J Indian Philos (2007) 35:417–443

DOI 10.1007/s10781-007-9029-1

The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā

P. P. Divakaran

Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Introduction

In 1832, Charles M. Whish, an Englishman who had worked for the East India
Company, presented to the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
an account1 of the contents of four palm leaf manuscripts which he had found
in the environs of Cochin (or Kochi as it is now known) in coastal central
Kerala. One of the four is a work in Malayalam, the language of Kerala, on
mathematics and astronomy entitled Yuktibhās: ā (abbreviated to YB from now
on; the others are also mathematical/astronomical texts, by now similarly well-
known, in Sanskrit). Thus was brought to the notice of scholarly Europe,
perhaps for the first time, the text of which I speak here. Whish’s effort seems
to have made no impression on historians of mathematics till the 1940s. But
the decades since then have seen increasing attention being paid2 to the quite
astonishingly sophisticated mathematics produced by the socalled Kerala

1
Charles M. Whish (1835, p. 509).
2
As far as I can tell, Whish’s baton was first picked up by Mukunda Marar and Rajagopal (1944,
p. 65). Of the numerous subsequent publications, two are worthy of special mention: T. A. Sarasvati
Amma’s thesis (later published as a book 1979; second revised edition 1999) and George
Gheverghese Joseph (1992). The first is largely faithful to the methods actually employed by the
Kerala mathematicians. Joseph’s book has brought the story to a large readership. There are a fair
number of good websites that discuss the work of the Kerala school and there are also some which
are not fully reliable.

P. P. Divakaran (&)
Chennai Mathematical Institute, SIPCOT IT Park,
Siruseri 603 103, India
e-mail: [email protected]

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418 P. P. Divakaran

school in a relatively brief period of 200 years or so, beginning in the second
half of the 14th century CE.
The text of YB that I use here is the one that virtually everyone interested
in the work relies on directly or indirectly, that given in the annotated Mal-
ayalam edition of Rama Varma Tampuran and A. R. Akhilesvara Ayyar,
published in 1948.3 It is based on four separate manuscripts which, according
to the editors, are largely in concordance. Tampuran belonged to a local royal
family and was a well-known scholar of Malayalam (and hence of Sanskrit)
and of the
sāstra literature, and Ayyar was a schoolteacher with a master’s
degree in mathematics; in the complementarity of their domains of expertise,
a more ideal pair of collaborators is hard to imagine. The main part of the
book is 290 printed pages long of which roughly half is commentary. The
editing and the commentary are impeccably done, in the best Indian bhās: ya
tradition. Especially noteworthy are the meticulously drawn geometric figures
without which the work of those who followed them would have been made
greatly more arduous.
The edition of Tampuran and Ayyar covers only Part I of YB. Part II
contains applications to astronomy and has so far not been published, in any
language. The late K. V. Sarma, whose efforts more than of anyone else
brought the main texts of Kerala mathematics and astronomy to the attention
of the scholarly world, had completed (in association with M. D. Srinivas,
M. S. Sriram and K. Ramasubramanian) an English translation of both parts
of YB at the time of his death in January 2005, but it is yet to appear. As of
now, a faithful presentation of what YB contains, in any language other than
Malayalam (unfortunately beyond the acquaintance of most interested
scholars) does not exist. This should be a matter of regret because what it does
contain, primarily, is a very thorough account of the techniques of the infin-
itesimal calculus that the Kerala school created and developed for the study of
the geometry of the circle.
The above claim and the title of this article raise the question: what exactly
constitutes the mathematical discipline we call calculus?
The question is no easier to answer today than it has been in the past.
Contemporary mathematics almost unanimously holds the view that the
central concern of calculus is with the properties of ‘functions’. In the early
days of calculus in Europe, these were limited to real functions of a real
variable, explicitly given by formulae, of a small number of types such as
powers of low degree and functions defining the conic sections; e.g., y ¼ x2 ,
y ¼ ð1
x2 Þ1=2 . Over the next two centuries and a half, the concept of a
function was greatly broadened, culminating in a very abstract and general
definition, free of any explicit geometric or numerical connotation, as a ‘map’
from one ‘space’ to another, a ‘black box’ that takes an input from an initial
space and gives an output in a final space. In this generality, functions are not
amenable to the methods of calculus; for that to be possible, there must be a
criterion for deciding when two points are nearby in both the initial and final

3
Rama Varma (Maru) Tampuran and Akhilesvara Ayyar (1948).

123
The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 419

spaces as well as a rule for adding (and subtracting) two nearby points.4 No
further limitations are necessary.
In its early avatars, in India or in Europe, calculus provided a set of con-
ceptual and technical tools, essentially geometric, with which to approach and
find answers to an array of questions regarding simple functions. The
remarkable fact is that these tools, suitably sharpened and broadened, are
recognisably the very same ones as are in use in today’s greatly more general
form of the discipline. An instance of this dramatic increase in generality is
provided by the invention in the middle of the last century of the theory of
distributions, inspired largely by physics. The mathematical objects called
distributions are maps only in an indirect sense; they stretch the idea of a
function to a point where some people, at least for a time, even denied them a
mathematical existence. Nevertheless, distributions are just as readily man-
ageable by the methods of calculus as the simple functions for which they were
first fashioned. It seems then fair to characterise the discipline of calculus
primarily as this collection of principles and methods formulated in essence by
the pioneers, whose ever expanding field of applicability we are far from
having fully charted. Most of the problems the creators of calculus tackled
existed from antiquity; what was new and revolutionary is their method of
solving them.
It is in this perspective that YB can be described as a book on calculus
rather than on trigonometry or infinite series. No matter how impressive or
novel in their time, these well-known results (of which the main ones I shall
write down later as the occasion arises) are only the first in a long list of
applications of calculus whose end is not in sight. Neither the Kerala math-
ematicians of the 15th–16th centuries nor the Europeans of the 17th would
have recognised a distribution if it blew up (as they are liable to do) in their
face, but they would have recognised the processes of differentiation and
integration which are used to elucidate their properties. They would also have
understood each other’s achievements and the many parallels in the way they,
vastly separated in space and time, developed the subject. There were sig-
nificant differences as well; while the early Europeans had a broader view of
the uses of calculus from the beginning, the Kerala work as presented in YB is,
though limited to the circle, more systematic and sophisticated. (Such a dec-
laration of course requires justification and I hope to take up the question
elsewhere).

The Background

Till about 700 CE or so, Kerala formed part of the Tamil linguistic landscape.
The rich cultural, especially literary, life of those days is well documented and
4
More technically, spaces on which calculus can be done have to have a topological structure
(providing a measure of nearness or locality) and, locally (with respect to the given topology), a
linear structure. I thank M. S. Narasimhan for explaining to me the modern sense of what
d’Alembert called the metaphysics of calculus.

123
420 P. P. Divakaran

we also have some knowledge of the polity. There is however no serious

evidence of any astronomical or mathematical activity at that time in Tamil
Kerala nor indeed in the Tamil country as a whole. Very plausibly, the taste
for astronomy and mathematics travelled to Kerala with a series of waves of
migration from further north, generally along the coast, of vedic brahmins.
Beginning in the 7th–8th century CE, this influx continued for half a millen-
nium or longer. The early settlers bestowed Aryan legitimacy on local
potentates who built temples for them in return, with extensive land grants for
the maintenace both of the temples and, in some comfort, of the temple
managers. But these brahmins, who came to be known generically as Nam-
putiris, brought with them a great deal more than vedic expertise; they were,
at least some of them, a learned people, the repositories and practitioners,
creators and transmitters of all the classical sciences. Thus it is that they
carried to Kerala a strong heritage in mathematics and astronomy, most
notably the legacy of Āryabhat:a. They also brought with them their language
of learning, Sanskrit.
But largely independent of northern influences, the old Tamil language of
the region had already begun to take on a distinct local personality. On top of
this came the impact of Sanskrit, resulting in a rich and versatile new lan-
guage, Malayalam. By the time of the composition of YB, Malayalam had
settled down to its definitive form, hardly different from what it is today.
Nevertheless, with the exception of YB and a few minor texts, Sanskrit con-
tinued as the language of mathematical scholarship and (writing) until its final
decline and disappearance, as sudden as was its beginning.5
A number of literary references and inscriptions from this period of tran-
sition testify to the existence all over Kerala of educational institutions,
ranging from the veda schools attached to temples to veritable quasi-auton-
omous colleges. Over the first half of the second millennium CE, these
schools, together with the academies that flourished under royal patronage,
were an integral part of the intellectual vibrancy of the time. It is in this setting
that almost all of the literally thousands of scientific manuscripts now lying
scattered in private and public collections came to be composed.6
The earliest known mathematical work which can be unambiguously
attributed to Kerala actually predates this golden age. This is a Sanskrit verse

5
The question of why YB was composed in Malayalam is an intriguing one, not addressed here.
6
This extremely concise sketch of the medieval history of Kerala is an inadequate summary of the
pioneering studies of Ilamkulam (or Elamkulam) P. N. Kunjan Pilla. Some aspects of his work
have recently been questioned; despite this, his research provides the one coherent overall picture
we have of the history of Kerala, especially of the time relevant to us. He wrote in Malayalam, but
there is a volume of English translations of a selection of his essays (Ilamkulam 1970). He has the
added distinction of having been the first to seriously read Śankaranārāyan: an’s commentary on
the Laghubhāskarı̄yam, thereby establishing a first direct link between astronomical activities in
Kerala and elsewhere in India.

