5 ms·

Thank you for this: "I would point out, as I have already done in my nineteenth-century style over long title, that one should call them Hindu-Arabic numerals,

Thank you for this: "I would point out, as I have already done in my nineteenth-century style over long title, that one should call them Hindu-Arabic numerals, as although we appropriated them from the Islamic Empire, they in turn had appropriated them from the Indians, who created them." "The Hindu-Arabic number system developed sometime in the early centuries CE and our first written account of it is from the Indian mathematician, Brahmagupta, in his Brāhmasphuṭasiddhānta (“Correctly Established Doctrine of Brahma“) written c. 628 CE. It came into Europe via Al-Khwārizmī’s treatise, On the Calculation with Hindu Numerals from 825 CE, which only survives in the 12th-century Latin translation, Algoritmi de numero Indorum." You wouldn't believe me if I said so but in Indian schools we were taught it to be "Arabic numerals" with no context of the origin of the modern-day numeral system. I'm not sure if this has changed in the recent years but that is what I was taught anyways. As a child I assumed that the origin of the modern-day numeral system was thanks to the Arabs. It was this whitewashing of anything "Hindu" that really surprises me (especially in a country like India with 70% Hindu populace). It's almost as if Hindus never contributed anything to the field of Science. It was quite later in my life that I was able to read up various articles online and realize that most Mathematical concepts originated from India.

