The articles, “ >Nothing Vedic in Vedic Maths ” (Sept. 3) and “ >Everything Vedic in ‘Vedic Maths ’” (Oct. 15) should make us take a second look at our Vedic sutras . Since time immemorial, the Vedas have provided immense knowledge to aid cutting-edge innovations
P. Venkatesu,
Hyderabad
Professor James Glover’s article makes some general statements and does not appear to deal with the basic issues raised. He accepts that Vedic Mathematics does not form part of a body of work, which is currently accepted as constituting the Vedas. Arguing that they may be considered part of Vedic literature in the future is being neither here nor there.
The core issue is that Vedic Mathematics, as it is commonly understood, deals with shortcuts in computation with numbers. Mathematics has gone far beyond the original disciplines of arithmetic, algebra and geometry. Vedic Mathematics deals only with number computations, which is just a small part of arithmetic.
Number computations can and have been mechanised and computerised. Students should spend more time with other topics which develop their logical and critical thinking. All shortcuts in computation take advantage of certain patterns and structures in numbers. This way, Vedic Mathematics is no different from Trachtenberg Speed Mathematics procedures. If this is “Indianising” education, then it is an extremely short-sighted view of both education and Indianising.
S. Sundaram,
Chennai