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The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 421

commentary by Śankaranārāyan: an7 on the first Bhāskara’s Lag-

hubhāskarı̄yam. According to the text itself, Śankaranārāyan: an was the royal
astronomer to the Cera emperor Sthān: u Ravi Varma—the Ceras had lately
consolidated their control over most of Kerala—working in the observatory in
the capital Mahodayapuram (the famed Muziris or Musiris, emporium to the
world; modern Kodungallur). The text gives the date of composition as 869
CE and refers to the author as hailing from Kollapuri in Paidhyarashtra (the
region of Pratishthana or Paithan) which has been identified (see footnote [6])
very persuasively with modern Kolhapur in Maharashtra. This is rich and rare
fare: in one text, we have a precise date and place of composition and a precise
provenance for the author or his immediate ancestors.
As far as we know, the emergence of astronomical scholarship in Kerala
with Śankaranārāyan: an was an isolated event. His intellectual ancestry is
unknown and no one seems to have carried on after him; in fact there is no
sign of any serious mathematical and astronomical activity in Kerala in the
next five hundred years. To an extent, this can be blamed on the war and
turmoil that visited Kerala from the Tamil country at the turn of the first
millennium. By the end of the 11th century, the prosperous Cera kingdom was
gone forever, its capital razed, the royal observatory only a memory.

Mādhavan and his Followers

In the chaotic aftermath of this ‘100 year war’, the Cera kingdom broke up
into a number of principalities, of which the most powerful was that ruled by
the Zamorin (samutiri) dynasty from Calicut. This period also saw a renewed
influx of brahmins and their rise to a position of social and cultural preemi-
nence. The southern part of the Zamorin’s domain became a particularly
favoured area for Namputiri settlements. It is in this region, on either bank of
the river Nila (more commonly known now as the river Bharata), that there
emerged, beginning in the second half of the 14th century, a succession of
astronomers and mathematicians of truly exceptional quality. They formed a
tight-knit group, all linked together by the traditional teacher-disciple bonds.
There was at least one father-son pair among them, Parameśvaran and
Dāmodaran. Most were Namputiris of one variey or another. According to
local tradition, three were native to one village and two taught at the same
temple school. Virtually all lived in close geographic proximity and produced
their work within a time span of roughly two centuries.

7
I have transcribed all names as they are conventionally written in Malayalam. Modern names,
place names, etc. have been exempted from diacritical markings. The marks on technical terms
follow the way they are written in Malayalam script in YB. Though the Malayalam transliteration
of Sanskrit and Sanskrit-origin words does not always conform to their original forms, the devi-
ations are minor and easily spotted. The Malayalam distinctions between the short and long e and
o as well as the two l s have been ignored.

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422 P. P. Divakaran

The most original and creative of this brilliant lot, by the acclamation of
those who followed him, was also the first: Mādhavan, said to be of
Sangamagramam.8 Mādhavan has remained a somewhat shadowy figure. We
know nothing about his life except that it spanned the second half of the 14th
century and the first quarter of the 15th and that the great astronomer
Parameśvaran was his disciple. The few manuscript fragments that are
attributed to him are primarily astronomical, having little mathematical con-
tent of any originality, and it is through the writings of his intellectual heirs
that his achievements are known to us. Parameśvaran’s student Nı̄lakan: t:han,
in particular, quotes mathematical verses attributed to Mādhavan quite lib-
erally in his Sanskrit work Tantrasam : graha, making it clear that it is meant to
be a compendium of his teaching. The overwhelming significance of YB lies in
the fact that it contains, in chapters 6 and 7, the most thorough exposition we
have of the new mathematics that Mādhavan created and Tantrasam : graha
summarised. If only to place YB itself in context, it is useful to touch on the
highlights of Mādhavan’s legacy.
Since at least the time of Āryabhat:a, the one abiding theme of Indian
mathematics was the circle, more particularly the relationship between an arc
and the corresponding chord, and a variety of questions linked to it. This was
entirely in line with the uses to which mathematical reasoning was put in
India, first and foremost for the study of the geometry of the celestial sphere
and the motion of heavenly bodies in their epicyclical orbits. Āryabhat:a
himself famously recognised the difficulty of giving an exact number for the
ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, qualifying his value
3.1416 for p as approximate, āsanna. Fundamentally, what Mādhavan did was
to push the quest for precise values for such ratios to its logical and mathe-
matical limit. (That p was understood by this time to be an irrational number
is clear from a well-known passage from Nı̄lakan: t:han’s commentary on the
Āryabhat: ı̄ya, see below). In the process, he was led, at a technical level, to
express such ratios (trigonometric functions) as appropriate power series,
infinite series of smaller and smaller terms with none exactly equal to zero.
(We know them as the ‘Gregory-Leibniz’ series for the arctangent and the
‘Newton’ series for the sine and the cosine, the quotation marks indicating a
compromise between current usage and historical accuracy). Mādhavan also
did some wonderful and practical things with these series: techniques for
accelerating their convergence; accurate estimates of the remainder as
rational functions when a series is truncated; interpolation formulae for values
of trigonometric functions at a point in terms of the values at a neighbouring
point; and so on. Most of this is described in detail in YB.

8
It is possible to make the case that Mādhavan or his family was a recent arrival from up north.
He is said to have been an Emprantiri (brahmins recently arrived from coastal Karnataka, an
established staging area on the migrant route). There is no known Sangamagramam (‘the village at
the confluence’) in Kerala, if we set aside some fanciful etymology of place names. Temples to
Sangamesvara (Siva) stand at several confluences of rivers or streams in northern Karnataka and
southern Maharashtra.

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The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 423

But more profoundly, Mādhavan arrived at a general method, a philosophy

almost, of addressing such questions by passing to the infinitesimally small and
then summing the infinite number of the resulting infinitesimal contributions to
the relevant geometrical quantity. Stated simply, Mādhavan invented calculus,
as it applies to circular arcs. Subject only to the limitation to circular arcs, YB
conveys clearly that the key conceptual step in this was the recognition that
local approximation by linear functions (tangents), in other words differenti-
ation, and their subsequent summing up, integration, are converse processes–in
essence, the earliest version of what came to be known in its sharp subsequent
form as the fundamental theorem of calculus. What is most striking in all this to
the present day reader brought up in the mathematical culture of the 19th and
20th centuries is the easy mastery with which the supposed twin demons of the
infinite and the infinitesimal are simultaneously tamed.

