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Analysis
The Zero that was India
by Kamesh Ramakrishna Aiyer
What is it with
Western scholars of all kinds? They have a mote in their eye that is a beam that
prevents them from following leads that end in India. I came across two of these
recently – Kaplan’s book on the Natural History of Zero and "The Lore of the
Unicorn" by Odell Shepard. I will discuss the second in a later essay. I use the
first to illustrate the fact that this mote does not afflict just the historians
and the soft literary types but hard scientists as well.
A case-study:
The Natural History of Zero
Kaplan is a well-known mathematician from Cambridge, Massachusetts. The math
training program that he started for mathematically gifted children is well
attended and well received. As a mathematician, his credentials are impeccably
"hard science", if abstract. Kaplan comes into our sights because he writes a
book, "The Natural History of Zero" in which he decides to debunk the notion
that the zero and decimal place notation originated in India.
For many centuries, it has been the considered wisdom that the numerals in
general and the zero in particular were of Arabic origin. Hence the name "Arabic
numerals" for these in contrast to "Roman numerals" used in medieval Europe. In
recent years, there has been a developing consensus and agreement that the
numbers and zero are of Indian origin. This was first proposed by a French
scholar (who?) who showed how the written form of Arabic numerals derive from
the written form (in the Brahmi script) of the Pali (the commonly spoken
language) words for those numbers. Along with these Arabic numerals, comes the
notion of decimal place-notation. Place-notation and the representation for
"zero" are key elements of the modern number system.
Kaplan quotes an Indian work of mathematics and astrology, the Surya Siddhanta,
from about 1500-2000 years ago that begins with a story of how the author is
taken in a dream to the country of Romaka (i.e., Rome) by a yaksha (a mythical
semi-divine creature) and how he learns the art of reckoning with place-notation
there. The rest of the book illustrates with examples and principles various
techniques of computation.
Kaplan finds this extremely convincing. He accepts this as evidence of a
non-Indian origin for numbers and place-notation. The first half of the book is
devoted to showing that the particular book may have been written later than
claimed by Indian writers and that there was evidence that Arabs, Greeks, and
Byzantine mathematicians used various elements of these concepts or were
familiar with them. Even though the author of the Surya Siddhanta claims to have
invented these techniques, Kaplan finds the frame story (of the Romaka dream)
credible but all other assertions of invention by the author not credible.
Kaplan also addresses some inconvenient fancies common to the Arab, the Greek,
the Roman and the Byzantine authors he quotes (we will use the term "Western" to
categorize all the works and traditions that are considered foundational for
European/Western science and philosophy). These authors frequently claim that
some of their ideas came from India or from visiting Indian scholars. As far
back as 500 B.C., Pythagoras was reputed to have learnt secret mathematical
knowledge from visiting India. These, according to Kaplan, are fantasies
invented by the writers to make it appear that their methods were not just
invented by themselves but came from a mysterious land. In this instance, Kaplan
finds the frame story not credible but decides that the author had actually
invented the relevant techniques (even though there is no such claim made by the
author) or knew them from local practice.
One does not have to be biased to wonder how Kaplan justifies treating one
author one way and other authors differently. Kaplan does not quote any other
Indian text that has a similar frame story. He does quote many more than one
Western writer with the reverse frame story. He dismisses all the Western frame
stories as fantasy and accepts the one Indian frame story as true.
As is usually the case with Western scholarship, Kaplan does not feel that his
behavior needs any explanation. It has been the “modern” Western attitude that
tales about India, no matter what the origin, are fabulous and to be rejected.
That justifies Kaplan's actions. But why is the same not applied to the Indian
frame story about a Western origin for an idea. After all, if India was a myth
for Westerners, Rome may equally have been a myth for Indians (well, this
symmetry is not strictly necessary but I argue that it must have been so). The
answer is not explored here, but it is important to understand that Kaplan's
behavior is not unusual.
Indian books, whether religious or secular, whether didactic tales or
historical, rely on the use of frame stories to contain and convey their points.
