Guest guest Posted March 3, 2001 Report Share Posted March 3, 2001 Dear Mr. Arganis, Thank you very much for your letter. I read the text that you sent me about Hindu geometry, and I also found the second part on the vediculture conference. I am not very impressed with the articles. The first part seems to be concerned more with asserting the antiquity of the Vedic culture (without citing much evidence). Seidenberg is cited and I am familiar with his work. His thesis is not accepted by most historians of science. Also much have happened since he wrote. New studies of the Babylonian texts show that they were much more geometrical than previously thought. So his argument that Vedic mathematics predates Babylonian mathematics loses much weight. His case for ritual geometry amongst the Greeks is not all that strong either. I agree that dating the Vedas on philological grounds is very tentative. However, Frawley and the other scholars that the author cite are not presenting a very strong case either. Rajaram's comparison of Egyptian burial grounds with the Vedic smasana-cit is far from convincing! In other words, we cannot really conclude that Vedic culture is ancient from the Sulbasutras. I think the author should just have discussed the mathematical content of the Sulbasutras, rather than getting into this heated debate about the dating. It is funny how he hardly touched upon the mathematical content. As Bhaktivinoda Thakura said: We are not claiming that India is ancient due to fanaticism and if other evidence come up regarding other people we will accept it. Bhaktivinoda was very liberal. The article reminds me of the old days where scholars would always stick to the idea that Greece was the root of all good things. It is not like that. India is not the root of all good things either. The ancient Hindus were not so narrow-minded that they could not recognise things of value in other cultures. Sincerely, Toke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 19, 2007 Report Share Posted March 19, 2007 Its very interesting how the person who posted under the name "Radha-Govinda Mandir" conviniently ignored everything that was presented in Aniruddha's article part 1. Comments like "Seidenberg thesis is not accepted by most historians of science" is a sweeping generalization. The commentator also happliy deicdes to ignore all the work done by Frawley and Rajaram by merely saying they are not convincing. This kind of disputing by hand-waiving reminds me of typical reasoning used by pseudo-secularists. Another comment was "I think the author should just have discussed the mathematical content of the Sulbasutras, rather than getting into this heated debate about the dating. It is funny how he hardly touched upon the mathematical content.". What's funny is how eager "Radha-Govinda Mandir" is to make some baseless comments. If he would have been patinet, he would see that the the author does discuss the mathematical content in Part 2. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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