Indian mathematics

And his family are Buddhist abbots from originally Balkh in Afghanistan, which was in the zone of Indian influence.

And he grew up in a family that were masters of Indian mathematics.

His grandfather had trained in Kashmir, which was the center of Indian higher philosophy in mathematics at this period.

And they initially come to prominence because they are the Indian accountants.

And they've got a zero, which you don't want to see at the bottom of your checkbook.

So

they, as soon as they come to power, they bring the books of the two great masters of early Indian mathematics, who are Aryabhatta, who found the exact distance from the earth to the moon, the earth to the sun, the exact circumference of the earth, the fact that the earth goes around the sun, all this a thousand years before Galileo.

Mm-hmm.