Shedding light on diverse cultures of mathematical practices in South Asia: Early Sanskrit mathematical texts in conversation with modern elementary Tamil mathematical curricula

Agathe Keller (1)

1 SPHERE (UMR_7219) - Sciences, Philosophie, Histoire

Discourses promoting alternative sciences-that is, traditional "scientific" systems as opposed to modern "Western" science-are part of a wider reflection in South Asia on how to shape the future. History of science, then, is a very politicized affair. We will describe how two contrasting practices of number-measures and computations-can be documented in South India as they appear in early Sanskrit mathematical treatises and commentaries (seventh-twelfth centuries) and also in elementary mathematical curricula in Tamil (seventeenth-twentieth centuries). We will question whether they should be described as two different mathematical ontologies.

Mots clés: India; computation; measuring; approximations; areas; gold; politicized history of science

Domaines: Histoire

Agathe Keller. Shedding light on diverse cultures of mathematical practices in South Asia: Early Sanskrit mathematical texts in conversation with modern elementary Tamil mathematical curricula. Journal of Ethnographic Theory - HAU, 2019, 9 (1), pp.113-125. ⟨10.1086/703886⟩. ⟨halshs-02427218⟩