shripadk 10y ago
My feelings about Indian education are re-affirmed in this article: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/The-Indian-number-system/article13997406.ece http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/The-Indian-number... “Akkangalude Charithram deals with everything about numbers; the science and history of digits, ancient culture and tradition which led to the discovery of the number system, and how the political, social and scientific fabric steered India towards the magic world of numbers. “This book which shows the history, science and uniqueness of the Indian number system can help instill in students a love for Mathematics. The sad part is, many Indians are still unaware that the decimal system originated around their homeland,” said Paulose Jacob.
jacobolus 10y ago
“Hindu” is even somewhat misleading, as plenty of early Indian mathematicians were Jain or Buddhist. Likewise “Arabic” is misleading, considering Islamic mathematicians working with such numerals were from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, such as Al-Khwarizmi who was Persian. Anyway, if you’re interested in Indian mathematics, check out this lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HmMzhZ8zJg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HmMzhZ8zJg (Sadly I don’t know of any other good online lectures about the subject.)
- nileshtrivedi 10y ago
  "Hindu" refers to people living across the Sindhu (Indus) river. It's a geographic label, not religious one, given by the Persians.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - devnonymous 10y ago
    This needs to be emphasised more. In India, the right wing Hindu brigade try very hard to appropriate ancient Indian history as that of the Hindu religion (while also conveniently even denying that it is indeed a religion). Most modern day Indians do not take the trouble to learn about India (the notion of which was created by the British). If they did they'd realise that speaking about ancient Hindu culture as something that they can associate with is as silly as the British claiming they invented Democracy just because they were part on the roman empire at some point (as also was Greece who actually could make that claim)
    - shripadk 10y ago
      > This needs to be emphasised more This is a well known fact for many in India. > In India, the right wing Hindu brigade try very hard to appropriate ancient Indian history as that of the Hindu religion (while also conveniently even denying that it is indeed a religion). This is where you are wrong. There is no "ancient Indian history". "India" was formed in 1947 and if at all there is any history for India it is the past 70 years. We were called Hindustan before 1947. The word Hindustan was not based on the religion that we know today as "Hinduism". The religion was called Sanathan Dharma. The word Hindu however, as was rightly said in the grandparent comment, a name given by the Persian invaders. What the right wingers do propagate is "Hindutvawadi" or that we are all Hindus -> Hindu-Christians, Hindu-Muslims, Hindu-Sikhs, Hindu-Buddhists, Hindu-Jains, Hindu-Sanatanis etc. Hindu being the geographical name of the Country we reside in and Sanathan Dharma/Islam/Christianity/Jainism/Buddhism etc being the actual religion. Does this make sense? Mahatma Gandhi said the following: "I call myself a Sanatani Hindu, because I believe in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, and all that goes by the name of Hindu scripture, and therefore in avataras and rebirth; I believe in the varnashrama dharma in a sense, in my opinion strictly Vedic but not in its presently popular and distorted crude sense; I believe in the protection of cow. I do not disbelieve in murti puja.". Was Mahatma Gandhi a right winger to call himself a "Sanatani Hindu"? Why call himself a "Sanatani Hindu" if Sanatan and Hindu both mean the same? It is very evident that the word Hindu in pre-independence India mean't geographical boundary and the word Hindu post-independence India means religion. > Most modern day Indians do not take the trouble to learn about India (the notion of which was created by the British). If they did they'd realise that speaking about ancient Hindu culture as something that they can associate with is as silly as the British claiming they invented Democracy just because they were part on the roman empire at some point (as also was Greece who actually could make that claim) The problem is that no one claims to be "associating" with ancient Hindu culture because the context of the word "Hindu" changed drastically over the past century. What was once a geographical association pre-Independence has now turned into a religious association. It's extremely sad that it has been distorted in this manner all in the name of Secularism.
tn13 10y ago
Indian Laws and constitution is explicit in it's bias against Hindus, very likely under the Church influence on Congress Party and President Sonia Gandhi. 1. 93rd amendment to Indian constitution denies Hindus right to occupation. The term used is "non minority". [1] 2. In India minority in the context of education is defined as anyone who has certificate from a body called NCMEI which by law can not have any Hindu person on its body. 3. Indian government passed a weird law called "Right to Education Law" which actually puts huge burden of regulation on only Hindu schools. All Christian or Muslim run schools despite getting government funding are exempt where as all Hindu schools which are run on 100% private money have to comply. Failure to comply even a minor clause in RTE results in shutting down of the school. Around 10 thousand schools have got notices to shut down. [2] 4. Under RTE government controls the admission criteria of even 100% private schools run by Hindus. A Hindu for example can not start a school for students above 140 IQ. It is not possible for a Hindu to start a school meant for extremely poor kids. Because admission criteria is decided by government. 5. All Hindu schools must give 25% of their seats to government. Government then fills those using a complex lottery system that accounts of people's caste. In case government can not fill the seats those seats must be kept vacant for that batch. 