[Talisker]

Talisker -- you're a bit wrong about Aryabhatta: his discoveries were in 500 AD, not before Christ.

Thanks for the correction. I'd be interested to know if there was any previous development in Hindu mathematics that presaged this development, because of such widespread science enquiries in ancient Hinuism. I have read, however, that the development of zero was a big philosophical deal because of it's associated "creation" of negative numbers on the "other side" of the number line. Another cause for concern was the creation of fractions, which, while extremely useful, had a lot of Hundu numerologists very upset because they violated the integrity of whole numbers (and in ancient India, when the numerologists and their associated astrologers ain't happy, ain't nobody happy).

[Cronos]

I'd be interested to know if there was any previous development in Hindu mathematics that presaged this development, because of such widespread science enquiries in ancient Hinduism

There probably were -- howerver, you use "Hindu" in the cultural / civilisational sense here as even Christians in India are civilisationally and culturally Hindu. The descendents of Aryabhatta would include Catholics or other Christians today, no doubt. Indian civilisation is irrevocably Hindu, just as Europe-American civilisation is descended from Graeco-Roman. Religion also influenced both civilisations, yes, but civilisation plays a bigger role (of course you could argue civilisation and religion are intertwined in which case I'd point out that there have been Christians in india since at least 40~50 AD and they are socially and culturally indian)