Nonetheless, there has been a proliferation of publications in this area and multiple attempts to integrate the subject into mainstream education at the state level by right-wing Hindu nationalist governments.

[4][5] S. G. Dani of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay wrote that despite the dubious historigraphy, some of the calculation methods it describes are themselves interesting, a product of the author's academic training in mathematics and long recorded habit of experimentation with numbers.

[3] The book contains metaphorical aphorisms in the form of sixteen sutras and thirteen sub-sutras, which Krishna Tirtha states allude to significant mathematical tools.

[3] STS scholar S. G. Dani in 'Vedic Mathematics': Myth and Reality[3] states that the book is primarily a compendium of "tricks"[a] that can be applied in elementary, middle and high school arithmetic and algebra, to gain faster results.

The sutras and sub-sutras are abstract literary expressions (for example, "as much less" or "one less than previous one") prone to creative interpretations; Krishna Tirtha exploited this to the extent of manipulating the same shloka to generate widely different mathematical equivalencies across a multitude of contexts.

These were unknown during the Vedic times and were introduced in India only in the sixteenth century;[6] works of numerous ancient mathematicians such as Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Bhaskara were based entirely on fractions.

[3][6] First published in 1965, five years after Krishna Tirtha's death, the work consisted of forty chapters, originally on 367 pages, and covered techniques he had promulgated through his lectures.

He believes it did a disservice both to the pedagogy of mathematical education by presenting the subject as a collection of methods without any conceptual rigor, and to science and technology studies in India (STS) by adhering to dubious standards of historiography.

[11] Hartosh Singh Bal notes that whilst Krishna Tirtha's attempts might be somewhat acceptable in light of his nationalistic inclinations during colonial rule — he had left his spiritual endeavors to be appointed as the principal of a college to counter Macaulayism —, it provided a fertile ground for further ethno-nationalistic abuse of historiography by Hindu Nationalist parties; Thomas Trautmann views the development of Vedic Mathematics in a similar manner.

[7][12] Meera Nanda has noted hagiographic descriptions of Indian knowledge systems by various right-wing cultural movements (including the BJP), which deemed Krishna Tirtha to be in the same league as Srinivasa Ramanujan.