Contextualizing Playfair and Colebrooke 229
tradition as devoid of proof went contrary to the spirit of Colebrooke’s
translation and the large number of proofs and demonstrations therein
contained. In other words, this chapter elaborates upon how the Indian
tradition of mathematics came to be constructed as one that was devoid
of the idea of proof. While this characterization acquired stability in the
nineteenth century, the construction itself was prefi gured in the eight-
eenth century. However, in the second half of the nineteenth century there
were historians of mathematics who held that specifi c kinds of proof were
encountered in Indian mathematical texts.
It could be suggested that the concerns possibly giving the several con-
tributions in the present volume a thematic unity is the focus upon the
empirical reality of mathematical practices, which perhaps suggests that
mathematical traditions the world over, in the past as in the present, were
and are characterized by several cultures of proof. Furthermore, studies on
the culture(s) of proving among contemporary mathematicians, pure and
applied, appear to indicate that rather than there being a unique criterion of
what constitutes a proof there exist several mathematical subcultures. 6 Th is
view pushes in the direction of a sociological view of proof, amounting to
a consensus theory of proof. Clearly this runs contrary to the formal verifi -
cationist idea that proofs are pinioned on their ‘intrinsic epistemic quality’. 7
Th is naturally raises the question as to how and when will these issues
surface in the eff orts of historians of mathematics. For if, as is suggested, it
was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that proof became the
sole criterion of validating mathematical statements, 8 then its refl ection is
to be found in the constructions of histories of mathematics as well.
In order to look at the more technical mathematical writing it is fi rst
necessary to briefl y describe the optic through which Europeans turned
their gaze on India during this period and the tropes that defi ned their liter-
ary production on India during these decades. Th e eighteenth century has
been considered the formative period for the emergence of the discourse
on colonialism, but this discourse was not yet ‘monolithic or univocal’.
European writing on India comprised a network of intersecting and con-
tending representations. 9 Th e representations of India in this writing are
naturally very ‘diverse, shift ing, historically contingent, complex and com-
petitive’. Th e texts themselves are shaped oft en by ‘national and religious
rivalries, domestic concerns’, and the cognitive or intellectual cultures of
6 Heinz 2000 ; MacKenzie 2001 ; Heinz 2003.
7 Heinz 2003 : 234–5.
8 Heinz 2003 : 938.
9 Teltscher 1995 : 2.