Course announcement:

Title: Philology and mathematical epistemology in Ancient India, II

Satyanad Kichenassamy (Univ. Reims & EPHE, Paris)

Time and place : Sorbonne, Esc. E, 1st floor, Fridays 2-4pm, starting October 11.

This course is given within the framework of Jan Houben's chair at EPHE ("Sources et histoire de la tradition sanskrite").

Course description :

The first part of this course has shown that the first extant theorem (i.e., the first universal mathematical statement buttressed by a rigorous argumentation) is found in the Śulvasūtras. This is the familiar result attributed to Pythagoras by a late tradition. It is part of a mathematical discourse that can be understood in its historical evolution by close reading of the early ritual corpus (see Journal Asiatique, 311.2 (2023), 267–303 and its references). We focus here on the relation between mathematics and the measurement of time, and show that the later developement of Indian mathematics, including the developement of fractions and algebra, is a natural outgrowth of the mathematics of the Vedic period.

See also the presentation here: https://grei.fr/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Cours2024.pdf

Satyanad Kichenassamy

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Satyanad KICHENASSAMY
Professeur des Universités
Laboratoire de Mathématiques (LMR, CNRS, UMR9008)
     et GREI (EPHE-PSL et Sorbonne-Université)
Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne
F-51687 Reims Cedex 2
France
Web: http://phare.normalesup.org/~kichenassamy
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