially useful in the field of space technology. In fact, it is used at NASA, American Space Research Centre, by Dr Briggs, a computer scientist who heads the Vedic Maths cell.

There are several verification sutras: for example, long factorisation can be quickly verified by a one-line method, says Srinivas.

He concludes, "Vedic Maths is being taught at the School of Economic Sciences, London; St James School, School of Philosophy, Australia. A course was run at Mary Ward Centre, London, demonstrating that Vedic methods can be used for the entire GCE-A level Maths. Yet, no Indian university teaches Vedic Maths. Sad, considering that the biggest number that existed in Europe till the 8th century was 1753, while in a parallel period in India, we had numbers up to 75,600,000,000,000."

Srinivas charges Rs 300 for a 10-day workshop, but only Rs 50 when teaching in schools. He can further reduce the charges if he gets sponsorship. He has coached students appearing for CET, IIM and XLRI exams in Vedic Mathematics. He can be contacted on 665 3451 and 664 7697.