Bakhshali manuscript

The manuscript was unearthed in a field in 1881. ==Contents==

The manuscript is a compendium of rules and illustrative examples. Each example is stated as a problem, the solution is described, and it is verified that the problem has been solved. The sample problems are in verse and the commentary is in prose associated with calculations. The problems involve arithmetic, algebra and geometry, including mensuration. The topics covered include fractions, square roots, arithmetic and geometric progressions, solutions of simple equations, simultaneous linear equations, quadratic equations and indeterminate equations of the second degree. Composition The manuscript is written in an earlier form of Sharada script, a script which is known for having been in use mainly from the 8th to the 12th century in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent, such as Kashmir and neighbouring regions. It is possible that the manuscript might be a compilation of fragments from different works composed in a number of language varieties. Hayashi admits that some of the irregularities are due to errors by scribes or may be orthographical. A colophon to one of the sections states that it was written by a brahmin identified as "the son of Chajaka", a "king of calculators," for the use of Vasiṣṭhas son Hasika. The brahmin might have been the author of the commentary as well as the scribe of the manuscript. Numerals and zero The Bakhshali manuscript uses numerals with a place-value system, using a dot as a place holder for zero. Prior to the 2017 carbon dating, a 9th-century inscription of zero on the wall of a temple in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh, was once thought to be the oldest Indian use of a zero symbol. ==Date==

In 2017, samples from 3 folios of the corpus were radiocarbon dated to three different centuries and empires: 224–383 CE for folio 16 (Indo-Scythian), 680–779 CE for folio 17 (Turk Shahis), and 885–993 CE for folio 33 (Saffarid dynasty). If the dates are valid, it is unclear how folios from different centuries came to be collected and buried. The publication of the radio carbon dates, initially via non-academic media, led Kim Plofker, Agathe Keller, Takao Hayashi, Clemency Montelle and Dominik Wujastyk to publicly object to the library making the dates globally available, usurping academic precedence: {{Blockquote Referring to the detailed reconsideration of the evidence by Plofker et al., Sanskrit scholar, Jan Houben remarked: {{Blockquote Prior to the proposed radiocarbon dates of the 2017 study, most scholars agreed that the physical manuscript was a copy of a more ancient text, whose date had to be estimated partly on the basis of its content. Hoernlé thought that the manuscript was from the 9th century, but the original was from the 3rd or 4th century. Indian scholars assigned it an earlier date. Datta assigned it to the "early centuries of the Christian era". Channabasappa dated it to AD 200–400, on the grounds that it uses mathematical terminology different from that of Aryabhata. {{cite web To settle the date of the Bakhshali manuscript, language use and especially palaeography are other major parameters to be taken into account. In this context Houben observed: "it is difficult to derive a linear chronological difference from the observed linguistic variation," and therefore it is necessary to "take quite seriously the judgement of palaeographists such as Richard Salomon who observed that, what he teleologically called “Proto-Śāradā,” “first emerged around the middle of the seventh century” (Salomon 1998: 40). This excludes the earlier dates attributed to manuscript folios on which a fully developed form of Śāradā appears." ==See also==