Yes, I agree to some extent with the restricted claim, which only (slowly) started to break down in the 17th century in the west.
A lot of Indian mathematics was rather abstract going back to Vedic times, but since they didn't develop the concept of proof, it sadly had little impact on other mathematics practice (except as inspiration to Persian and Arab scholars) other than the the famous cases of zero and positional notation. The mathematical documents I've seen from that practice have been in the form of essays.
I know little of Chinese or Mesoamerican mathematics and wonder where they were on this axis. It seems pretty likely that maths started in support of astronomy/planting predictions in the cultures I know of so likely also for East Asia and the Americas, but whither thence did it go?
A lot of Indian mathematics was rather abstract going back to Vedic times, but since they didn't develop the concept of proof, it sadly had little impact on other mathematics practice (except as inspiration to Persian and Arab scholars) other than the the famous cases of zero and positional notation. The mathematical documents I've seen from that practice have been in the form of essays.
I know little of Chinese or Mesoamerican mathematics and wonder where they were on this axis. It seems pretty likely that maths started in support of astronomy/planting predictions in the cultures I know of so likely also for East Asia and the Americas, but whither thence did it go?