"Seidenberg's next steps involve a series of assumptions that need to be laid out. He first states that since the Babylonian sources are dated to 1700 B.C.E., the mathematical knowledge in the Sulvasutras must predate that. His next statement is significant: "Now the Sanskrit scholars do not give a date for the geometric rituals in question as early as 1700 B.C. Therefore I postulate a pre-Babylonian (i.e., pre-1700 B.C.) source for the kind of geometric rituals we see preserved in the Sulvasutras, or at least for the mathematics involved in these rituals" (1983, 121). Seidenberg assigns a date of 2200 B.C.E. for the common source, but upon being told by his Indological colleagues that the Aryans were not even in India in 1700 B.C.E. (1978, 324), let alone 2200 B.C.E., he is forced to postulate that the Aryans and Greeks inherited their mathematics from the joint Indo- European period, and the Indo-Aryans brought the knowledge into the subcontinent with them."
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Academics from the United StatesPeople from Washington, D.C.Historians from the United StatesMathematicians from the United StatesUniversity of California, Berkeley faculty
Original Language: English
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in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. chapter 12
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Seidenberg
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Abraham Seidenberg
Abraham Seidenberg (June 2, 1916 – May 3, 1988) was an American mathematician.
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