By Prof V Ramgopal Rao & Prof Padmanabhan Seshaiyer.

For decades, India’s school curricula have underplayed the innovations of ancient Indian mathematicians. Recently, Prime Minister Modi’s government approved major revisions to NCERT mathematics textbooks that center India’s profound contributions in mathematics, showcasing ancient mathematical heritage. The updated content will not only affirm that India was a major contributor but also will illustrate why India was a pioneer in the mathematical sciences and applications.

In India and many other countries, the history of mathematics has always been presented as a Eurocentric framework, which was usually a linear narrative centred on ancient Greek and later European contributions, such as Pythagoras for geometry, Euclid for axioms and proofs, and Archimedes for Calculus precursors. This ignored parallel or even earlier developments in India, including Śulba Sūtras or Aryabhata’s trigonometry. Students often learnt that “Zero was invented somewhere in the East” or worse, “Zero was invented by the Arabs” when there is a clear documented origin of zero, place value, and decimal notation in India from giants such as Brahmagupta, Aryabhata and many more, which were rarely emphasised. While Algebra in many textbooks were traced back to the Greeks and then mostly René Descartes, Viète, or medieval European mathematicians, the Indian algebraic system developed by Brahmagupta, Bhāskara II and others was mostly ignored, including the Indian influence on Islamic mathematics, which later entered Europe. Another example is how Newton and Leibniz are celebrated as pioneers of modern calculus when there have been developments on infinite series, trigonometric expansions and calculus-like methods about 200 years or more earlier. Trigonometry, which students learn with sines and cosines from Greek chord tables attributed to Hipparchus and Ptolemy, often don’t include Aryabhata’s table of sine values. Indian geometric constructions in the Śulba Sūtras used for practical applications like altar construction, astronomy and architecture, were overshadowed by Eulid’s work and the geometry that later came to be known as Euclidean Geometry.

Reclaiming India’s mathematical heritage is not just about cultural pride; it directly improves how students learn, reason, and think mathematically. By introducing concepts through the works of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Bhāskara II, and the Śulba-sūtras, students develop a deeper, more intuitive, and more connected understanding of mathematics. Also, the textbook reforms proposed align closely with the vision laid out in India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which places strong emphasis on moving beyond rote learning and cultivating mathematical thinking, logical reasoning, and computational fluency from the earliest grades. NEP calls for conceptual understanding, experiential learning, and the integration of India’s knowledge traditions into modern curricula. By highlighting original Indian contributions to algebra, geometry, arithmetic, and astronomical computation, the revised NCERT materials do more than correct historical distortions; they provide students with intellectually rich, culturally grounded pathways to develop the very skills NEP identifies as essential for the 21st century. When students encounter concepts like zero, negative numbers, trigonometric ratios, and algorithmic procedures through the works of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, and the Śulba-sūtras, they not only learn mathematics, they learn how mathematical ideas are constructed, refined, and applied. This fusion of heritage and high-quality pedagogy is precisely the kind of transformation NEP envisions: one that strengthens analytical thinking, nurtures curiosity, and builds a deep foundation for future learning in data science, computing, and STEM fields.So how can this new vision help:

1. Students can see mathematics as a human centered discipline for problem solving: This means they need to go beyond how traditional Eurocentric books present thinking of mathematics as just a set of rules discovered somewhere by someone far away which is to be memorized and applied mechanically, to learning about Indian mathematicians who created algorithms, derived formulas or computed astronomical tables through exploration, discovery, logic, invention and not memorisation. This mindset is crucial for building mathematical thinking and analytical reasoning as expected in the NEP.
2. Students should not see themselves as consumers of education but producers of information: As the NEP emphasises conceptual understanding over rote procedures, students can learn how ancient Indian mathematics focused on geometric intuition (Śulba-sūtras), symbolic reasoning (Brahmagupta), algorithmic processes (Bhāskara II) and more. Such frameworks can help students to build number sense, computational fluency, algebraic thinking and logical structure. This is equally important for both students in school as well as college students because those who enter STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) majors with strong conceptual foundations in mathematics will perform significantly better.
3. Students learn to become better communicators to explain “why” something works: Sources such as Brahmagupta’s rules for operations with zero and negatives, Bhāskara II’s reasoning behind algebraic procedures, or other Indian proofs of geometric constructions can help students to reason before the result, which can help their proof-writing skills, abstracting from computation skills and general problem-solving skills, which is one of the core workforce readiness competencies.
4. Students learn to become computational thinkers and creative problem solvers: Introducing students earlier to methods such as Aryabhata’s iterative root-finding methods or Bhāskara’s algorithmic approach to indeterminate equations helps students to think about the importance of estimation and iteration, which can translate to learning about for loops, for example, in coding and programming, data science, AI and Machine learning. These directly align with NEP’s push toward computational fluency to build a modern STEM workforce for India.
5. Students can learn to build confidence and mathematical identity in STEM: When students learn that in India, zero was invented, Algebra was formalised, Trigonometry was advanced and Calculus-like ideas were tested long before Europe, they start to become confident and are more likely to tackle advanced mathematics courses that can help them to become better engineers, programmers and scientists, engage in research, and this early identify formation is closely connected to college-level performance.

As India embraces this historic reform of the NCERT curriculum, we are not merely correcting the record on our mathematical heritage; we are fundamentally reshaping how our students learn, think, and imagine. By restoring the contributions of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Bhāskara II, and many more ancient Indian mathematicians to their rightful place, and aligning these insights with the National Education Policy’s focus on conceptual clarity, mathematical reasoning, and computational fluency, we are empowering a generation to see mathematics not as a foreign construct but as a field enriched by their own civilizational legacy. This shift will nurture deeper understanding, inspire creative problem-solving, and strengthen the intellectual confidence of learners at every level, from school classrooms to university laboratories. As academicians, we firmly believe that this renewed narrative will not only elevate mathematical thinking across the nation but will also propel India toward global leadership in STEM, data science, AI and innovation. Our students deserve nothing less than an education that honours the past, transforms the present, and prepares them to shape the future.The author Prof V Ramgopal Rao is the Group Vice-Chancellor of BITS Pilani and Prof Padmanabhan Seshaiyer, Professor and Director at George Mason University (GMU).

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