About YB

K. V. Sarma’s date for the composition of YB, around 1550–1560 CE, seems
now to be generally accepted, as also his attribution of the authorship
to Jyes: t:hadevan.9 We know a little more about Jyes: t:hadevan than about
Mādhavan: he was a disciple of Nı̄lakan: t:han and Dāmodaran, both disciples of
Mādhavan’s disciple Parameśvaran and, like Parameśvaran, was connected
with the Rama temple (or to a school attached to it) in the village of Alattiyur,
just north of the river Nila not far from its mouth. And, most importantly, we
have a whole book, extensive and intact, attributed to him.10 Alattiyur still has
memories of his name and of its past mathematical-astronomical glories, but
astrology has long since supplanted astronomy as its chief source of pride.
In the context of Indian mathematical writing, YB is singular in several
respects: (i) it is not in Sanskrit verse but in Malayalam prose (bhās: ā), (ii) it
provides detailed lines of reasoning (yukti) and, as a consequence, (iii) it is
inordinately long. It is also very ‘theoretical’; there are few worked examples
or numerical illustrations (udāharan: ams) unlike say in the work of the second
Bhāskara and, despite the strongly geometric methods of proof, no diagrams
at all. (Tampuran and Ayyar have included a profusion of them in their
commentary and these have been freely and gratefully duplicated in the
subsequent literature). It is relevant to ask why it is three-fold singular in this
particular way. Given our ignorance of the circumstances of its writing, the
answers can only be tentative at best. But, reading the text, it is difficult

9
Sarma and Hariharan (1991, p. 185). The date suggested in this article is about 1530 CE but
Sarma later tended to favour a slightly later dating. Once it is accepted that YB is an account of
Mādhavan’s mathematics, transmitted via Nı̄lakan: t:han and others, a sharp date is of little con-
sequence except to historiographers.
10
K. V. Sarma’s view (2002) that Jyes: t:hadevan also authored Dr: kkaran: am, an astronomical
chronicle datable to 1607, apparently on the basis of hearsay gathered by Whish, is difficult to
reconcile with the accepted date of YB and the dramatically different linguistic styles of the two
texts.

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424 P. P. Divakaran

to escape the conviction that, unlike the traditionally favoured sūtra

format—mnemonic verses serving as an aide-mémoire with the reasoning
being explained in face-to-face sessions—YB was meant to be autonomous,
written down from the guru’s mouth, to be read, struggled with and, hopefully,
mastered in course of time, away from the guru and the classroom. The tra-
ditional compact verse format in mathematical writing had at least one
function other than that of facilitating (primarily oral) communication and
text-preservation; concise expressions are commonly made to stand in for
numbers, formulae and even whole collections of ideas and methods, ‘pack-
ages’ to be unzipped in the mind. YB does have such packages scattered
throughout, of its own and in the form of quoted verses from other sources,
but on the whole stands at the opposite extreme. The entire text is in a natural,
too natural perhaps, Malayalam, explicit and even verbose, with the Sanskrit
technical terms embedded in this matrix. The style is colloquial and often
repetitive, especially in its use of connecting words common in conversation
but not serving any functional (let alone mathematical) purpose. Altogether,
its writing was a startlingly original endeavour. One cannot escape the feeling
of reading the faithful notes of a masterly but informal set of lectures—face-
to-face presentations—but without the easy present day option of an escape to
equations and diagrams.11
YB claims no originality of content; the first sentence is: ‘‘In order to
explain12 all the mathematics useful for the motion of heavenly bodies
13
(graha), according to Tantrasam : graha, I begin by describing the general
(or common) mathematical operations such as addition and so on’’. Three
short chapters deal routinely with these basic operations. An even shorter
(considering the heavy use made later of the properties of similar triangles)
chapter 4 concerns the ‘rule of three’ (trairā
sikam). A substantial chapter 5
(together with a long appendix, explicitly stated to be taken over from
Tantrasam : graha, with several numerical examples) is devoted to the method of
‘pulverisation’ (kut: :tākāram) for the Diophantine solution of an equation of
the first degree in two unknowns. This will find its use in Part II of YB. As
already noted, the meat of the work is in the last two chapters, 6 (the rela-
tionship between the circumference and the diameter) and 7 (the theory of
chords). Including the commentary, they run to over 200 printed pages.
The inevitable question that arises is how effective the use of an almost
totally conversational Malayalam is in conveying the subtle and complex
11
An independent confirmation of Sarma’s view (see footnote [10]) will strengthen the case for
someone other than Jyes: t:hadevan, a disciple for example, doing the actual writing down of the
material. Edward Stadum, who was present at the Workshop, later used the phrase ‘literary
calculus’ to describe YB. In my mind I can see Jyes: t:hadevan teaching under a coconut tree, with a
sign above saying ‘calculus spoken’.
12
The Malayalam verb used is colluka which can mean state, relate, narrate, speak, describe,
explain, etc. and is employed in all these senses in YB.
13
There are other roughly contemporaneous texts, though none in Malayalam, based on Nı̄la-
kan: t:han’s Tantrasam
: graha, for example Śankara Vāriyar’s Yuktidı̄pika. In many ways, not least in
the breadth of his interests, Nı̄lakan: t:han appears to have been the real inheritor of Mādhavan’s
mantle.

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The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 425

reasoning that this new knowledge is based on and, more generally, what
obstacles the reliance on such a natural style of thought and communication
places in the way of development of what is after all a highly abstract
undertaking. To enable readers to judge for themselves how well these chal-
lenges are met, I now present in translation two passages from YB, both
relating to calculus, before expressing my own views. The first describes the
computation of the surface area of a sphere (from chapter 7) and the second is
the section in which the integrals of the positive integral powers of a variable
are worked out (in chapter 6).
The translation is as literal as I can sensibly make it. The only liberties I have
taken are to provide basic punctuation and paragraph breaks, to drop the too-
frequent conversational connectives, to supply personal pronouns where
English requires them and to add a few brief explanations (not present in the
original) or comments [within square brackets]. In particular, I provide no
diagrammatic guide to the reasoning (the basic figure which I use to define
notation for my own explanation of the passage on integration of powers
should not count)—those so inclined will find it instructive, at least as a start, to
supply their own figures before looking up Tampuran and Ayyar (1948) or
Sarasvati Amma (1979). The first passage requires only a minor transformation
to make it ‘modern’; Sarasvati Amma’s version is largely faithful. The second
passage holds a few points of mathematical interest which it will be worthwhile
to return to later. It is also the part of Kerala calculus that today’s scholars,
unlike Tampuran and Ayyar, sometimes tend to handle with less than complete
fidelity, lapsing occasionally into a reliance on later western developments like
the binomial theorem for negative exponents, theorems on limits and their
interchangeability with infinite sums etc., in place of what is actually in YB. For
this reason, in the introductory remarks on this passage and in the few expla-
nations within it, I have made an effort to guard against my use of current
notation distorting in any way the material I am trying to convey.

The Surface Area of a Sphere

The section headed golapr: s: :thaks: etraphalānayanam gives the proof of the for-
mula: surface area of a sphere = diameter  circumference [of a great circle]. It
occurs at the very end of chapter 7 (with only the calculation of the volume of the
sphere to follow) though, with the exception of the use of one ‘package’,
the work required is much less demanding than in the proofs of the various
trigonometric series earlier in the book. It is probably the case that Mādhavan
invented the infinitesimal method first for the determination of p via the
‘Gregory-Leibniz’ series and then found it to be a powerful general tool for
settling several other interesting problems14 (also see below).

14
Bhāskara II arrived at the correct formulae for the surface area and volume of the sphere, but
by seminumerical methods which the inventor of the infinitesimal method must surely have
scoffed at.

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426 P. P. Divakaran

Here is the translation.

Now I narrate that, combining two principles just explained, [namely
that] from pin: d: ajyāyogam can be produced khan: d: āntarayogam and [that]
knowing the diameter at one place, we can apply the rule of three (do a
trairā
sikam) as we please, the area of the surface of a sphere will arise.

A uniformly rounded object is called a sphere (golam). Through the

middle of such a sphere, imagine two circles, one along east-west and
the other along south-north. Then imagine circles, one shifted slightly to
the south and the other slightly to the north of the east-west circle [the
equator]. Their distances from the east-west circle should be the same for
all parts (avayavam) [the word samāntaram for parallel is not used in this
section though it is, for straight lines, elsewhere]. Consequently, these
two will be slightly smaller than the first (or original) one. Then, starting
from these, imagine slightly smaller and smaller circles, all of them at
equal distance one from another [i.e., between successive latitudes], so as
to end at the south and north edges [the poles]. Their separation along
the south-north circle must be seen to be equal. This being so, imagine
that the circle-shaped gap between two circles [successive latitudes] is cut
at one place, removed and straightened (or spread). Then, of the circles
on the two sides of the gap, the larger one will be the base (bhūmi) and
the smaller one the opposite side (mukham) of a trapezium (samal-
am: bacatura
sram) whose lateral sides (pār
svabhuja) will be the separation
(antarālam) along the south-north circle of [two successive latitude]
circles. Now cut out the part outside the altitude (lam : bam) [from an
upper vertex to the base], turn it upside down and transfer it to the other
side [the opposite edge]. This is a rectangle whose length is half the sum
of the base and the oposite edge and whose width is the altitude. In this
way, think of all the gaps (antarālam) [elsewhere a non-Sanskrit Mala-
yalam word is also used] as rectangles (āyatacatura
sram). Their widths
are all equal. Lengths have various (or varying) measures (pramān: am).
The result of multiplying the length and the width is the area
(ks: etraphalam). The widths of all being equal, add the lengths of all and
multiply by the width. Thus will arise the area of the surface of the
sphere. [Nothing so far about the passage to the limit].

