"In the Vedic Age, India was very religious, but it was also ahead of the rest in mathematics and astronomy. Thus, the geometry of the Shulba Sutras, geometrical appendices to the manuals of ritual (Shrauta Sutras), include the oldest known formulation of the theorem named after Pythagoras, developed in the context of Vedic altar-building. Modern Hindus are fond of recalling this scientific element in their tradition, e.g. by quoting Carl Sagan: “Hindu cosmology gives a time-scale for the earth and the universe which is consonant with that of modern scientific cosmology”, as opposed to the limited Biblical-Quranic cosmology, which was protected against more far-sighted alternatives by a vigilant religious orthodoxy."