Bakhshali manuscript

The Bakhshali manuscript is an ancient Indian mathematical text written on birch bark that was found in 1881 in the village of Bakhshali, Mardan (near Peshawar in present-day Pakistan, historical Gandhara). It is perhaps "the oldest extant manuscript in Indian mathematics". For some portions a carbon-date was proposed of AD 224–383 while for other portions a carbon-date as late as AD 885–993 in a recent study, but the dating has been criticised by specialists on methodological grounds (Plofker et al. 2017 and Houben 2018 §3). The manuscript contains the earliest known Indian use of a zero symbol. It is written in a form of literary Sanskrit influenced by contemporary dialects. The manuscript was unearthed in British India from a field in 1881, by a peasant in the village of Bakhshali, which is near Mardan, in present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. The first research on the manuscript was done by A. F. R. Hoernlé. After his death, it was examined by G. R. Kaye, who edited the work and published it as a book in 1927. The extant manuscript is incomplete, consisting of seventy leaves of birch bark, whose intended order is not known. It is kept at the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford (MS. Sansk. d. 14), though folio are periodically loaned to museums. 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. 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 South Asia, such as Kashmir and neighbouring regions.