A Season of Revelations

It has been a season of revelations. All those who wished me greetings of the season, did it so benevolently that it turned out to be indeed enlightening.
Studies on atheism and materialism had exposed me to the dimensions and dexterity of the phenomenon called Wikipedia. I have been using Wikipedia so long and so often that I couldn't ignore the banner at the top requesting for donations. But when I followed the link, I found that they don't accept donations in Indian Rupees. I even mailed the volunteers to find out whether there is some way to contribute to the cause. I was disappointed again to learn that none of my financial instruments were accepted by the donation team.

Meanwhile, during one of those Wikipedia expeditions, I stumbled upon pages related to a medieval era Indian mathematician, Sangamagrama Madhava. My dad, when I was in school, used to discuss about the sine tables Madhava had compiled. I did not understand much about it then, so I kept on reading about it. I also remember my dad mentioning a system called Katapayadi System which was used by medieval age Indians to convert numbers to words for easy remembrance. I searched for it on Wikipedia. But I found that the only reference to the usage of the system was for the naming of Melakarta Ragas of Carnatic music. Seventy two Melakarta Ragas obtained by various permutations of the seven basic swaras (Sa, Ri, Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, Ni) are named in such a way that the combination of the swaras of a particular raga can be determined by the first two consonants of the Raga's name, using the Katapayadi system. However, I was disheartened that there are no references to the wider applications of the use of Katapayadi which were primarily in mathematics and astronomy. In the backdrop of the disappointment of not being able to donate to Wikipedia, a thought flashed in my mind. What better way to contribute to Wikipedia than to contribute to its content? So, I decided to write it. To write about Katapayadi. To collect all information available, sort it and present in the manner of an encyclopaedia for a global audience.

Research on the topic was not at all a pain. Middle aged researchers, who are accustomed to the conventional sources of library books, journals etc. might be astonished to see the easiness and power of internet research. Living in a desert, 20 kilometres away from the nearest urban area, with no access to technical books or journals, I could gather all information right in my room through internet. You just need to learn the knack of internet searching with wild-cards. Internet , along with dad (a walking dictionary of mathematics) just a phone call away, research was a cakewalk. I collected all information I could get online.
Then, I had to learn the mark-up language used in Wikipedia. I used to stay away from editing pages in Wikipedia, even though their policy states to be bold in editing pages, thinking that the markup language will be difficult. But that too, like research, turned out to be easy. Easier than HTML. Especially the prototypes used specifically for an encyclopaedia like those for reference sections and hyperlinks.
And, thus, one fine morning after a night-shift's work, I wrote it. I wrote about the Katapayadi. After writing it, I too was astonished to see the spectrum of the usage of Katapaydi. It was used by mathematicians, astronomers, musicians and also in popular literature of the medieval age.

First of the revelations I had was the wonder of community effort. Using technology, millions around the world gather and religiously work towards a passion. Of organising the world's knowledge and present it. When I told dad that I finally wrote the article, he said, "Good, now don't be disappointed that someone edits it, for, that exactly is the spirit of Wikipedia." For me, it was also a forum to present my research to an audience. There are people who say that the content of Wikipedia cannot be relied because anyone can edit. It might be true to an extent for articles in its nascent stage. But well developed articles it presents the reliable facts in neutral point of view. And if you feel it isn't, feel free to go ahead and change it.

Another revelation was the achievements of medieval age Indian mathematicians. The school textbooks on Indian history mentions only about early age mathematicians Aryabhatta, Bhaskara etc. They don't mention anything about the medieval age mathematicians. Partly this might be due to the ignorance of the relevance of their contributions and partly, may be, due to the uneasiness to glorify anything from down south. The continuation of the achievements of Aryabhatta and and Bhaskara were mainly in Kerala. Madhava of Sangamagrama founded a school, now known as the Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics and several mathematicians have been a part of it. They were in fact the first to work on power series etc. The main contribution I'd like to mention here is the table of values of sines of various angles compiled by Madhava. The methods used to find these values are the basics of calculus. I have read of the arguments between English and continental European mathematicians on who discovered Calculus first. Was it Newton or Leibniz? They have argued for decades to an extent that both sided denied to study the others' mathematics. But after reading about Madhava, I sit back with a smile, and know that it was neither Newton in England of Leibniz in Germany. The foundations of calculus were first discovered by Sangamagrama Madhava who lived in Sangamagrama (present day Irinjalakkuda), just 30 kilometres away from my home, whose genius, considering the time he lived in, is sure to surpass that of even the much celebrated Ramanujan; and Madhava did it centuries before both Newton and Leibniz were even born, when the whole of the Western world were in the dark age.

However, there has been a discontinuity in these tradition. Perhaps due to the influences of British colonisation. Discontinuity led to the lack of its recognition, even in homeland. And later in the era of social improvements from what Vivekananda called a lunatic asylum, people might have got busy with Marxism, existentialism, materialism and whatnot. Pure science, sadly, is still is an undermined field in my homeland. The Kerala Shastra Sahitya Parishad too has deviated both from Shastra and Sahitya and is focussing on politics. As a result of this revelation, I have gone to an extent of sending a request letter to the Kerala government, to consider honouring these contributions in some way like naming a department after these giants, or including it in the school curriculum.

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PS: The Wikipedia page on Katapayadi System can be found here.
The Wikipedia page on Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics can be found here.