Next, the method (upāyam) to know how many gaps there are and what
their lengths and width are. The radii of the circles that we have imag-
ined above [the latitudes] are half-chords (arddhajyā) of a circle whose
radius is the radius of the sphere. Hence, multiplying these half-chords
by the circumference of the sphere and dividing by the radius of the
sphere [i.e., multiplying by 2p] will result in circles [their circumferences
to be precise] having the half-chords as radii. These will be the lengths of
the rectangles if the chords are taken at the midpoints of the gaps.
Multiplying the sum of all half-chords (arddhajyāyogam) [by 2p, left

123
The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 427

unsaid] will result in the total length of all the figures (ks: etrāyāmam)
[i.e., the sum of the lengths of all the rectangles]. The gap between two
arbitrary [the Malayalam phrase is yāva cilava = yāvat tāvat] circles [an
arbitrarily chosen pair of consecutive latitudes is meant] at the south-
north circle mentioned earlier is an arc segment (cāpakhan: d: am) of the
circumference of the sphere [i.e., of the S-N circle].

Next, the method of getting the sum of the chords (jyāyogam). Multiply
the square of the radius by khandāntarayogam [I make no attempt at an
exact translation of this ‘package’. The expression stands for the sum of
the second differentials of the half-chords with respect to the arc
(or, equivalently, the angle) and has already been treated earlier in
the chapter in connection with the series expansions of sine and cosine.
The result about to be used below is also derived there.] and divide by
the square of the full chord of the arc segment (cāpakhan: d: as-
amastajyāvarggam). The result is the sum of the half-chords. Multiply
this by the width. The width is the chord of the arc segment. The
khan: d: āntarayogam is the first chord segment. Because of smallness [of
the arc segment] these [the first chord segment and the width] are [both]
almost equal to the full chord. These are the multipliers and the square
of the full chord is the divisor. But multiplication and division are
unnecessary [the square of the full chord cancels from the numerator and
denominator]. What remains is the radius. This has to be multiplied by
the circumference and divided by the radius. Only the radius will survive.
Since we have to get the result for both halves of the sphere, double the
radius. Therefore, multiplying the diameter of the sphere by the cir-
cumference of the sphere will produce the area of the surface of the
sphere.
We have here a straightforward narration in natural spoken Malayalam,
understandable literally by any literate person but for the technical terms. By
and large, the technical nomenclature is that used in mainstream mathemat-
ical writing in Sanskrit over many centuries and is consequently unambiguous.
But these linguistic resources are now asked to be at the service of a
sophisticated novel mode of reasoning demanded by Mādhavan’s infinitesimal
mathematics, a service they were not designed to provide in full. Added to this
burden is the yoke of a foreign tongue, Malayalam, which was not sung, at
least mathematically speaking, at the cradle of the author. The strain shows.
Even in translation it is evident that, while the first part of the proof
(the geometric construction) is simply presented and easy to follow, the
transition to the ‘infinitesimal mode’ is marked by an increasing degree of
opacity. What the translation cannot show is that the Malayalam itself is, apart
from being very informally used, quite unrefined in relation to other literary
material of the period.

123
428 P. P. Divakaran

Integrals of Powers

Chapter 6 of YB is devoted to establishing the validity of the ‘Gregory-

Leibniz’ series, first for the angle p=4 and then for general angles, and to
various improvements on it. Apart from the mathematical content itself, it is
noteworthy as the first illustration of the power of the new infinitesimal
geometry when combined with the equally new technique of integration or
‘summation in the limit’, sam : kalitam.
The geometry considers a circle of radius r and a square of side 2r in which
the circle is inscribed, focussing on one octant of the circle as in the diagram
below:
A P B

The side AB is divided into n equal segments of length d (P is a typical point

of this division), with the limit d ! 0; n ! 1 (with nd ¼ r fixed) to be taken
subsequently. After a series of steps including the usual clever choices of
similar triangles (trairā
sikam), some simple algebraic identities, a process of
iteration and a judicious neglect of terms of order 1=n2 (i.e., second order
infinitesimals in the limit), the geometry is shown to lead to the result
!
p Xn
1 j2 j4
arclength of the octant ¼ r ¼ r lim
þ
 ;
4 j¼1
n n3 n5

lim meaning the limit described above. Each term within the bracket
(including the sum over j and in the limit but ignoring the minus signs) is
referred to as a sam
: kalitam which I shall translate as an integral, in anticipa-
tion.15 In addition to the integrals of even powers contributing to the arc

15
Anterior to the Kerala work, sam
: kalita is the standard Indian term for the sum of any (finite)
series. According to Datta and Singh (1993), this usage goes back at least to the (ambiguously
dated) Bakhshali manuscript.

123
The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 429

length, YB considers those of the odd powers since the induction procedure
requires their evaluation. Thus, the kth sam
: kalitam is defined to be
Xn
rjk
Ik :¼ lim ; k ¼ 0; 1; 2; . . .
j¼1
nkþ1

The introductory paragraph of the section headed ‘Integrals’ is:

Here I describe the method of producing the integrals. First the simple
integral (kevalasam
: kalitam) is described. Then the integral of two equals
multiplied together. Then, even though it is not useful here, I describe
also integrals of equals multiplied among themselves three, five, etc.
times, since they occur in the midst of those which are useful [namely,
the even powers].
The term kevalasam : kalitam does not reappear in the section. In this passage it
evidently means the simple integral of the first power, which is referred to in
the rest of the section as mūlasam
: kalitam. The distinction is with the sequence
of repeated k-fold integrals of x (ādyadvitı̄yādisam: kalitam); i.e., in modern
notation,
Z Z Z
xkþ1
dx dx . . . dx ¼
ðk þ 1Þ!

which are taken up further on to generate the factorial denominators in the

‘Newton’ series. With this potential confusion out of the way, here is the
subsection entitled mūlasam
: kalitam on the computation of the integral
! !
r 2r ðn
1Þr r d
I1 ¼ lim þ þ  þ þ ¼ lim d þ 2d þ    þ ðn
1Þd þ r ;
n2 n2 n2 n r

the second form being the expression with which YB actually works.
In mūlasam : kalitam, the last side (bhuja) [a bhuja is the side AP of the
right triangle OAP , OP being the corresponding karn: n: am; so the last
bhuja means AB] is equal to the radius of the circle, the one below
(or before) that is one segment (khan: d: am) less and the one before that
two segments less. Suppose all the sides are equal to the radius. In that
case, if the radius is multiplied by the number of sides [i.e., n], that will be
the result of the sam : kalitam. But here only one side is equal to the radius.
Starting from this, the sides of the other smaller and smaller diagonals
(karn: n: am) are, in order, one unit (sam : khya) at a time less. Whatever is
the number of units the radius is supposed to have, imagine that the
number of segments of the side [here it means the full side AB] is the
same. That makes it easy to remember. The last but one side will be one
unit less. The next shorter one will be two less than the number of units
of the radius. The missing part (am :
sam), starting with one, will increase

123
430 P. P. Divakaran

one [unit] by one [unit] progressively, the last deficit (ūnām
sam) almost
equal to the radius, just one unit less. Now if the deficits are all added,
this number (sam : khya) will eventually equal the sum [the word used for
this finite sum is sam: kalitam, as is traditional, see footnote [15]] of terms
starting with one, increasing by one and ending with the radius, less one
radius [i.e., it is the original sum minus the radius]. Therefore, multiply
the number of units in the radius by one added to the number of sides
[these two numbers are the same by assumption]. Its half is the
bhujāsam : kalitam. Bhujāsam: kalitam means the sum of the sides of all the
diagonals.

