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Jesuits, 'soldiers of Christ', aren't your average priests. An order founded in 1540, it had great emphasis on scholarship, learning native languages and unorthodox approaches to missionary work. Pope Francis is a Jesuit, which explains his liberal views
economist.com/blogs/newsbook…
economist.com/blogs/newsbook…
Naturally, the Jesuits had no qualms about amassing any astronomical & mathematical knowledge from the pagan lands they went to proselytize in. India was no exception. They were very active in Kerala, where they gained access to Yuktibhasa, the seminal manuscript of Calculus.
At that time, Europe was struggling with a calendar problem-Their Julian calendar with leaps years had cumulatively lost 8 days by 1200s & kept getting worse! Pope Gregory ordered the Jesuits to gather whatever knowledge they could from Pagans-They came back with Indian Calculus
But neither Jesuits NOR ANY of the European scholars at that time had the mental capacity to understand the ADVANCED calculus. Not Galilio, not Copernicus, not Tycho Brahe. They stared stupidly at the Calculus in the manuscripts, taking only the astronomy
Even the chief Jesuit mathematician Christopher Clavius who oversaw the manuscript gathering & calendar reform was helpless. It is notable that he was one of the FIRST Europeans to start using the INDIAN decimal point- Probably the only thing he understood from the Yuktibhasa😂
While Clavius took the decimal system from the Pagan texts, others too were busy in their appropriations. Tycho Brahe who undoubtedly had direct access to Kerala school manuscripts did a blunder deserving a new proverb-
"When you copy someone's work, you also copy the blunders"
"When you copy someone's work, you also copy the blunders"
Tycho Brahe, while studying the Yuktibhasa, stumbled upon the erroneous planetary model of Neelakantha Somayaji who believed that all planets except earth revolves around the sun, which in turn revolves around the earth- the 'Tychonic Model'.
Coincidence?
Coincidence?
Tycho's predecessor Nicholas Copernicus had already obtained the heliocentric model from the texts of Brahmagupta and Bhaskara via Arab sources . But the copy-cat disciple took a step backwards.This caused disagreement with assistant Johannes Keplar who fixed it after Tycho died.
Johannes Keplar finally compiled all the astronomical knowledge amassed from Aryabhatta, Brahmagupta, Bhaskara and Madhava and declared the 'Laws of planetary motion', components of which was already known in India since Aryabhatta including the law of 'elliptical orbits'.
But we still haven't reached calculus!
None of these people could understand it, let alone apply it! Not even the great Johannes Keplar. They only took the necessary astronomy for Gregorian reforms,the decimal, rudimentary mathematics & some blunders. .
None of these people could understand it, let alone apply it! Not even the great Johannes Keplar. They only took the necessary astronomy for Gregorian reforms,the decimal, rudimentary mathematics & some blunders. .
Calculus waited for the day another Avatara, a genius like Bhaskara or Madhava to take birth again!
Back in India, we had already sunk into the darkest age. Vijayanagar fell & the whole country plunged into desert barbarism. Kerala school, the last temple of reason, also died out
Back in India, we had already sunk into the darkest age. Vijayanagar fell & the whole country plunged into desert barbarism. Kerala school, the last temple of reason, also died out
That genius was born in 1642. He was Issac Newton. He finally comprehended the calculus, applied it to the law of gravitation(which itself was discovered by Bhaskara) unifying physics & math.
For First time in history, Europe overtook India in science.
For First time in history, Europe overtook India in science.
