  This work explores a possible course of evolution of mathematics in ancient
times in India when there was no script, no place-value system, and no zero.
Reviewing examples of time-reckoning, large numbers, sacrificial altar-making,
and astronomy, it investigates the role of concrete objects, natural events,
rituals and names in context-dependent arithmetic, revealing its limited scope
confined to counting, addition and subtraction. Higher operations, namely,
multiplication, division and fractional calculations had to wait until the
advent of symbolic numerals and procedures for computation. It is argued that
the impression of these higher operations in a period usually known as the
Vedic times is caused by inadvertent interpolation of present knowledge of
mathematics in modern readings of the ancient texts.
