Contributions of Indian Mathematical works to the World!

Here is a picture of a rangoli design made with numbers from the altar decorated at Diwali by Mrs. Girija, a neighbor. Note how each row of numbers adds to 72. Numbers that we use today and the concept of decimal system evolved in India. The word "Mathematics" also has been derived from Sanskrit language. In Sanskrit "math" is to churn and "mastishka" is the brain. We do need to excercise our brain when working on mathematics. The word decimal has also been derived from the Sanskrit word dashmalav. "Dush" or deci means ten. The numbers that are known today as Arabic numerals are actually Indian numbers introduced to the rest of the world by Arab traders. This explians the Arabic names that are given to the Indian numbers. One can still see the traces of Sanskrit in the number names. Shoonya in Sanskrit was given the Arabic name ziphra which in turn became known as zero. Sanskrit ekam=one, dve=two, tree=three, chatur=four, pancha=five, sashta=six, sapta=seven, ashta=eight, navam=nine, dasham=deci or ten

The following excerpt on Indian Mathematics has been taken from Wikipedia:

Indian mathematics evolved from ancient times until the end of the 18th century. In the classical period of Indian mathematics (400 CE to 1200 CE), important contributions were made by scholars like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and Bhaskara II. Indian mathematicians made early contributions to the study of the decimal number system, zero, negative numbers, arithmetic, and algebra. In addition, trigonometry was further advanced in India, and, in particular, the modern definitions of sine and cosine were developed there. These mathematical concepts were transmitted to the Middle East, China, and Europe and led to further developments that now form the foundations of many areas of mathematics.

Ancient and medieval Indian mathematical works, all composed in Sanskrit, usually consisted of a section of sutras in which a set of rules or problems were stated with great economy in verse in order to aid memorization by a student. All mathematical works were orally transmitted until approximately 500 BCE; thereafter, they were transmitted both orally and in manuscript form. The oldest extant mathematical document produced on the Indian subcontinent is the birch bark Bakhshali Manuscript, discovered in 1881 in the village of Bakhshali, near Peshawar (modern day Pakistan); the manuscript is likely from the seventh century CE.

A later landmark in Indian mathematics was the development of the series expansions for trigonometric functions (sine, cosine, and arc tangent) by mathematicians of the Kerala School in the fifteenth century CE. Their remarkable work, completed two centuries before the invention of calculus in Europe, provided what is now considered the first example of a power series (apart from geometric series).