ABSTRACT
In both China and India the social activities of everyday life gave rise to arithmetic and geometry, the two major forms of mathematical work. The development of arithmetic was associated with problems in accounting, taxation, and trade, as well as with some problems in religious, magical, artistic, and astronomical activities. Problems in surveying, construction, and engineering gave rise to geometry. The discipline of mathematics emerged later, when sets of arithmetic and geometrical problems were assembled for purposes of codification and to facilitate teaching.
