This article examines seven dimensions of the relationship between mathematics and physical reality, exploring whether mathematics is the language — or the substance — of the universe and what ancient Indian civilisation contributed to this question. The seven dimensions are: Eugene Wigner's 1960 unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics; the Fibonacci sequence and golden ratio as nature's mathematical patterns; Pythagoras's identification of number as the arche of reality; Plato's mathematical Forms and the discovered-versus-invented debate; Max Tegmark's Mathematical Universe Hypothesis; the Indian mathematical tradition (zero, decimal system, infinite series, Aryabhata, Brahmagupta, Madhava) within the Vedic framework of Rta (cosmic order); and Ramanujan's divine mathematical intuition as the most striking modern case of the mathematics-transcendence intersection. The philosophical frameworks examined include Mathematical Platonism, Formalism, and Tegmark's radical mathematical monism. The Indian civilisational framework draws on the Vedic concept of Rta — the invariant cosmic ordering principle — as the ancient recognition of what physics calls the mathematical structure of the universe, and on the Sanskrit formulation of mathematical truth as Satyam (eternal truth). The article argues that the question of whether mathematics is the language of God is, precisely and rigorously, the question of whether the ordering principle of the universe is discovered or constructed — and that the evidence from physics, from mathematical history, and from India's own tradition consistently supports the former.
Narayan Rout (Mon,) studied this question.