Question

In ancient India, altars with the combination of shapes like rectangles, triangles and trapeziums were used for what?
A) Public worships
B) Household rituals
C) Both A and B
D) None among A, B and C.

Answer 1

Hint: For doing Vedic rites people mainly used alters and fireplaces. The concept of geometry in ancient India starts with the construction of these altars and fireplaces. They do public worship as well as they also worship at home.

Complete step by step solution: 1) Indian mathematics from the very beginning I.e. Ancient India plays an important function and its primary function is to generate rules for systematic and accurate methods for calculation.
2) Sulbasutras, which are the oldest written mathematical score available to us today.
3) Even before this era, the knowledge of applied mathematics ’geometrical figures’ can be seen in the architecture of Harappan civilization.
4) Sulbasutras are nothing but were written instructions for the construction of sacrificial altars(vedi) and also deals with the proper positioning of sacred fire(Agni) that was a necessary requirement to make constructed altars as effective instruments of sacrifice.
5) In those times, they used to perform two types of rituals
5.1) one for worship at home.
5.2) Second for communal worshipping.
6) The constructed altars with geometric shapes of squares and circles are used for worshipping at home whereas altars with a combination of geometric shapes of rectangles, triangles and trapezium were mainly used for public worship.

Option A is the public worship which is correct.

Additional Notes: -
1) The ‘Geometry’ word comes from two Greek words 'geo' and 'metrein' where ’geo’ means the 'earth', and 'metrein’ means ‘to measure’.
2) A Greek mathematician whose name is Euclid also called the father of Geometry who gave many theorems in geometry.

Note: Some are confused that alters were used in public worship as well as in household rituals but they have specified the shapes. As rectangles, triangles and trapezium were used only for public worship.