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Sci-Tech
For Cutting
Edge Competence in Maths,
Go Back to the Vedas
by Madhusree Chatterjee
Ancient Indian civilization
gave the world the zero on which rests modern-day calculations. And also
the ancient system of Vedic mathematics, which is on a revival path
after several thousand years and is being used by students the world
over to crack complicated equations.
The system, as explained in Atharva Veda, the last of the four ancient
Vedic scriptures, is broadly based on 16 sutras (formulas) and 13
sub-sutras (smaller theorems or formulas) and is cheaper, faster and
paperless.
It is less taxing and facilitates balanced growth of the mind and
intellect among children without burdening them with complex numbers.
Schools in the subcontinent, neighboring South Asian nations, Europe and
America are falling back on ancient Indian texts to simplify intricate
calculations that make up present-day mathematics.
 The
world of Vedic Maths, says Vedic mathematician Pradeep Kumar, who has
authored more than 75 books on the subject, is mental. It does not
require finger-counting, carrying numbers, manual calculations and
electronic computations.
"The premise is simple. Break down complex numbers into their components
of 10s or 100s and calculate mentally. For example, when 38 is added to
46 in conventional math, we carry over one and add it to the top-most
digit in the column representing 10 (in the Indian decimal system). The
result is 84.
"But in Vedic math, we break down the number into its decimal
components. First, we add 30 and 40, the sum of which is 70. And then
add 8 and 6, which is 14. The zero stays and one adds strength to the
cardinal number in the bigger decimal column. Hence, 7 becomes 8. The
end result is 84," Kumar explained, citing an example.
Kumar, a mechanical engineer and an alumnus from the prestigious Indian
Institute of Management (IIM)-Bangalore, heads the Magical Methods
institute in the Indian capital New Delhi. He works with several schools
in the Gulf, North America, Europe and Southeast Asian countries to
promote Vedic math.
"On an average, I conduct 30 workshops in schools across Asia, Europe
and Canada every year. At this moment, I have three projects with
schools in Hong Kong, Singapore and Bangkok respectively," Kumar said.
He has 57 centers and more than 100 trained Vedic math teachers on his
rolls. Vedic math, he asserts confidently, is more popular abroad than
in India.
The National Council of Education Research and Training, the nodal body
monitoring the quality of school books in India, has officially
acknowledged Vedic math. But the subject has not yet been incorporated
in the scholastic curriculum.
"I am pushing for it," said Kumar. The mathematician is trying to
negotiate a deal with the Indian government to teach Vedic math in
schools across the country.
Mathematics, for millions of school children across India, is still the
weak link. The subject either feels too dry or seems to be loaded with
numbers. It leaves room for errors and breeds over-dependence on gizmos
like calculators and computers because of the way it is taught.
"Mathematics has to be made interesting to children," said Kumar, who
has designed several puzzles and intelligent mind games for the
first-timers in his Vedic classrooms to increase their power of
concentration and the ability to think fast.
Vedic math was interpreted in the modern context in the 1960s in a book
"Vedic Mathematics" by Seer Bharati Krisna Thirthaji Maharaja, a learned
Brahmin teacher from Tamil Nadu in southern India.
The scholar uses 16 sutras and 13 sub-sutras to tackle the entire gamut
of mathematical problems mentally in less than one-tenth of the time
taken to solve them through conventional methods.
According to mathematicians from the Maharishi School in Lancashire, the
sutras, or the aphorisms, if translated in English boils down to simple
codes like "by one more than the one before" and "all from nine and the
last from 10". The codes describe the natural processes of the mind.
"For instance, if we want to subtract 564 from 1,000, we can apply the
sutra 'all from nine and the last from 10'. It means, each numeral in
564 is subtracted from nine and the last figure from 10. The result is
436. And the calculations are mental," a spokesperson for the school
said.
Veterans like Kumar take less than five seconds to add two sets of
24-digit numbers, down to its last decimal point. "It comes with
practice," he said simply.
The simplest and the most magical of the sutra, said Kumar, is the "yadadunam
sutra" used for squaring and cubing numbers. "Yahudunam tavdunam,
vargam cha yojyet", he chants. Roughly translated, it means:
whatever is farthest, push it farther to the other side and root it.
Then bring back what you have pushed aside and place them side by side
to get the resultant number.
In application, the square of 108 (108 to the power 2), according to the
sutra, could be simplified into 108+8/8 to the power 2, which is
108+8=116 and 8X8=64. The answer lies in bringing the two numbers back
together: 11664.
The sutras, said Kumar, can be clubbed under some of these heads:
"By one more than one before", "All from nine and the last from 10",
"Vertically and crosswise", "Transpose and apply", "by addition and by
subtraction" and "by completion and non-completion". The sub-sutras,
which take off from the sutras and occur in combination of the sutras,
are more complex.
The Vedic math expert, who used the technique to solve his mathematical
problems in management, has designed modules for Indian students trying
to crack the prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and
Indian Institutes of Management (IIM) entrance examinations as well as
tests for bank jobs and the prestigious Indian Administrative Service
examination.
So, for cutting edge competency in Maths, just delve into India's
ancient past. That's what the world is doing.
June 11, 2008
By arrangement with IANS
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