The Dhaarmik Traditions - Indic Studies Foundation

Other Quotations
20. GeorgeJoseph Gheverghese c.v
Finally, if we accept the principle that teaching should be tailored to children's
experience of the social and physical environment in which they live, mathematics
should also draw on these experiences, which would include in contemporary Britain
the presence of different ethnic minorities with their own mathematical heritage.
Drawing on the mathematical traditions of these groups, indicating that these cultures
are recognized and valued, would also help to counter the entrenched historical
devaluation of them. Again, by promoting such an approach, mathematics is brought
into contact with a wide range of disciplines,including art and design, history and
social studies, which it conventionally ignores. Such a holistic approach would serve
to augment, rather than fragment, a child's understanding and imagination
21. Max Müller dated the Rig Veda to 1200-1500 BCE, but he also said that these
dates were provisional and that he has "repeatedly dwelt on the hypothethical
character of the dates... All I have claimed for them has been that they are
minimum dates." (Müller 1892). And he also asserted: " Whether the Vedic
hymns were composed 1000, or 1500, or 2000, or 3000 years BC, no power on
earth will ever determine." (Müller 1891:91). Max Müller's contemporary critics
have pointed out that "the whole foundation of Müller's date rests on the
authority of Somadeva.. [who] narrated his tales in the twelfth century after
Christ [and] would not be a little surprised to learn that "a European point of
view" raises a "ghost story" of his to the dignity of a historical document."
(Goldstücker 1860; Bryant 2001).
The common heritage of the Indo-European languages is one of the most powerful and
unexpected discoveries of modern science and elicited incredulity which is still to be
encountered today. Max Müller recounted that any remarks on Sanskrit were treated
with contempt by his teachers and that "no one was for a time so completely laughed
down as Professor Bopp, when he first published his Comparative Grammar of
Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Latin and Gothic. All hands were against him." (Müller 1883).
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