Sulvasutras

The sulva-sutras, a collection of Hindu religious documents, were written between 600 and 300 B.C. Although this is quite a bit later than when the Vedas originate, the ideas set forth in them must have come from the earlier Vedic society. And also like the Vedas, the sulva-sutras were not mathematics textbooks! These contained the instructions for making special altars to the gods. These altars, made out of mud-brick, could be very complicated in shape and size, and often required the use of mathematical formulas. Sulva means “cord”, and the sulva-sutras are so named because the Hindu priests used a simple cord or string for all (or at least most) of their constructions. This cord could work as a straight edge (stretched tight), a compass (drawn around a point), and more (such as getting proportional lengths, by doubling the string over itself the desired number of times). A pole was also often used, for functions such as the making of circles and also sometimes in marking corners of rectangles, so that the cord could be stretched around the poles to make various measurements. Highlighting the importance of this work Mr. A C Burnell says that “we must look to the Sulva portion of the Kalpasutras for the earliest beginnings of geometry among the Brahmans.”