A correction here is due-Though Indian astronomy was geocentric, heliocentric periods are also seen in the siddhantas. Copernicus was not directly accessing the Indian texts, but refined, secondary, translated works of Arabs. Even a discoverychannel show on this has been aired
I have compiled in as concisely few tweets as possible only the key motives & circumstances of the transmission. But the actual mathematical aspects, additional evidences & implications are complex.Please share with family, friends & also strangers.It's the only way to reclaim it
For those who wish to have a deeper understanding, do read "Cultural Foundations of Mathematics: The Nature of Mathematical Proof " by Prof CK Raju. It is quite technical & abstruse. A bit costly too. An easier way is his website ckraju.net
It was not just Issac newton though. In the 17th century, a large number of Europeans were having independent access to these manuscripts. And they were all claiming to have rediscovered the mathematical results on their own! Shameless! Leibniz, Fermat, Euler, Pascal and others!
The results in the Yuktibhasa started popping up ALL OVER Europe like pimples at the same time.In the 17thC! They gave their own name to the infinite series. Newton & Leibniz were bitterly fighting over it! Thieves fighting over who stole it first!
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz%E…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz%E…
But the fact of the matter is, NONE OF THEM could produce formal proof of how they derived the results. They had pulled it out of thin air. Thats why we have a story of Newton & the apple of enlightenment falling on his head! But we know Yuktibhasa was not grown on an apple tree
Sums it up.. 
But he knew that he was appropriating without due attribution to sources. That is exactly what plagiarism means. Perhaps he felt guilty.For he may not have known the names of the intellectual giants-Bhaskara, Madhava, Jyesthadeva, Neelakanta-The true fathers of Analytical science
Madhava- The founding father of Calculus- A man without whom we would STILL be living in the medieval age without ANY technology. It would have taken hundreds of years more for humans to hold a mobile phone! What a tragedy that not even IIT graduates have heard of his name!
What an ABSOLUTE LUDICROUS JOKE Indian history textbooks are! How long will we take to throw out Marxists and western stooges infesting our academic institutions?When will true historians take control of history? Macaulay must be laughing in his grave, His slaves serve him still!
Below is one of the 1ST application of infinite series ever.Madhava used HIS invention to find the value of Pi, correct to 11 decimal places. Then he derived the so called 'Taylor series'- 'rediscovered' by Brook Taylor 1715 & Trigonometric series 'rediscovered' by Gregory 1660s
The glorious Guru-Shishya Paramapara of Kerala. They were ALL Vedic scholars in addition, proficient in Advaitha and one or the other of the Shrautasutras.
The line of teachers actually traces way back to Bhaskara and others. After north India fell to invaders, after the Mahaviharas were burnt, Kerala was the last refuge of reason in India. It was protected by the impenetrable wall of Vijayanagar empire.But that wall also broke....
KSOM was based in Irinjalakuda. The Mysore invasion of Kerala by Hyder Ali & #TipuSultan was DIRECTLY responsible for ending it. The last Kerala Mathematician Sankara Varman(1774–1839) fled to Travancore when temples & institutions were destroyed by him.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankara_V…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankara_V…
#TippuSultan literally extinguished the last flicker of science and reason in India. We discovered and contributed NOTHING after he and his father put an end to the Kerala school of Mathematics
As an Indian, it disheartens me to see people call him a hero and elevate him to glory
As an Indian, it disheartens me to see people call him a hero and elevate him to glory
Sankara Varman, the last Kerala Mathematician, fled to Travancore and later became a friend of CM Whish, a British officer at Madras who was also a Linguist and adept at Math. He was astonished by the sophisticated calculus in the possession of Sankara.
Whish tried to bring it to the attention of his superior officers and publish reports on the development of Calculus in India predating Newton by centuries. But the amount of racism and arrogance on the part of his conceited fellow British were beyond his imagination.
But Whish had studied the Yuktibhasa and Tantrasamgraha and was convinced that the proofs contained therein were far superior to that of any European before him. (And would begin to be matched only later that century in 1871 with Georg Cantor)
www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Wh…
www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Wh…
A fitting passage to end this unbelievably distressing story of intellectual dishonesty, appropriation and racist history writing by European historians of science and their Indian votaries.
The above link to the short biography of Whish was gratefully received by me from @saradapdevi (Lest I end a story of appropriation with another appropriation 😄)