The smaller the segment, the more accurate (sūks: mam) the result.
Therefore imagine that each segment (bhujākhan: dam) [the text has
bhujāsam: khya, which is probably a result of sloppiness somewhere in the
transcription] is divided (cut) into atoms (an: u) and then carry out the
sam
: kalitam. For this, if the division is by parārddham [any very large
number will do; here, specifically, it is 1017 ], add one to the product of the
bhuja and parārddham, multiply by the radius and halve it. Also, divide
by parārddham. This is approximately half the square of the radius. To
make it a whole number, divide by parārddham. Thus, to the extent that
the segment is short, only a small part has to be added to the bhuja to
produce the sam : kalitam. [I understand this sentence to mean that the
correction to the integral due to the finite length of the segment can be
neglected in the limit]. Therefore, adding nothing to the bhuja, multi-
plying it by the radius and halving it will result in the sam : kalitam of the
extremely finely segmented bhuja. This is how half the square of the
radius is the accurate bhujākhan: d: asam
: kalitam.
The terminological imprecisions in the passage (for instance the different
senses in which the words bhuja, sam : khya and even sam : kalitam itself are
employed) are evident as is the increasing lack of clarity (the parārddham
business for example), once again, of the writing when it comes to describing
the reasoning about the passage to the limit.
After this account of the computation of the integral of x, the next sub-
section deals with x2 in some detail. The passage from x to x2 involves con-
ceptual and technical novelties which then carry over smoothly to the general
inductive step, from xk to xkþ1 . Here is how the general method of computing
the integral of an arbitrary positive power (sam
: kalitānayanasāmānyannyāyam)
is summarised:
. . ..To make integrals of higher and higher powers, multiply the partic-
ular integral by the radius and remove from it the result divided by the
number which is one greater [Ikþ1 ¼ xIk
xIk =ðk þ 1Þ in our notation].
Thus divide the square of the radius by two, the cube by three, the fourth
power by four, the fifth power by five. Thus divide the consecutive
powers starting with the first (ekaikottarasamaghātam) by [the same]
consecutive numbers; the results will be the integrals of powers in

123
The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 431

increasing order. As the simple integral comes from the square, the
integral of the square from the cube, the integral of the cube from the
fourth power and so on, the power of an unknown (rā
si) when divided by
the same number as the power will give the integral of one less power of
the unknown. This is the method of producing integrals of all powers.
There are several mathematically interesting reasons for reproducing this
brief paragraph, to which I will return shortly. But for the present, let us
overlook the familiar prolixity (perhaps it was a class of dull students, the
mandabuddhi so often addressed by Indian mathematicians when they wrote
their expositions) and note the clarity with which the theorem itself is stated.

The Language

It bears repetition that, as in the excerpted passages, so in the entire text, no

symbols are employed to represent the mathematical objects being manipu-
lated, no formal notation for relations among them and operations on them,
no diagrammatic guide to the geometric constructions invoked. The only
devices which can be considered as perhaps artificial are, first, the use of
common natural (generally Sanskrit-origin) words to denote precisely
understood geometric entities: examples include cāpam, jyā,
saram, bhūmi,
bhuja, mukham, etc; several of these and other similar terms, when translated,
have exactly the same significance in European geometry. (The use of natural
words as units of an artificial language appropriate for a given discipline is of
course a widespread and contemporary practice even in extremely abstract
contexts, see the current literature in mathematics and physics). Then there
are the phrases whose sense is generally clear from the way they are formed as
prescribed in the usual rules of compounding in Sanskrit (and Malayalam),
e.g., samalambacatura
sram, vyāsārddhavarggam, etc.—they have no extra or
hidden meaning apart from the literal. Finally, beyond these, there occur
certain expressions whose literal meanings are inadequate to convey in full
what they represent or may even be misleading. The most widespread instance
of this in YB is trairā
sikam, ‘the rule of three’, encompassing all properties of a
set of four numbers in proportion, and hence all properties of a pair of similar
triangles. In the passage on the area of the sphere, the term pin: d: ajyāyogam is
also such a ‘package’, standing for a certain refined procedure which effec-
tively computes an integral: it means the sum of semichords of arcs of equal
length into which a quadrant of a circle is divided, in the limit of vanishing
arc length. The expression khan: d: āntarayogam stands for an even more
subtle procedure—bhujākhan: d: am corresponds to the differential and
[bhujā]khan: d: āntaram to the second differential of the sine of an angle. (Thus
the introductory sentence of the passage on the surface area of the sphere is
equivalent to the statement that the second differential of sine is proportional
to itself). Probably the best known instance in Kerala mathematics of such
esoteric usage is the phrase jı̄veparasparam attributed (in Tantrasam : graha) to

123
432 P. P. Divakaran

Mādhavan and representing the formulae for the sines of the sum and dif-
ference of two angles (together with the proof). Unwrapping such packages is
essential for the understanding of the yukti, but they circumscribe the maxi-
mum deviation from the natural use of language that can be found in YB.
One other point about the language, or rather the general style of discourse,
merits mention. The second section of chapter 7 of YB has the heading ‘technical
terms and definitions’. A demanding reader looking here for precise charac-
terisations of the concepts and terminology necessary for the formulation and
proof of the great theorem on the ‘Newton’ series to follow is likely to be
disappointed. The section is neither systematic nor complete, but only a partial
account of some of the geometric constructions and the associated nomencla-
ture needed for the proof. In all of YB, the terminology itself does not have an
invariable significance. To give one instance, the crucially important word
sam
: kalitam is used to mean both a finite sum as in earlier writing (see footnote
[15]) and, in chapter 6, integrals of several different types. In the same chapter 6,
the term yogam never means an integral, but only a finite sum whereas in chapter
7 we have, for example, arddhajyāyogam denoting the finite sum as well as the
limiting integral. On the other hand, sam : kalitam is never used for the integrals
occurring in surface and volume computations and, elsewhere in chapter 7,
khan: d: āntarayogam and khan: d: āntarasam
: kalitam are distinguished.
Such instances can be multiplied. The question is: Is this lack of precision
related in some intrinsic way to a reluctance or an inability to transcend the
limitations of natural means of communication? Following from this: To what
extent has the use of a dominantly natural language impeded the processes of
conceptualising and developing the mathematics and then communicating it?
The answer to the first question requires a thorough acquaintance with texts
contemporary with and anterior to YB (many of them written in the not very
natural language of terse mathematical Sanskrit) and is not for me to attempt.
As for how well the mathematics was conveyed, if Tampuran and Ayyar could
read the work four centuries after it was written and still make perfectly good
sense of it—though they confess to having sometimes to guess at the author’s
train of thought—Jyes: t:hadevan clearly has not made too bad a job of it.
In concluding these scattered remarks on the language of YB, I should note
that its semi-natural style is in line with that of mathematical writing in
Sanskrit over a long period.16 We should also remember that the use of a
natural language and comprehensibility do not always go together. While
there are quite a few texts which were clearly meant to be understood by an
informed reader without the need of a detailed commentary—Śankara Vār-
iyar’s works are good examples from Kerala—there are also those, generally
terse to the point of being cryptic, whose main purpose appears to have been
the transmission of the core content of a body of knowledge and whose proper
understanding requires thorough preparation or instruction. The prime
example of such an esoteric text is of course Āryabhat: ı̄ya.

16
See Frits Staal’s (1995) wide-ranging study of scientific Sanskrit as utilised in several disciplines,
including mathematics.

123
The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 433

The Mathematics

What, now, are the other mathematical ideas and techniques, aside from the
originality of the infinitesimal method and novel results it was used to prove,
that are conveyed to us by the imperfect vehicle that is the natural Malayalam
of YB? The order in which the various series occur in YB—first the numerical
series for p=4, then the ‘Gregory’ series for general angle and then, in a
veritable tour de force, the two ‘Newton’ series for sine and cosine—would
seem not to be a matter of chance. It is a logical way to proceed if we accept
that the motivation behind the search for a series of ever smaller terms whose
sum approaches, in the limit, the value p=4:

p 1 1
¼ 1
þ

4 3 5

has probably to be sought in the conviction, going back to Āryabhat:a, that p is

an irrational number and therefore cannot be written as the sum of a finite
number of fractions. Nı̄lakan: t:han, Mādhavan’s true mathematical heir and
Jyes: t:hadevan’s teacher, has this comment (in his Āryabhat: ı̄yabhās: yam)
explaining why Āryabhat:a said the value p ¼ 62832
20000 was only āsanna and, along
the way, defining an irrational number. In loose translation: ‘‘Why is an
approximate value given here rather than the true (vāstava) one? Because it
cannot be expressed. A measure which measures the diameter without a
remainder cannot measure the circumference without a remainder and vice
versa. We can only ensure the smallness of the remainder, not its absence’’.
The lack of ‘remainderlessness’ is naturally accommodated by an infinite
series expansion (though of course every infinite series of fractions does not
sum up to an irrational number, as Nı̄lakan: t:han well knew, cf. his remarks on
convergent geometric series in the same text), in a manner not very different
from the way in which infinite continued fractions arise in the use of the
Euclidean algorithm.
As described in YB, the generalisation from an infinite series representa-
tion for the number p=4 to a power series expansion for an arbitrary angle
hðh  p=4Þ in terms of tan h:

tan3 h tan5 h
h ¼ tan h
þ

3 5

involves, technically, only a small step, an elementary application of

trairā
sikam. It has no computational difficulty or significance and helps only
marginally in p determining a more accurate value for p—replacing p=4 by p=6
(tan p=6 ¼ 1= 3), for example, improves the convergence slightly. But con-
ceptually it is a giant leap, leaving behind the prop of the irrationality question
and towards a notion of what we call today a function. It can be credibly
argued that it is this step and the series expansions of sin h and cos h in powers
of h that together mark the advent of calculus, not just as a technique of

