Delire, Jean-Michel. Les mathématiques de l’autel védique. Le Baudhāyana Śulbasūtra et son commentaire Śulbadīpikā
2020; Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science; Volume: 13; Linguagem: Inglês
10.33137/aestimatio.v13i0.33848
ISSN1549-4497
Autores Tópico(s)Mathematics and Applications
ResumoThe work under review is devoted to the translation from Sanskrit into French of a late commentary on an ancient Indian mathematical text, the Baudhāyana Śulvasūtra 1 (BŚl).This text is dated ca 800-400 bc. 2 It opens with a discourse on geometry, possibly the earliest mathematical discourse 3 from India still extant.It continues with applications to the building of structures of very specific shapes required for 'solemn' ritual purposes, by arranging and stacking bricks according to elaborate rules: these are the Vedic altar(s) of the title.There are mathematical constraints on the shapes of the bricks, on the overall shape of the structures, on the number of bricks and the total area that they cover, and on the relation between consecutive layers.The area-constraint in particular requires the elaborate tools described in the opening discourse.Among Indian texts of the same class, BŚl is the most complete and systematic, and in it we recognize ideas that were developed in later Indian mathematics.P.-S.Filliozat states in his preface that '[n]o text, in the immense mathematical Also spelled 'Śulbasūtra'.Thibaut's sectioning of the text into three parts will be used, following established usage.For the arguments, see the introduction of Sen and Bag 1983.We give another, possibly new, argument for relative dating in note 22, p. 126 below.Constructions are prescribed in earlier Indian texts, but they do not seem to have been woven into a connected discourse specifically devoted to geometry, emphasizing mathematical coherence and generality.
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