6. Governments can simply exercise eminent domain powers and take over a private school without giving any compensation if the school violates even a minor clause. [4] [5] All educational institutes in India now have a minority vs non-minority divide. Minority schools have 100% freedom from all government where has majority run schools and colleges have 0% freedom. Delhi had two major colleges. St. Stephans and Sri Ram. Both were considered so good that their cut-off marks were generally 99%. (You need to get 99% in your 12td Std. exams to get admission). This year the entire system was gamed by a remote school. This school somehow gave 99% marks to most of their kids who then applied and got admitted into Sri Ram. St. Stephans however being a minority school had the freedom to apply any filtering criteria and was not affected at all. https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/the-incredible-unconstitutional-admissions-process-in-delhi-university/ https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/the-incredible... [1] https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2015/03/22/how-congress-pursued-its-invidious-legislative-agenda-post-win-in-2004-history-of-the-93rd-const-amendment/ https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2015/03/22/how-congress-p... [2] https://swarajyamag.com/politics/hindu-run-schools-buckling-under-right-to-education-law https://swarajyamag.com/politics/hindu-run-schools-buckling-... [3] https://swarajyamag.com/politics/more-rte-victims-6-hindu-run-schools-face-loss-of-cbse-affiliation https://swarajyamag.com/politics/more-rte-victims-6-hindu-ru... [4] http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/in-a-first-delhi-govt-ready-to-take-over-maxfort-school/story-VCAjn0mqLU5y3eUuP8F57I.html http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/in-a-first-delhi-govt-re... [5] https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/delhi-schools-run-by-non-minorities-lose-all-admissions-autonomy-under-media-coverfire-of-lies-and-deceit/ https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/delhi-schools-...
Aardwolf 10y ago
> "my nineteenth-century style over long title" Heh, much better than a 21st century title like "This numeral system makes multiplying and dividing easier, this may shock you"
aedron 10y ago
Then as an Arab you would be truly pissed about how much of the basic sciences were lifted from the Arabic world, without any kind of attribution in modern times.
- shripadk 10y ago
  If there was any contribution by any Arab then it should be attributed. Where did I say otherwise? All I was talking about was contribution by Hindu mathematicians which was not just appropriated (I'm not against this) but their contribution forgotten/neglected (which kinda pisses me off). In fact, even in another Hackernews post about "Box Breathing" I made a similar comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13512908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13512908 I'm not against appropriation but, at the same time, I'm also against whitewashing. Does this make sense?
dominotw 10y ago
>turn had appropriated them from the Indians, who created them. What about the connection to numerals in scripts like Brahmi, whose origins are unclear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi_numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi_numerals
- shripadk 10y ago
  Who disputes origins of Brahmi numerals? Western indologists? Brahmi numerals and Brahmi script are long considered by Indian scholars as indigenous. The dispute arises only because the Western scholars don't wish to recognise it's indigenous origins. These are imperialistic biases. It's in the same vein as conveniently discarding the word Hindu from Hindu-Arabic numeral system just as part of ongoing whitewash of anything Hindu origin. The West has not just whitewashed numeral contributions. It has also, atleast during the British colonial rule, spread the false "Aryan invasion theory" to divide north and south India on racial lines.
  - JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    Maybe its scholars, who have looked into the matter? Not, you know, nationalist bloggers who just want something to claim for their ethnicity.
    - shripadk 10y ago
      Many Indian scholars don't accept the Aryan Invasion theory. Are they "nationalist bloggers" just because they don't concur with their Western counterparts? Or maybe, the all-knowing West knows more about Hindu culture than Hindus themselves. EDIT: Here is a good article written by Dr. Madan Lal Goel (Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Florida) on "Myth of Aryan Invasion theory": http://uwf.edu/lgoel/documents/AMythofAryanInvasionsofIndia.pdf http://uwf.edu/lgoel/documents/AMythofAryanInvasionsofIndia.... Read the article and come to your own conclusions. Some quotes for your convenience: "Hindus collectively have no memory of an Aryan invasion of India that supposedly took place around 1,500 B.C. Hindu epics do not mention any such invasion. Surely, the extensive Hindu literature would describe the Aryan invasions if such had indeed taken place. Swami Vivekananda remarked: “As for the truth of these theories, there is not one word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryan ever came from anywhere outside of India, and in ancient India was included Afghanistan. There it ends.” (Collected Works, Vol. 3). " "The recent discovery of the dried-up Saraswati River further negates the Aryan invasion theory. Satellite photography from outer space shows the existence of a dried-up river bed in Northern India. The archeological evidence indicates that the river dried up completely about 1900 B.C., much before 1,500 B.C., the date ascribed to Aryan invasions. Saraswati is mentioned numerous times in the Vedic scriptures of the Aryans, indicating that these people lived in India during very ancient times." "Recent DNA evidence further negates the Aryan invasion theory. Advances in genetics make it possible to show ancient migrations. It is generally accepted that modern man arose in East Africa about 200,000 years ago. From there, they spread to India about 90,000 years ago taking the southern route to Yemen, Sindh and the Indus region. In India they multiplied and spread to other parts of Asia and Europe. The research is reported in Stephen Oppenheimer, The Real Eve."
dm3730 10y ago
> It's almost as if Hindus never contributed anything to the field of Science You can thank Thomas Babington Macaulay, the designer of the "Indian education system" for that. " We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, – a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Babington_Macaulay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Babington_Macaulay
- shripadk 10y ago
  Wow. Thank you for pointing me to this Wiki. I never knew whitewashing was carried out to this extent by the British. Very sad!

