INDIA MAY HAVE PROVED PYTHAGORAS THEOREM BEFORE
GREECE
Excerpts (http://tinyurl.com/pr7pjke)
The writing of history is a social process where evidence is gathered and then considered judgements made. There is no dispute amongst historians of science that Baudhayana in around 800 BCE in his Shulba Sutra, nearly three centuries before Pythagoras, stated the theorem and also provided a geometrical proof. In another early Shulba Sutra, credited to Apastamba, a numerical proof is also provided.
The Greek proof of the theorem is generally credited to Euclid who lived around 300 BCE and Pythagoras's discovery of the theorem is just an oral tradition. It is believed that Pythagoras who was born on the island of Samos travelled to many countries including Egypt, and possibly India, and some see him as one who brought Indian ideas to Greece.
What are the Shulba Sutras? They are manuals related to geometric and algebraic constructions of the altars on which the vedic ritual was performed. These altars were to be designed to different shapes and sizes and they required the solution to various geometric problems including those of equating a circular area of a certain radius to that of a square area. In other words, the 'Rishis' who did the Shulba not only knew the Pythagoras theorem but they also had knowledge of pi and iterative techniques.
Comments
Revelations through the article that can be accessed through above URL, definitely makes us feel proud of our glorious past. MHRD, NCERT, Ministry of Culture, Freelance Researchers and historians must make every effort in digging out the facts and have the Text Books rewritten to give due credit to our past wherever needed.
This is a very well written post, my compliments. It has a lot of key elements that truly makes it work. Thanks for writing this in depth post. You covered every angle. The great thing is you can reference different parts. I love reading blogs. Good one, and keep it going.
ReplyDelete