Centuries before the western world grappled with large numbers, Indian mathematicians seemed to enjoy handling rational numbers with incredibly large numerators and denominators.

Not only large numbers, many modern mathematical concepts ranging from calculus to infinity were developed by ancient Indian scholars.

“New discoveries on Indian mathematicians are coming out as more written material in Sanskrit are being explored. Indian manuscripts are treasure trove for learning,” Kim Plofker, a mathematical historian from the Union College in New York told Deccan Herald at the International Congress on Mathematicians here on Friday.

While Indian scholars conceptualised zero in the 3rd century AD, concepts akin to exponents and logarithms were known in India in the mid-first millennium.

A manuscript found in AD 800 showed Indian mathematicians had no trouble in handling rational numbers in which the numerator has 19 digits and denominator 17 digits.

The hymns of “Yajur Veda” has numbers that invoke successive powers of ten up to a trillion whereas Jain scholars used a technique called multiple-multiplication to handle numbers ranging from 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 10 to the power of 45.