123
434 P. P. Divakaran

calculation as in the expansion of p=4, but as the beginning of a new discipline

of analysis. The basic operations of calculus make their appearance as needed
in the course of these developments: differentials of the first and second order
(which are all that is required for the sine and cosine functions), definite and
indefinite integrals, the rule for integration by parts (in computing recursively
the integral of a general power), the notion of iterated integrals (which make
sense only if an indefinite integral is understood as defining a new function, as
we would say today), the solution of an elementary differential equation,
namely d 2 y=dx2 þ y ¼ 0 for the sine and cosine functions, etc. Though the
motivating impulses may not have been the same, it is uncanny to see infinite
series (‘equations with an infinite number of terms’ in Newton’s language)
playing such a decisive part alongside the basic concepts of differentials and
integrals (‘fluxions’ and ‘fluents’) also in the early evolution of European
calculus and analysis.
The assurance with which YB handles these power series should not really
be surprising once we recognise their close affinity with the recursive methods
used systematically in diverse areas of Indian thought, including earlier
mathematical work. The most direct parallel is perhaps with the positional
notation for, say, positive integers. In his talk at this Workshop on the posi-
tional ‘language’ for the writing of numbers, John Kadvany17 highlighted the
fact that the positional representation of any positive integer is no more than
an abbreviation for a polynomial whose value it is, with coefficients from a
finite set of non-negative integers (0 to 9 in the decimal base case) when the
variable is fixed at a positive integer (=10 in the decimal case)—as Kadvany
stresses, what makes this representation possible and powerful is the fact that
integers can be added and multiplied to get other integers; in technical
language, they form a ring (once we include also negative integers).18 So do
polynomials, in the present case in one variable, and this common abstract
structure is the key to the positional notation. (When the variable is fixed at an
integer, say 10, the uniqueness of the positional representation is assured only
if the coefficients are restricted to be less than 10 and the usual carry over
rules are imposed; an exact correspondence between integers and their posi-
tional representatives requires this to be factored in). Arbitrarily large inte-
gers are so representable by polynomials of arbitrarily large degree; there is
no upper bound on the integers that can be positionally represented. Indeed,
YB invokes this property of positionally defined numbers in the very first
section (entitled ‘‘The nature of numbers’’, sam : khyāsvarūpam) of chapter 1
with the remarkable sentence: ‘‘If we endow numbers with multiplication and
positional variation, there is no end to the names of numbers; hence we cannot
know [all] the numbers and their order’’.

17
John Kadvany (2007, this issue).
18
A ring is a set whose elements can be added and subtracted as well as multiplied. Division need
not be defined and the multiplication may be noncommutative, i.e., depend on the order of the
factors. The rings mentioned in the text are all commutative.

123
The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 435

The transition from the positional representation of unboundedly large

integers to the trigonometric power series now appears natural: substitute for
the value of the base used (10 for decimal) the appropriate variable (tan h for
‘Gregory’, h for ‘Newton’) and allow the coefficients to take values in certain
determinate fractions, both positive and negative. The set of formal
(i.e., ignoring possible nonconvergence) power series with coefficients which
are fractions do form a ring just as polynomials do.
Related to this is the point that the coefficients of a power series obviously
cannot all be enumerated. They can be specified by, and effectively only by,
recursive rules in some variant or another. In YB this is done in a number of
slightly different but equivalent ways. In the statement of the ‘Gregory’ series
expansion, the first three coefficients are numerically given and then one is
instructed to take the general coefficients as the reciprocals of consecutive odd
integers with the signs alternating. For the ‘Newton’ series:

h3 h5
sin h ¼ h
þ
...:
3! 5!

h2 h4
cos h ¼ 1
þ
...;
2! 4!

the recursive specification of the coefficients is more explicit. The coefficient

s2kþ1 of h2kþ1 in the sine series is to be computed as
s2k
1
s2kþ1 ¼ :
ð2kÞ2 þ 2k

Together with the value s1 ¼ 1, also specified, repeated use of this recursion
formula leads to

s2k
1 s2k
3 1
s2kþ1 ¼ ¼ ¼  ¼ :
2kð2k þ 1Þ ð2k
2Þð2k
1Þ2kð2k þ 1Þ 1:2:::ð2k þ 1Þ

A similar rule is given for the cosine series. It should be noted that the use of
recursion is not limited to just the statement of these formulae in an eco-
nomical form. It is an organic part of the development; the formulae for the
coefficients introduce themselves recursively, so to speak, in the very process
of their computation. There is, moreover, a unity in the way the coefficients in
all these series arise. In the ‘Gregory’ series they are definite integrals (from 0
to 1 or 0 to tan h) of even powers and in the two ‘Newton’ series they are
iterated integrals of even and odd powers respectively, with positive and
negative signs alternating. It is accurate to say that the constructive proof of
their correctness is itself recursive (though I have to add that the proof is one
of the least transparent passages in all of YB).
Perhaps the best illustration from YB of the use of recursion to establish the
validity of an infinite sequence of propositions is the short passage on the

123
436 P. P. Divakaran

calculation of the general sam : kalitam given in translation earlier together with
the two sections of YB which precede it. The untranslated (for reasons of
space) sections give a recursive proof for the correctness of the values of the
integrals of powers. First I2 is computed in terms of I1 , then I3 in terms of I2 ,
both in detail. This is followed by the statement that I4 can be computed from
I3 and, generally, Ikþ1 from Ik in the same way. It is perfectly obvious that the
recursive method cannot work if all values of k, even and odd, are not con-
sidered together, even though the series for p=4 requires Ik to be determined
only for even k. Once the first step in the recursion, I2 from I1 , is done,
generalisation is straightforward, involving as the common basic step a rec-
ognisable finite form of integration by parts. Indeed, a hint that the recursive
nature of the computation was fully understood is available in the choice of
the term mūlasam : kalitam for I1 , the root sam : kalitam from which all others are
generated.
How close does all this come to the method of mathematical induction as it is
understood today? A modern formulation of the principle of induction,
essentially deductive, will go something like: The truth of an infinite sequence
of propositions Pk ; k ¼ 1; 2; . . . is established if (i) P1 is true and if (ii) Pk is
true implies Pkþ1 is true for all k. Lacking the necessary symbolic aptitude,
Mādhavan and his followers could not possibly have expressed their compu-
tation-oriented reasoning in such abstract and elegant language. But for one
not versed in logical niceties, it is difficult to see that their use of recursion, not
only to generate an infinite sequence of true mathematical statements but also
to prove them, is in any fundamental way different, once allowance is made for
the general preference in India for constructive as opposed to deductive proofs.
From a modern perspective, there are of course other issues raised by YB’s
handling of infinite series, chief among them the question of convergence. Not
surprisingly, YB is not concerned in any serious way with this question. It is
striking however that all the series occurring in YB are convergent for the
considered range of values of the variable. In particular, the geometry of
the derivation of the ‘Gregory’ series works as it is described only for angles in
the first octant which, together with the fourth, fifth and eighth octants, is also
the range in which the series converges.
But overshadowing everything else is the pervasive presence of a new way
of addressing long-standing problems arising in the geometry of the circle and
the forging of the tools required for their successful solution—in other words,
the conceptual basis and the techniques of calculus.

