Overview
- NCERT introduced Ganita Manjari Part 1 for Class 9, a 196-page, eight‑chapter book that will replace the current text in the 2026–27 school year and adds games, puzzles and cross‑disciplinary problems to teach concepts.
- The book credits Brahmagupta with formalising zero and negative numbers as algebraic entities and says that work underpins the four‑quadrant coordinate plane used in modern graphing.
- It presents early coordinate ideas as rooted in India, citing Indus Valley city grids as a coordinate system in practice and describing Ujjayini as an ancient reference meridian for measuring longitude.
- The text also highlights Madhava of Sangamagrama for infinite series and states he birthed calculus after using series to compute pi to 11 decimal places.
- Mathematicians S.G. Dani and Amber Habib challenged these claims, arguing Baudhayana did not use coordinates, Brahmagupta did not originate negative numbers, and Madhava’s results were important precursors rather than the start of calculus.