Indian Mathematics in Arabic

Abstract

Although speculations abound concerning the transmission of Indian Mathematics into Arabic, there is little convincing evidence that many methods and results were known to Arab mathematicians. Many texts are either lost or not yet published, or carelessly edited and analyzed. No important work either, as far as I know, is devoted to the Indian legacy in Arabic, and to translation from Sanskrit to Arabic. Consequently, it is not yet possible to draw a synthetic picture of the transmission of Indian mathematics or grasp its general characteristics. The only conjecture that I dare suggest is that the Indian mathematics transmitted were mainly computational, dependent on Astronomy. My concern in this talk is rather modest: 1 should like to present a hitherto unknown source¹ which provides further confirmation of the previous conjecture — partially at least — and which illustrates why and how a sector of Indian mathematics was transmitted and diffused among Arab mathematicians. It is necessary however to recall at first — very briefly — the mathematical context in which this Indian text took place.

This paper is summarized version of “Al-Samaw’al, al-Bīrūnī et Brahmagupta: les méthodes d’interpolation” in Arabic Sciences and Philosophy: A Historical Journal, 1 (1991): 101–60.