The Generosity of Language, the Power of Abstraction

Reading YB from today’s vantage point, it is possible to imagine several

directions along which the development of calculus as depicted in it could
have been done with greater generality, without straining the abundant con-
ceptual and computational resources it draws upon. To try to identify these
roads not taken and to speculate on why they were not taken is, in spite of the

123
The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 437

risks, a temptation not easily resisted. I shall limit myself to one particular
instance of a missed turn which, in my view, clearly brings out the possible role
of the language in which the mathematics was ‘done’, as distinct from how it
was communicated, in inhibiting the requisite degree of abstraction and
generalisation.
But first a remark, not directly related to language, on an issue YB does not
concern itself with, that of the irrationality of p. At first sight this is a sur-
prising omission, given the central position occupied by the geometry of the
circle in YB’s calculus, especially if, as I have suggested above, the infinite
series expansions grew out of the search for a method of ‘controlling’ an
irrational number like p. Also as we have seen, the person who asserted this
irrationality was none other than Nı̄lakan: t:han, Jyes: t:hadevan’s teacher and the
author of Tantrasam : graha, the source book for YB. One reason for the silence
may be technical, that a yukti for the assertion was beyond the computational
methods at the command of the Kerala school—after all, it was only in 1761
that in Europe Johann Heinrich Lambert proved Nı̄lakan: t:han’s conjecture
(without of course knowing it as such). But a more likely explanation may lie
in the philosophical underpinning of Indian science as a whole throughout its
long history. Indian mathematicians, unlike the Greeks, seem never to have
come to gripspwith proofs p of the irrationality of any number, not of the far
easier case of 2 nor of 10, often used as an approximation for p at the time
of Āryabhat:a. Almost certainly, this failure has to do with the necessity of
having to use reductio ad absurdum methods in any such putative proof. For
the Greeks, proof by contradiction, involving as it does the principle of the
excluded middle, was legitimised by the authority of Aristotle. But in India
the view that P and notP are complementary and mutually exclusive was
regarded with distrust at least by some and from at least the time of the
Buddha.19 Subsequently, reasoning by contradiction (tarka, a word which has
other meanings as well) was much debated but generally not accorded full
admissibility.20 Like all scholars, mathematicians would have had a good

19
According to the Pali canon, scepticism or agnosticism about the validity and/or usefulness of
the rule of the excluded middle was expressed by the Buddha himself. The list of questions on
which the Buddha is said to have declined to take a position includes some concerning the nature
of the physical world, e.g.: Does the universe have a finite extent or not or neither or both? The
great congress (3rd century BCE) which saw the parting of the Mahasanghikas from the orthodoxy
following a ferocious debate, and whose proceedings are recorded in the Kathāvattu, not only
made references to such ‘multi-valued’ propositions, but also discussed rules of debate and dis-
putations. It appears reasonable to suppose that a degree of scepticism about the disjointness
between a property and its negation marked the early Buddhist approach to physical phenomena,
regardless of what the Buddha actually might or might not have said on the subject.
20
In Indian philosophy, the term tarka signifies ‘‘some sort of reductio ad absurdum where an
appeal to some absurdity or absurd consequence is made in order to lend an indirect support to a
positive thesis [by showing] in fact that the opposite thesis leads to absurdities’’ (Bimal Krishna
Matilal (1986, p. 79)). The widespread reluctance to accept tarka as ‘‘a means leading to a positive
piece of knowledge’’ is also discussed there.

123
438 P. P. Divakaran

grounding in other sciences (this certainly was the case in Kerala at the rel-
evant time21 ), and it is almost inconceivable that they did not know of the
reservations regarding recourse to tarka as a means of establishing a logical
truth—YB contains not a single instance of it; elsewhere in India, it is not till a
hundred years later that we come across its first hesitant and insecure use in
mathematics.22 The fact remains that this disdain denied Indian mathematics
the use of a powerful proof device. Contrast this with Newton’s free use of it in
the Principia (Book 1) whose reliance on infinitesimal geometry (but with
diagrams supplied), especially of similar triangles, is otherwise so very remi-
niscent of the Kerala techniques.
The missed turn I wish to focus on concerns the generalisation of Mādha-
van’s series expansion of sin h in powers of h with numerical coefficients
(‘around h ¼ 0’) to an expansion around some nonzero value of h, namely an
expansion of sinð/ þ hÞ in powers of h with coefficients depending on /. This
would amount to a generalisation of the Maclaurin series for the sine function
(and the cosine function) to the corresponding Taylor series. Since such
expansions of general (sufficiently ‘good’) functions f :

df y 2 d 2 f
f ðx þ yÞ ¼ f ðxÞ þ y þ þ 
dx 2! dx2

are relatively early landmarks in European calculus, the question whether

Mādhavan’s interpolation formula can be thought of as giving the first few
terms of the Taylor series of the sine function has recently provoked some
debate.23 It may or may not be a satisfactory interpolation, but it certainly
cannot be thought of as the beginning of the Taylor expansion—there is a
numerical mismatch in the coefficient of the cubic term.
If I were time-transported to the 15th–16th century as a worthy member of
the Kerala community of mathematicians I could have pointed out (in YB’s
irresistible prose style) that, combining (i) jı̄veparasparam (the formula for
sinð/ þ hÞ), (ii) jyānayanam (the method of determining an arbitrary chord to
arbitrary accuracy, i.e. Mādhavan’s sine and cosine series) and (iii) bhu-
jākhan: dam and bhujākhan: dāntaram (the first and second differentials of sine
and cosine), the (correct) Taylor series for the sine function will result. In
detail,

21
For an examination of the epistemological roots of Kerala mathematics, from the writings of its
most thoughtful and articulate representative (Nı̄lakan: t:han), see Roddam Narasimha (2007, to
appear). It would seem that the study of the impact of philosophical systems on mathematical
thinking in the Indian context is still in its infancy. I thank Frits Staal for an elucidation of the
status of the ‘principle of non-contradiction’ in Indian thought and of the nuances one must be
sensitive to in interpreting Indian philosophical and logical writings on this issue.
22
Srinivas (2005).
23
A good starting point for following the debate regarding Mādhavan’s ‘wrong’ interpolation
formula is Kim Plofker (2005). The article is also a valuable step-by-step guide to the computation
of the interpolation formula as given in Śankara Vāriyar’s Yuktidı̄pika.

123
The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 439

sinð/ þ hÞ ¼ sin / cos h þ cos / sin h

h2 h3
¼ sin /ð1
þ   Þ þ cos /ðh
þ   Þ
2! 3!
h2 h3
¼ sin / þ h cos /
sin /
cos / þ   
2! 3!

This is computationally trivial and, by truncation, produces an interpolation

formula to any order in h. Furthermore, all derivatives of the sine function are
determined by khan: dāntaram (as also I would have pointed out):

d 2nþ1 sin / d 2n sin /

¼ ð
1Þn cos /; 2n
¼ ð
1Þn sin /
d/2nþ1 d/

and similarly of the cosine function. So Mādhavan’s expansion, when shifted

from h ¼ 0 to some (any) other point on the circle, together with a realisation
that, abstractly, a circle (a ‘uniformly round’ figure) does not distinguish one
radius from another, is exactly the Taylor series.
At issue here is not whether calculus was invented in India. That question is
already answered in the affirmative in the material available in YB: though in
an apparently different language, it is unmistakably the calculus of Newton
and Leibniz,1 but applied only to functions corresponding to arcs of the circle,
y ¼ ð1
x2 Þ2 or, parametrically, x ¼ cos h, y ¼ sin h. What Kerala mathematics
did not have was an appreciation of the great generality of the concepts and
methods it had in hand and deployed so effectively; what was missed is the
power of abstraction.
To fully appreciate the extent of this power, we only need to call to mind
how mathematics (and, to a lesser extent, the other exact sciences) has
evolved over the past few centuries, driven as it is by an increasing emphasis
on the structural properties of the sets of objects being studied, to the dis-
advantage of predominantly calculational techniques. When mathematical
objects belonging to a set are characterised by the operations that can be
carried out on them and the rules the operations have to obey (the relations
among them) we have, effectively, defined those objects in terms of the
structure of the set. An object has those properties and only those that come
from its belonging to a structurally defined set, bringing with it the freedom
to transcend the particular circumstances in which it may first have pre-
sented itself. Thus we may wish to study the set of transformations that take
a 3-dimensional cube into itself and may soon realise that the resultant of
any two such symmetry transformations is also a symmetry transformation,
their product, uniquely determined by the first two taken in order; that every
symmetry can be undone by another, its inverse, also uniquely determined;
etc., in short that it belongs to a class of sets called groups. Already at this
stage we have gone through two levels of abstraction. At the first level, we
have written down the multiplication table—the specification of the resultant
of each ordered pair of symmetry transformations—for the group of

