Pedagogical Practice 👩🏾‍🎓

As a context for the transmission of skills and knowledge, and as a bridge between the workplace and formal learning, teaching and learning presents itself as a very important source for both texts and documentation of mathematical practices. Designated learning spaces such as tinnai schools, the main form of education across precolonial Tamilakam (present-day Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, and Karnataka), as well as situated learning through apprenticeship, involved various forms of scaffolding to ease young learners into practice. Pedagogical interventions by senior practitioners or teachers can be seen in the form of interpolations, commentaries, and additions to various texts, as well as in the use of mnemonics and tools such as coconut leaves (ōlai) to model the proportions of a sculpture.

This collection focuses on texts and other artefacts explicitly related to teaching and learning, particularly in tinnai schools, such as kaṇakkatikāram and eṇṇuvati. We also include compendiums of riddles and puzzles that circulated among people. These “clever” problems would have served as tests of virtuosity for mathematical learners and practitioners in a milieu characterised by its orality.

The collection also includes texts dealing with advanced mathematical techniques and practices that may not have been part of learning in village schools, but which circulated among specialists, such as those involved in astronomical computation, accounting, and related fields.

Our collection comprises texts in most of the numerically dominant languages of India. The emphasis on oral practices and memorisation as a mode of learning is evident across different language traditions. The similarities and differences in pedagogical practices, texts, and artefacts across these traditions remain to be studied, as do the processes of transmission and exchange across different geographical locations.