shripadk 10y ago

My feelings about Indian education are re-affirmed in this article: http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/The-Indian-number-system/article13997406.ece http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/The-Indian-number... “Akkangalude Charithram deals with everything about numbers; the science and history of digits, ancient culture and tradition which led to the discovery of the number system, and how the political, social and scientific fabric steered India towards the magic world of numbers. “This book which shows the history, science and uniqueness of the Indian number system can help instill in students a love for Mathematics. The sad part is, many Indians are still unaware that the decimal system originated around their homeland,” said Paulose Jacob.

jacobolus 10y ago

“Hindu” is even somewhat misleading, as plenty of early Indian mathematicians were Jain or Buddhist. Likewise “Arabic” is misleading, considering Islamic mathematicians working with such numerals were from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds, such as Al-Khwarizmi who was Persian. Anyway, if you’re interested in Indian mathematics, check out this lecture https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HmMzhZ8zJg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HmMzhZ8zJg (Sadly I don’t know of any other good online lectures about the subject.)

nileshtrivedi 10y ago
"Hindu" refers to people living across the Sindhu (Indus) river. It's a geographic label, not religious one, given by the Persians.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- devnonymous 10y ago
  This needs to be emphasised more. In India, the right wing Hindu brigade try very hard to appropriate ancient Indian history as that of the Hindu religion (while also conveniently even denying that it is indeed a religion). Most modern day Indians do not take the trouble to learn about India (the notion of which was created by the British). If they did they'd realise that speaking about ancient Hindu culture as something that they can associate with is as silly as the British claiming they invented Democracy just because they were part on the roman empire at some point (as also was Greece who actually could make that claim)
  - shripadk 10y ago
    > This needs to be emphasised more This is a well known fact for many in India. > In India, the right wing Hindu brigade try very hard to appropriate ancient Indian history as that of the Hindu religion (while also conveniently even denying that it is indeed a religion). This is where you are wrong. There is no "ancient Indian history". "India" was formed in 1947 and if at all there is any history for India it is the past 70 years. We were called Hindustan before 1947. The word Hindustan was not based on the religion that we know today as "Hinduism". The religion was called Sanathan Dharma. The word Hindu however, as was rightly said in the grandparent comment, a name given by the Persian invaders. What the right wingers do propagate is "Hindutvawadi" or that we are all Hindus -> Hindu-Christians, Hindu-Muslims, Hindu-Sikhs, Hindu-Buddhists, Hindu-Jains, Hindu-Sanatanis etc. Hindu being the geographical name of the Country we reside in and Sanathan Dharma/Islam/Christianity/Jainism/Buddhism etc being the actual religion. Does this make sense? Mahatma Gandhi said the following: "I call myself a Sanatani Hindu, because I believe in the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, and all that goes by the name of Hindu scripture, and therefore in avataras and rebirth; I believe in the varnashrama dharma in a sense, in my opinion strictly Vedic but not in its presently popular and distorted crude sense; I believe in the protection of cow. I do not disbelieve in murti puja.". Was Mahatma Gandhi a right winger to call himself a "Sanatani Hindu"? Why call himself a "Sanatani Hindu" if Sanatan and Hindu both mean the same? It is very evident that the word Hindu in pre-independence India mean't geographical boundary and the word Hindu post-independence India means religion. > Most modern day Indians do not take the trouble to learn about India (the notion of which was created by the British). If they did they'd realise that speaking about ancient Hindu culture as something that they can associate with is as silly as the British claiming they invented Democracy just because they were part on the roman empire at some point (as also was Greece who actually could make that claim) The problem is that no one claims to be "associating" with ancient Hindu culture because the context of the word "Hindu" changed drastically over the past century. What was once a geographical association pre-Independence has now turned into a religious association. It's extremely sad that it has been distorted in this manner all in the name of Secularism.

tn13 10y ago

Indian Laws and constitution is explicit in it's bias against Hindus, very likely under the Church influence on Congress Party and President Sonia Gandhi. 1. 93rd amendment to Indian constitution denies Hindus right to occupation. The term used is "non minority". [1] 2. In India minority in the context of education is defined as anyone who has certificate from a body called NCMEI which by law can not have any Hindu person on its body. 3. Indian government passed a weird law called "Right to Education Law" which actually puts huge burden of regulation on only Hindu schools. All Christian or Muslim run schools despite getting government funding are exempt where as all Hindu schools which are run on 100% private money have to comply. Failure to comply even a minor clause in RTE results in shutting down of the school. Around 10 thousand schools have got notices to shut down. [2] 4. Under RTE government controls the admission criteria of even 100% private schools run by Hindus. A Hindu for example can not start a school for students above 140 IQ. It is not possible for a Hindu to start a school meant for extremely poor kids. Because admission criteria is decided by government. 5. All Hindu schools must give 25% of their seats to government. Government then fills those using a complex lottery system that accounts of people's caste. In case government can not fill the seats those seats must be kept vacant for that batch. 6. Governments can simply exercise eminent domain powers and take over a private school without giving any compensation if the school violates even a minor clause. [4] [5] All educational institutes in India now have a minority vs non-minority divide. Minority schools have 100% freedom from all government where has majority run schools and colleges have 0% freedom. Delhi had two major colleges. St. Stephans and Sri Ram. Both were considered so good that their cut-off marks were generally 99%. (You need to get 99% in your 12td Std. exams to get admission). This year the entire system was gamed by a remote school. This school somehow gave 99% marks to most of their kids who then applied and got admitted into Sri Ram. St. Stephans however being a minority school had the freedom to apply any filtering criteria and was not affected at all. https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/the-incredible-unconstitutional-admissions-process-in-delhi-university/ https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2016/07/06/the-incredible... [1] https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2015/03/22/how-congress-pursued-its-invidious-legislative-agenda-post-win-in-2004-history-of-the-93rd-const-amendment/ https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2015/03/22/how-congress-p... [2] https://swarajyamag.com/politics/hindu-run-schools-buckling-under-right-to-education-law https://swarajyamag.com/politics/hindu-run-schools-buckling-... [3] https://swarajyamag.com/politics/more-rte-victims-6-hindu-run-schools-face-loss-of-cbse-affiliation https://swarajyamag.com/politics/more-rte-victims-6-hindu-ru... [4] http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/in-a-first-delhi-govt-ready-to-take-over-maxfort-school/story-VCAjn0mqLU5y3eUuP8F57I.html http://www.hindustantimes.com/delhi/in-a-first-delhi-govt-re... [5] https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/delhi-schools-run-by-non-minorities-lose-all-admissions-autonomy-under-media-coverfire-of-lies-and-deceit/ https://realitycheck.wordpress.com/2016/01/07/delhi-schools-...

