Foundation

• The Vedas, written between the fifteenth and fifth centuries BC, detailed much about the ritual sacrifices that defined the Vedic religion.
  
  

Invention

• Vedic mathematics are based on a part of the Vedas called the Sulbasutras were not intended to be mathematical texts, but were actually appendices to the Vedas that detailed mathematical rules for building the sacrificial altars.
  
  

Rediscovery

• Vedic mathematics were forgotten until their rediscovery by the Indian scholar Sri Bharati Krsna Tirthaji in the years between 1911 and 1918. Translating them from Sanskrit, he wrote a book about it, "Vedic Mathematics," which was published in 1965.
  
  

Modern Day

• As the book gained popularity and diffused into other countries, scholars began seeing it as a valuable form of study to the point where it is finding its way into schools.
  
  

Concerns

• One of the problems of studying Vedic mathematics is that the only known information about the subject is in the Sulbasutras in the form of the instructions on building sacrificial altars. Otherwise, it is unknown whether the Vedic people used their mathematics for any other purposes or if it was simply a system for practical construction.