SUNDRI LESSONS TO ALGORITHMS: THE PIONEERING SPIRIT OF JAIN MATHEMATICS

Jain Mathematics is a deep part of our cultural and scientific history. This study traces its growth from the teachings of the first Tirthankara, Rishabhdeva, to his daughter Sundri, and later to the 9th-century cryptographic text Siri Bhoovalaya, showing that it was far ahead of its time. Jain scholars worked on ideas like combinatorics, recursion, very large numbers, and algorithms long before similar work appeared in Europe or the Islamic world. The paper looks at the wide range of Jain mathematical texts, the importance of teaching women mathematics early on, and what this strong focus on numbers says about Jain society from ancient times to today. It argues that Jain mathematics was more than just solving problems—it was part of a whole way of thinking that joined logic, ethics, and cosmology, creating a tradition of learning and precision that still matters today.