Aardwolf 10y ago

> "my nineteenth-century style over long title" Heh, much better than a 21st century title like "This numeral system makes multiplying and dividing easier, this may shock you"

aedron 10y ago

Then as an Arab you would be truly pissed about how much of the basic sciences were lifted from the Arabic world, without any kind of attribution in modern times.

shripadk 10y ago
If there was any contribution by any Arab then it should be attributed. Where did I say otherwise? All I was talking about was contribution by Hindu mathematicians which was not just appropriated (I'm not against this) but their contribution forgotten/neglected (which kinda pisses me off). In fact, even in another Hackernews post about "Box Breathing" I made a similar comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13512908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13512908 I'm not against appropriation but, at the same time, I'm also against whitewashing. Does this make sense?

dominotw 10y ago

>turn had appropriated them from the Indians, who created them. What about the connection to numerals in scripts like Brahmi, whose origins are unclear https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi_numerals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahmi_numerals

shripadk 10y ago
Who disputes origins of Brahmi numerals? Western indologists? Brahmi numerals and Brahmi script are long considered by Indian scholars as indigenous. The dispute arises only because the Western scholars don't wish to recognise it's indigenous origins. These are imperialistic biases. It's in the same vein as conveniently discarding the word Hindu from Hindu-Arabic numeral system just as part of ongoing whitewash of anything Hindu origin. The West has not just whitewashed numeral contributions. It has also, atleast during the British colonial rule, spread the false "Aryan invasion theory" to divide north and south India on racial lines.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Maybe its scholars, who have looked into the matter? Not, you know, nationalist bloggers who just want something to claim for their ethnicity.
  - shripadk 10y ago
    Many Indian scholars don't accept the Aryan Invasion theory. Are they "nationalist bloggers" just because they don't concur with their Western counterparts? Or maybe, the all-knowing West knows more about Hindu culture than Hindus themselves. EDIT: Here is a good article written by Dr. Madan Lal Goel (Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Florida) on "Myth of Aryan Invasion theory": http://uwf.edu/lgoel/documents/AMythofAryanInvasionsofIndia.pdf http://uwf.edu/lgoel/documents/AMythofAryanInvasionsofIndia.... Read the article and come to your own conclusions. Some quotes for your convenience: "Hindus collectively have no memory of an Aryan invasion of India that supposedly took place around 1,500 B.C. Hindu epics do not mention any such invasion. Surely, the extensive Hindu literature would describe the Aryan invasions if such had indeed taken place. Swami Vivekananda remarked: “As for the truth of these theories, there is not one word in our scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryan ever came from anywhere outside of India, and in ancient India was included Afghanistan. There it ends.” (Collected Works, Vol. 3). " "The recent discovery of the dried-up Saraswati River further negates the Aryan invasion theory. Satellite photography from outer space shows the existence of a dried-up river bed in Northern India. The archeological evidence indicates that the river dried up completely about 1900 B.C., much before 1,500 B.C., the date ascribed to Aryan invasions. Saraswati is mentioned numerous times in the Vedic scriptures of the Aryans, indicating that these people lived in India during very ancient times." "Recent DNA evidence further negates the Aryan invasion theory. Advances in genetics make it possible to show ancient migrations. It is generally accepted that modern man arose in East Africa about 200,000 years ago. From there, they spread to India about 90,000 years ago taking the southern route to Yemen, Sindh and the Indus region. In India they multiplied and spread to other parts of Asia and Europe. The research is reported in Stephen Oppenheimer, The Real Eve."

dm3730 10y ago

> It's almost as if Hindus never contributed anything to the field of Science You can thank Thomas Babington Macaulay, the designer of the "Indian education system" for that. " We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern, – a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass of the population. " https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Babington_Macaulay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Babington_Macaulay

shripadk 10y ago
Wow. Thank you for pointing me to this Wiki. I never knew whitewashing was carried out to this extent by the British. Very sad!