Mathematics in India / Kim Plofker.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 327-351) and index.

Introduction -- Mathematical thought in Vedic India -- Mathematical traces in the early classical period -- The mathematical universe -- The genre of medieval mathematics -- The development of "canonical" mathematics -- The school of Madhava in Kerala -- Exchanges with the Islamic world -- Continuity and changes in the modern period -- Appendix A. Some basic features of Sanskrit language and literature -- A.1. Elements of spoken and written Sanskrit -- A. 2. the structure of Sanskrit verse -- A. 3. The documentary sources of texts -- A. 4. Meaning and interpretation : caveat lector! -- A. 5. Glossary of transliterated technical terms -- Appendix B. Biographical data on Indian mathematicians.

Based on extensive research in Sanskrit sources, Mathematics in India chronicles the development of mathematical techniques and texts in South Asia from antiquity to the early modern period. Kim Plofker reexamines the few facts about Indian mathematics that have become common knowledge--such as the Indian origin of Arabic numerals--and she sets them in a larger textual and cultural framework. The book details aspects of the subject that have been largely passed over in the past, including the relationships between Indian mathematics and astronomy, and their cross-fertilizations with Islamic scientific traditions. Plofker shows that Indian mathematics appears not as a disconnected set of discoveries, but as a lively, diverse, yet strongly unified discipline, intimately linked to other Indian forms of learning. --From publisher's description.

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