Digital Rare Book:
The Bakhshali Manuscript - Early Hindu Mathematics
A Study in Mediæval Mathematics
By G.R.Kaye
Published by Central Publication Branch, Government of India, Calcutta - 1927

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A highly influential work that formed the basis of research for many respected European scholars at the time. G. R. Kaye's biased view of Greek influence of anything Indian prompted others to re-examine his statements.

On the Bakhshali manuscript:

The Bakhshali manuscript is an early mathematical manuscript which was discovered over 100 years ago. We shall discuss in a moment the problem of dating this manuscript, a topic which has aroused much controversy, but for the moment we will examine how it was discovered. The paper [8] describes this discovery along with the early history of the manuscript. Gupta writes:-

The Bakhshali Manuscript is the name given to the mathematical work written on birch bark and found in the summer of 1881 near the village Bakhshali (or Bakhshalai) of the Yusufzai subdivision of the Peshawar district (now in Pakistan). The village is in Mardan tahsil and is situated 50 miles from the city of Peshawar.

"An Inspector of Police named Mian An-Wan-Udin (whose tenant actually discovered the manuscript while digging a stone enclosure in a ruined place) took the work to the Assistant Commissioner at Mardan who intended to forward the manuscript to Lahore Museum. However, it was subsequently sent to the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab who, on the advice of General A Cunningham, directed it to be passed on to Dr Rudolf Hoernle of the Calcutta Madrasa for study and publication. Dr Hoernle presented a description of the BM before the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1882, and this was published in the Indian Antiquary in 1883. He gave a fuller account at the Seventh Oriental Conference held at Vienna in 1886 and this was published in its Proceedings. A revised version of this paper appeared in the Indian Antiquary of 1888. In 1902, he presented the Bakhshali Manuscript to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where it is still (Shelf mark: MS. Sansk. d. 14).

A large part of the manuscript had been destroyed and only about 70 leaves of birch-bark, of which a few were only scraps, survived to the time of its discovery."

To show the arguments regarding its age we note that F R Hoernle, referred to in the quotation above, placed the Bakhshali manuscript between the third and fourth centuries AD. Many other historians of mathematics such as Moritz Cantor, F Cajori, B Datta, S N Sen, A K Bag, and R C Gupta agreed with this dating.

In 1927-1933 the Bakhshali manuscript was edited by G R Kaye and published with a comprehensive introduction, an English translation, and a transliteration together with facsimiles of the text. Kaye claimed that the manuscript dated from the twelfth century AD and he even doubted that it was of Indian origin.

Whereas the University of Oxford has confirmed in September 2017, that the Radiocarbon dating reveals the fragmentary text, which is inscribed on 70 pieces of birch bark and contains hundreds of zeroes, dates to as early as the 3rd or 4th century – about 500 years older than scholars previously believed. This makes it the world’s oldest recorded origin of the zero symbol that we use today.

This confirmation vindicates the position taken by F.R.Hoernle and others regarding the antiquity of the Bakshali manuscript after a hundred years!!

In effect G.R.Kaye's biased analysis to undermine the acheivements of the Indian civilisation has mislead the world for ten decades!

Source: http://bit.ly/QM7WjF