Say hello to muhūrta mathematics

On 20 August, the University Grants Commission (UGC) issued a notice under its ‘Learning Outcomes-based Curriculum Framework’ (LOCF), aligned with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Among the new draft curriculums proposed for undergraduate studies is a startling reconfiguration of mathematics.

Instead of building students’ capacity in modern mathematics — applied, theoretical, computational — the UGC envisions a syllabus steeped in ‘ancient Bharatiya’ concepts: sutra-based arithmetic and algebra, kālagaṇanā (time calculation, based on the positions of the sun and moon), Vedic geometry from the Śulbasūtras (शुल्बसूत्र) and the study of muhūrtas (auspicious timings).

This attempt to retrofit medieval cosmology into modern math pedagogy is another attempt to saffronise our education system — an ideological project that privileges Hindu ritual texts over scientific inquiry. It is not simply a bad idea, but an act of sabotage against the future of India’s young mathematicians.

At the heart of the UGC draft is the glorification of Vedic Mathematics, popularised in the 20th century by Bharati Krishna Tirtha. The so-called ‘sutra-based’ arithmetic offers a set of mnemonic tricks for multiplication, division, squaring and factoring. While it is undeniably clever, it is not mathematics in the rigorous sense — these are shortcuts, more akin to mental calculation games than to the systematic study of algebra or number theory.

Mathematics education the world over focuses on conceptual understanding, abstraction, proof-based learning and algorithmic efficiency. Sutra-based arithmetic, on the other hand, reduces mathematics to a bag of tricks; it’s like teaching aspiring physicists to perform parlour tricks with magnets instead of teaching them Maxwell’s equations.

Besides, these ‘sutras’ have no historical basis in the Vedas. Vedic mathematics emerged in the 12/13th century CE, long after the golden age of India’s classical mathematics (roughly 200–1200 CE) — the era of Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta and Bhaskara II. To pass off a mnemonic system as an ‘ancient Bharatiya innovation’ is to distort history and mislead students.

Kālagaṇanā, likewise, may be of anthropological interest but has no place in a modern mathematics degree. Contemporary timekeeping relies on atomic clocks, GPS synchronisation and relativistic corrections — fields rooted in physics, not in ritual astronomy.

Teaching students to calculate time from the movement of celestial bodies may be a good fit in an archaeo-astronomy course or a ‘History of Science’ elective, but not in a core mathematics curriculum. Otherwise, we risk producing maths graduates trained to compute muhūrtas for weddings rather than developing algorithms for quantum computing or AI applications.

The most jarring inclusion is Vedic geometry from the Śulbasūtras, texts concerned with the construction of fire altars (vedis) for Vedic rituals. These sutras include geometric approximations — such as rules for constructing squares, rectangles and isosceles trapezia using cords (śulba). Some approximations resemble the Pythagorean theorem.

Sure, the Śulbasūtras are historically significant — they show that geometry had ritual applications in ancient India — but the ‘geometry’ of altar-building has little to offer a 21st century mathematician working on topology, graph theory or cryptography.

If anything, this revivalist fervour risks trivialising India’s mathematical heritage, which is truly worth celebrating. For example:

• Aryabhatta (499 CE) gave the value of π (Pi), approximated sine functions and worked on astronomy

• Brahmagupta (628 CE) introduced rules for zero, negative numbers and quadratic equations

• Bhaskara II (1150 CE) wrote the Līlāvatī and contributed to calculus-like concepts centuries before Newton

Why must aspiring Indian mathematicians learn the ancient geometry of the Śulbasūtras rather than be inspired by the truly pioneering contributions of classical Indian mathematicians?

The draft curriculum also includes the study and calculation of muhūrtas, or auspicious timings, based on planetary alignments. Which, again, is not mathematics, but astrology masquerading as science. Embedding such content in a university mathematics curriculum is a violation of the secular, rational spirit of higher education.

India has fought long battles to separate astrology from astronomy. In 2004, the Supreme Court controversially upheld astrology as a ‘science’, but the academic community has consistently resisted this regression.

By institutionalising muhūrtas within mathematics, the UGC is effectively telling students that astrological determinism is as valid as algebraic reasoning. This is not just bad pedagogy — it is intellectual dishonesty.

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The UGC’s draft curriculum is less about pedagogy and more about the politics of Hindutva, which wants to somehow establish that every modern scientific achievement — from aeroplanes to nuclear physics to plastic surgery — is prefigured in Hindu scripture.

This kind of cultural chauvinism ignores two basic realities:

• Students need global skills. Mathematics graduates today compete in an international knowledge economy. Their future depends on mastery of linear algebra, probability, machine learning and computational modelling — not on calculating muhūrtas

• History is not heritage tourism. The purpose of studying the history of mathematics is to critically study past systems, not to enshrine them in curriculums as timeless truths.

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UGC secretary Prof. Manish R. Joshi claims the draft curriculum “encourages flexibility and innovation”. When, in fact, it encourages conformity and stagnation. Flexibility would mean exposing students to diverse mathematical traditions — Greek, Arab, Chinese, Indian — within a ‘history of mathematics’ elective. Innovation would mean building bridges between mathematics and modern applications in data science, biology and engineering.

What the UGC proposes is palaeolithic pyrolatry — mathematics yoked to the logic of fire rituals. As one critic aptly asked: “Will they reach Mars riding the smoke of yajnas?”

There is nothing wrong with studying ancient Indian mathematics. But it belongs in specialised courses — in ‘History of Mathematics’ or ‘Indology’ or ‘Archaeology of Science’, for example. It does not belong in the core syllabus of undergraduate mathematics.

Mathematical progress builds cumulatively. Ancient methods had their moment, but clinging to them today only wastes valuable intellectual energy. It is like forcing Sanskrit down the throats of students when they need fluency in English or computing languages like Python or MATLAB (in case you were wondering, it’s short for Matrix Laboratories — Ed).

India has produced brilliant mathematicians in modern times — Srinivasa Ramanujan, Harish Chandra, C.R. Rao, Manjul Bhargava are, or ought to be, household names. Their work is internationally recognised because it pushed the frontiers of global mathematics, not because it fetishised fire-altar geometry.

If India adopts the UGC draft curriculum, we’ll risk isolating our students from the global mainstream. Instead of equipping them to contribute to cutting-edge research, we will train them to compute muhūrtas while the world races ahead in artificial intelligence, quantum computing and climate modelling.

That’s worse than academic folly; it’s national sabotage.

Hasnain Naqvi is a former member of the history faculty at St Xavier’s College, Mumbai. More of his writing can be read here