Briefs · Education and Upskilling
Algebra Comes Home
History was hiding in the homework all along.
India revised its Class 7 mathematics textbook, Ganita Prakash Part 2. The new edition credits ancient Indian scholars for foundational algebra, geometry and zero.
Brahmagupta takes centre stage. His seventh-century Brahmasphutasiddhanta gave the first known rules for positive and negative numbers. It also introduced zero as a number.
Bhaskaracharya follows in the twelfth century. His Bijaganita advanced symbolic mathematics. Letters stood for unknowns. Equations could be formed and solved.
Aryabhata, from 476 CE, introduced the place value system and decimal notation. Arithmetic became faster and easier. The Sulba Sutras, from 800 to 500 BCE, held geometric knowledge, including principles similar to Pythagoras’ theorem.
The ideas travelled. Indian mathematics reached Arabic scholars in the eighth century. Al-Khwarizmi wrote Hisab al-jabr wal-muqabala around 825 CE. His word al-jabr became algebra.
The old textbook contained no such references. The new one does. NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani calls it correct history, a counter to a skewed colonial interpretation.
The revision follows the National Education Policy 2020. Indian Knowledge Systems enter the classroom. Pride is the point, but inquiry is the method. Original problems from Sanskrit sources invite students to think, not just memorise.
Algebra is not a foreign import. It is an old Indian export, returned home with its name intact.
Read the original at Drishti IAS
Summary in our own words. The original belongs to its publisher.