The Ramayana is not the story of Rama's exile and fight with Ravana – it is the
story of how Valmiki the cruel hunter came to compose an epic poem that contains
the story of Rama. The story of Valmiki's composition is part of the story of
Rama and it ends with Valmiki playing a part in the story by providing refuge to
Sita when she is unfairly exiled by Rama. The Mahabharata is not the story of a
great war – it begins with a recital of the Mahabharata by a disciple of a
disciple of Vyaasa who composed it. But Vyaasa did not just compose it – his
birth is a part of the story and it is the story of his children's children (but
not his to acknowledge). Within the Mahabharata is the Bhagavad-Gita but the
Gita is itself a recital, in flashback, of what happened before the war that
started ten days earlier got under way. The Puranas invariably are told by
raconteurs within a frame explaining the first telling; the Upanishads make
their philosophical points within frame stories.
The point is that the art of the frame story is well established in Indian oral
tradition. If anything is to be discounted as "story" when reading or listening
to an ancient Indian work, it is the frame story. The frame story is expressly
NOT used to add credibility to the main work; rather it is used as a
story-telling technique to draw the listener in and maintain their interest. If
and when necessary, the teller will use the frame story as a way of taking a
break from the main plot line. But at no point is the frame story used to
justify the events of the main work.
This contrasts with the treatment of the Indian connection in ancient Western
scholarly works. The Indian origin of something invariably is seen by the teller
as adding credibility. The Indian connection is interpolated in text when it is
seen as improving the reader's ability to accept the conclusion. However, the
consensus among modern Western scholars is to dismiss the claimed connections
and Kaplan behaves within that tradition.
Digression
That brings up a minor digression: Was the West a wonderful myth for Indian
writers? It is clear from the record that India was such for Western writers. If
the West was a wonderful myth, was it more of a wonder for the Indians that
India was to the Westerners who wrote about India? This is not an easy question
to answer and probably merits an essay of its own. But a simple answer could be
based on counting and categorizing the quality of such cross-references.
When one does that, the answer is too easy – “yavanas” and “romakas” and
“parsas”, and “mlecchas” were used primarily as filler material when referenced
by an Indian writer in Sanskrit. The author wants to fill in space – the number
of armies that participated in the Mahabharata, or the different nations
traversed by the hero in the Brihatkatha. The actual reality of what the Yavana
does or what is different about Romaka is not relevant to the story. The author
is trying to impress his audience with what he or she knows about the peoples of
the world, in general, not of the details of any particular people.
As opposed to this, the references to India in the West are concrete: Dionysios
brings the secret of wine-making from India; Pythagoras visited India and
learned number mysticism; Herodotus tabulates the tax revenues of the Persian
Empire and reckons that the “Indian provinces” (on the west bank of the Indus –
modern Afghanistan and Baluchistan) contributed half the revenues while the
remaining eighteen provinces (from Egypt to Persia) contributed the remaining
half. During Augustus Caesar’s time, Rome tries to limit imports from India
because it was draining the country of gold. Seals of the Indus-Saraswati
civilization are found in reasonably large numbers distributed from Bahrain to
Sumer and beyond – Sumerian artifacts are only occasionally found in the
contemporary archeological sites in India and Pakistan. Fabulous fortunes were
made by Westerners who traded with India in the 18th century – no Indian is
recorded as having made a fabulous fortune by trading with the West.
It seems that the answer to this is easy – India was the wonder; the West was
not.
Conclusion
It isn’t clear to me what we can do about this except observe it and make the
observation stick. Ultimately, the British draining of the Indian economy from
the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth changed the India, the wonder, to the
wonder that was India, and opened the door to the wholesale rejection by
“modern” scholars of Indian accomplishments.
April 9, 2006
Kamesh Ramakrishna Aiyer lives in
Brookline, MA. Professionally, he is a computer scientist working for EMC
Corporation. His interests include Indian mythology, history, story-telling and
writing. Some of his work is accessible through his website at
http://home.earthlink.net/~kamesh.
Gaurang Bhatt MD reacts with his
"Answer to Puzzlement About Zero"
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