Scientific progress viewed through narrow lens, Jaishankar says at math exhibition

United Nations: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar inaugurated an exhibition highlighting Indian civilisation’s contributions to mathematics, noting that the global narrative of scientific progress has long been viewed through a “narrow lens” and stressing the need to “right” historical distortions.

The exhibition titled ‘From Shunya to Ananta (Zero to Infinity) – The Indian Civilization’s Contribution to Mathematics’, hosted by the Permanent Mission of India to the UN, has been organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations in collaboration with the India International Centre.

“When we assemble at the United Nations, we often speak of a shared human heritage. Yet if we look at the arc of modern history, the global narrative of scientific progress has for far too long been viewed through a narrow lens, limited in time and in geography,” Jaishankar said in his remarks as he inaugurated the “historic, first-of-its-kind” mathematics exhibition at the United Nations headquarters Monday.

India’s Ambassador to the US Vinay Mohan Kwatra, Consul General of India in New York Binaya Pradhan, Professor in Mathematics at Princeton University and Fields Medal awardee Manjul Bhargava, as well as UN Ambassadors, diplomats and senior officials, attended the inauguration.

“As geopolitical churn ushers in a political and economic rebalancing, it is inevitably paving the way for a cultural rebalancing too. And that will be done by making space for diverse narratives, including a more comprehensive understanding of our past,” he said.

Jaishankar had undertaken an official visit to Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago from May 2-10.

During his brief visit to New York on Monday, he inaugurated the exhibition, which forms part of ‘SAMHiTA’ (South Asian Manuscript Histories and Textual Archive), a project of the India International Centre, supported by the Ministry of External Affairs.

The special interactive exhibition highlights ancient mathematical concepts with roots in India that then spread across the world over millennia — from zero, the decimal place value system, algebra and algorithms to planetary models, astronomical computation, combinatorics, and binary enumeration and geometry – the ‘Baudhayana-Pythagorean theorem.

The exhibition also recognises the lineage of legendary Indian scholars from Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Bhaskara to the Kerala School of astronomy and mathematics.

“We who are gathered here are not merely looking at numbers on a wall. We are observing a civilisation that originated in the intellectual soil of India. This is an inheritance that is as much about the future as it is about the past,” Jaishankar said.

He underlined the need to appreciate that “democratisation of technology, indeed, democratisation of the world requires a democratisation of history. It is only by righting the distortions of the past that we can accurately address issues of the future,” he said.

The exhibition will take viewers on a “journey across millennia to witness how mathematical discoveries from the Indian civilisation travelled across the world and continue to shape our modern lives.”

Jaishankar said while the global diffusion of mathematics is a tale of interconnectedness, every supply chain of ideas has a starting point. 

“As you walk through this exhibition, you will note that the very code, which is the basis of our current technological age, was conceptualised in India centuries ago,” he said.

On how the exhibit matters in the United Nations, he said, “A diverse and democratic collective cannot be built on a unidimensional narrative. These truths will increasingly become apparent as we embark on the journey of AI, where our grasp of the past will profit from the tools of the future.”

He hoped that the exhibition will heighten awareness and spark a debate about the richness of “our inherently pluralistic world. It will also help cast aside prejudices and assumptions about the embrace of technology in the current era.”

“This exhibition is a reminder that mathematics is a universal language, and its spread has served and continues to serve a global good. The United Nations, as the most established platform for international cooperation, can draw on that message in its quest to advocate closer international collaboration,” he said.

India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Harish Parvathaneni said mathematics is universal and is enriched by the contributions of humanity from diverse civilisations.

“It binds humanity rather than divides it,” Parvathaneni said, adding that the exhibition “traces our foundational concepts” such as zero, the decimal system, algebra, trigonometry and early notions of infinity that travelled from India across cultures into the wider world.

The exhibition reminds the world that mathematics in India has never been confined to abstraction but has shaped art, architecture, music and cultural expression, remaining a living and evolving tradition.

Parvathaneni underlined that India has always made its knowledge available to the entire world. “Open source, in today’s language, was an Indian mantra since time immemorial.”

The exhibition, which will run in the UN headquarters from May 11–15, connects these ancient insights to the present, he said, adding that the same principles now underpin computing algorithms, GPS and artificial intelligence, demonstrating that what “we consider modern innovation often has deep historical roots”.

“This exhibition invites us to view India’s mathematical heritage as a shared inheritance of humanity. It underscores the value of knowledge exchange and reminds us that progress is built through collaboration across cultures and generations,” the Indian envoy said.

The Permanent Mission of India said the exhibition aims to present India’s rich heritage of thinking, applying, and developing mathematics across more than two thousand years.

It demonstrates that the ideas born on the Indian subcontinent through works of ancient mathematics are still relevant today, underpinning the technologies and sciences that shape contemporary global life.

The exhibition aims to highlight that while mathematics is global in its reach, India’s contribution to its formation is “distinctive and foundational.”

“The same insights that scholars articulated in Sanskrit verse, an early iteration of binary code, now run through the world’s digital infrastructure,” it said.