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Monday 31 July 2000 Vedic maths is here to stay, says guru By Vithal C. Nadkarni MUMBAI: The lecture on vedic mathematics at the Nehru planetarium by Vijay Ashar comes as an eye-opener to the jam-packed audience. ``One did not imagine that ancient Indians had such an amazingly compact and powerful system of calculation,'' says 38-year-old Lola Vikram from the audience. ``Thanks to Mr Ashar, we now know better.'' The system of mathematics Ms Vikram and her friends are enthusing about is a set of 16 algorithms and 14 sub-algorithms in Sanskrit meant for performing simple and complex computations (see box). ``Set down in the form of sutrasor aphorisms, it was created for an age that relied more on memory than paper and pencil,'' Mr Ashar explains. ``With deceptively simple techniques, one can shorten tediously long calculations in a manner that seems almost miraculous to the uninitiated person,'' he continues. ``But in retrospect, this is only to be expected from a culture that invented the zero and the decimal system and revolutionised the entire world of mathematics.'' A retired professor of statistics and decision-making, who worked at IBM for many years, Mr Ashar has been conducting vedic maths workshops during his yearly visits to India. As he demonstrates short-cut techniques to zip through megadigit computations, he provides a tantalising glimpse into the probable secrets used by human calculating prodigies such as Shakuntala Devi. Mr Ashar's lecture also ``highlights what cynics call the gharki murgi phenomenon'', says Suhas Naik-Satam from the Nehru Planetarium, ``One tends to dismiss familiar, home-grown articles precisely because they're home-grown. We wake up to their value after foreigners approve of them. Vedic mathematics is a classic example of this trend.'' The system was `rediscovered' from the Vedas between 1911 and 1918 by Sri Bharati Krishna Tirtha (1884-1960). ``Bharati Krishna Tirthaji was a Shankaracharya of the Govardhan Pitham at Puri, who was also a noted scholar of Sanskrit, mathematics, philosophy and history. He was provoked when some scholars ridiculed certain texts called the `Ganita Sutras' or mathematical aphorisms. ``After gaining insight with years of solitary meditation in the forests around Shringeri, the Shankaracharya was intuitively able to reconstruct the mathematical principles enshrined in the Atharva-Veda,'' Mr Ashar adds. The Swamiji is reported to have written 16 volumes expounding the vedic system of mathematics. ``But these were unaccountably lost and when the loss was confirmed in his final years, Swamiji wrote a single book, which was published in 1965, five years after his death,'' Mr Ashar explains. ``A copy of the book reached London a few years later and some English mathematicians, like Kenneth Williams, Andrew Nicholas and Jeremy Pickles, became interested,'' he continues. ``They extended the introductory material given in Bharati Krishnaji's book and developed many courses and gave talks on the system. ``Some British scholars reportedly came to India for further research on vedic mathematics. All this sparked renewed interest in the subject--the home-grown pullet had begun to fly on the wings of `phoren' approval,'' Mr Ashar says. Today, the Internet features several websites devoted to vedic mathematics. Experts say the system is also being taught in some schools in the UK, the U.S., Australia and Switzerland. ``A great deal of research is being done, and several schools in India are also teaching it,'' Mr Ashar says. ``Several books--Indian and Western--have also been published.'' ``However, many people here still seem to be unfamiliar with the power and ingenuity embodied in vedic mathematical principles,'' says Nehru planetarium director J.J. Rawal. ``Some confuse it with obscurantist ideas and operations associated with performances of vedic sacrifices. What they do not know is that vedic mathematics is a uniquely modern and extremely user-friendly system, one which is capable of eradicating innumeracy which is the bane of our age.'' |
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