123
440 P. P. Divakaran

symmetries of the cube. With this table in hand, we know the group fully:
there is no proposition concerning such transformations, no matter how
complicated or subtle, whose truth cannot be decided by the table alone,
without reference to the cube. It follows that all groups of transformations of
any ‘physical’ entity whatever, indeed all groups not even necessarily of
transformations, are abstractly the same group if they have the same mul-
tiplication table. At the second, deeper, level, we would recognise that,
though the group of symmetries of a cube and of, say, a regular tetrahedron
are not the same, i.e., do not have the same multiplication table, not even
the same number of elements, they still share a common abstract structure,
the structure of a group. We would then proceed to elaborate the (funda-
mentally syntactic) properties that all groups must have; in short we would
make a general theory of groups. Essentially identical considerations apply to
all algebraic structures, for instance to the rings that we invoked in connec-
tion with the positional notation.
It is obvious that I could have made my point more concisely and elegantly,
in fact more powerfully, if I had taken recourse to the language that developed
to accommodate the abstract structural point of view, a language primarily
algebraic: symbols for the various groups under consideration and for their
elements, a notation for the group operations, an economical statement of the
relations, etc., the language in which theorems/‘truth’ will be presented/
expressed. Everyone now knows that group structures occur in virtually all
sciences,24 that modern physics in particular has been revolutionised by a
systematic exploitation of the formal, syntactic, understanding we have
acquired of these structures. As for mathematics, and staying with groups, I
only mention the recently completed classification of all finite simple groups
(the recursive building blocks of all finite groups) as a general illustration of the
generative power inherent in the artificial language of algebra. Without that as
a vehicle of thought and communication, it seems inconceivable that we could
have reduced mathematical reasoning and creativity to an application of ‘‘rules
without meaning’’ so successfully.
Rules without meaning but not without purpose. Decisions about what
abstract (syntactic) structures are likely to prove ‘interesting’ and even
judgements about what results are ‘deep’ or ‘beautiful’ have still to be made
semantically, by reference to the contexts in which questions arise and are
resolved. The tension between problem-solving and theory-making, the virtual
inseparability of content and language, is arguably the main source of the
extraordinarily wide scope and power of mathematics as it is practised now
(and is perhaps also the reason for the ‘‘unreasonable effectiveness of math-
ematics in the physical sciences’’). Once the creative process of discovery is
thus algebraised and put on autopilot as it were, there is no limit to what is
discoverable—algebra is truly, infinitely, generous.
Moving back from these generalities to the Kerala of the 15th and 16th
centuries, one cannot of course be dogmatic about the extent to which pro-

24
For an unusual instance from the social sciences, see A. Weil (1949).

123
The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 441

gress towards greater abstraction and hence greater generality was inhibited
by the spurning of symbolic methods. But on the evidence of YB, it cannot be
doubted that obvious general points of view were overlooked or neglected. As
the episode of the Taylor series makes clear, an intuitive feeling for the
symmetry of the circle (the corresponding group being the group of all rota-
tions around the centre, which is not a finite group but still, structurally, a
group) did not translate into the precise understanding that this symmetry
denies a privileged role to any particular diameter, even if it is called the east-
west direction. I like to think that if only they could have been persuaded to
designate a diameter as the line AB or ab or a Malayalam equivalent thereof,
the Kerala mathematicians might have gone on eventually to a more general,
less concrete, appreciation of their own achievement.
What is puzzling in all this, at least to a non-expert, is that abstraction and
symbolic representations of objects and their relationships were not strangers
to Indian thought. Grammar (first and foremost), prosody and the classifica-
tion of meters, cosmogonic speculation, systematisation of the rules of rea-
soning and several other areas of intellectual inquiry come to mind as having
been greatly enriched by a fundamentally structural point of view. In math-
ematics, the positional notation for numbers is itself a triumph of structure
over clumsy description; as we have seen, it is pure syntax. Bhāskara the
second, who lived not more than three centuries before the efflorescence of
mathematics in Kerala and whose work was known and cherished there, was a
true algebraist; his Bı̄jagan: ita proposes the use of the names of colours to
symbolically represent variables in equations, as distinct from numerical val-
ues for them, and states the rules for manipulating them, exactly as if they
were numbers. (In a strange echo, modern physics employs the term chro-
modynamics for the interactions of quarks of different ‘colours’). Bhāskara’s
algebraic legacy seems to have been better nourished in the Arab lands than
among his own mathematical heirs in India. Perhaps, at the time and place we
are talking about, mathematics was seen as no more than a handmaiden of
astronomy, with no high intellectual standing of its own. But then, what else
but intellectual curiosity can have inspired a Nı̄lakan: t:han to cogitate on the
irrationality of p or a Mādhavan to compute it to thirteen decimal places?
Close to three hundred years after Mādhavan, Newton and Leibniz laid the
foundations of calculus as it is taught today and their 18th century followers
gave it the form and language that we still follow, more or less faithfully. That
came after the first integrations were performed in Europe, by Cavalieri,
Fermat and a host of others (perhaps only coincidentally, the integrals of
powers). The context in which this happened was vastly different from the one
in which the heroes of our narrative perfected their infinitesimal geometry of

123
442 P. P. Divakaran

the circle. Descartes had already algebraised geometry25 and both Newton
and Leibniz were well versed in the Cartesian method and philosophy. The
first ideas about a general function of a variable were taking shape and the first
correspondences between functions and the simplest curves, the conic sec-
tions, beginning to be understood. The Newton-Leibniz calculus reflects this
great opening up, especially in the willingness and ability to handle more
general functions. In the case of Newton, the Newton of the Principia in
particular, a degree of generality could not, in principle, have been avoided;
the position of a mass-particle as a function of time is a priori unknown, being
determined, in terms of a given force, only after the equations of motion are
solved. (In contrast, with the early exception of Āryabhat:a with his belief in a
spinning earth and ideas on relative motion, Indian theories of the motion of
celestial bodies were almost entirely descriptive, paying little heed to possible
underlying causes). It is in this fundamental respect, in the recognition that the
infinitesimal method is of universal applicability, that the European calculus
of the late 17th century—even while admitting that an acceptable foundation
for it was not laid till the middle of the 19th—can be seen to have gone far
beyond Mādhavan’s pathbreaking achievements. If history were different and
granted them the time, could Mādhavan’s followers have taken their own road
one day to this high ground? Going by what YB tells us, we must remain
sceptical. For one thing, there is the much-discussed difference in the Euro-
pian and Indian approaches to doing mathematics, summarised in the catch
words ‘deductive’ or ‘axiomatic’ and ‘constructive’ or ‘computational’. Our
look at (a tiny sample of) YB’s contents provides, I think, enough evidence
that a more severe obstacle was the aversion to a spare and refined language
and the consequent absence of a structural or general point of view.
But what history brought was the Portuguese incursion into Kerala, sig-
nalling another period of strife and disorder. The resistance to the invaders
was led by none other than the Zamorin who, in his other traditional role, was
overlord and protector of the temples and patron of learning. The delta of the
river Nila saw much violence and bloodshed during the very time in which,
half a day’s walk away, Nı̄lakan: t:han, Jyes: t:hadevan and others were teaching
and writing down their new mathematics in their temple villages. All the great
texts date from this turbulent 16th century and with its end mathematics in
Kerala also went into terminal decline.

25
Two and a half centuries before Descartes, Nicole Oresme (or Nicolas d’Oresme) had taken the
first step to liberate space from its Euclidean literalness and give it a more metaphorical role by
plotting on a plane the graph of a ‘function’ of a ‘variable’. I owe my acquaintance with Oresme’s
work to David Mumford, who is also responsible for the characterisation above of its significance.
The Indian view of geometry is, if anything, more down-to-earth than the Greek—compare (i) the
use of the terms bhūmi and base for the ‘horizontal’ line in a polygon in the two traditions, (ii)YB’s
instruction to ‘drop a plumbline’ with drawing (or dropping!) a perpendicular, not necessarily to a
base, and several other similar instances. Notable coincidence: Oresme and Mādhavan (if we
accept the conventional chronolgy) lived at about the same time, the former being the senior by 20
or 30 years.

123
The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhās: ā 443

Acknowledgements Over the years of my involvement with YB I have frequently enjoyed the
generous hospitality of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, for which I express my
gratitude. My thanks go also to several friends, in particular Frits Staal, David Mumford and M. S.
Narasimhan, for encouragement and much critical stimulation and advice.

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