Add zero and one to get one, one and one to get two, one and two to get three, two and three to get five. Most of us know this—that each successive number is the sum of the two numbers that came before it—as the Fibonacci sequence, named after a 12th-century Italian mathematician. 
But as early as 200 BCE, an Indian poet and mathematician named Acharya Pingala used that sequential concept to analyze poetry, and 7th-century scholar Virahanka later described it in more detail.
In fact, the use of math on the Indian subcontinent stretches back more than 3,000 years, and curiosity about this ancient and understudied history is at the center of Priya Nambrath's research. As a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the Department of South Asia Studies, Nambrath is studying the applied practice of mathematics during medieval and premodern times in what is now Kerala, a state in southwestern India.
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