T.A. Sarasvati Amma

T. A. Sarasvati Amma (Tekkath Amayankottukurussi Kalathil Sarasvati, also spelt as T. A. Saraswathi Amma; 26 December 1918 – 15 August 2000)

Biography Sarasvati Amma (born in Cherpulachery, Palakkad district, Kerala) was the second daughter of her mother Kuttimalu Amma and father Marath Achutha Menon to a Nair family. In the words of Michio Yano, who reviewed Sarasvati Amma's book Geometry in Ancient and Medieval India, the book "established a firm foundation for the study of Indian geometry".

According to David Mumford, along with Kim Plofker's book Mathematics in India, "there is only one other survey, Datta and Singh’s 1938 History of Hindu Mathematics...supplemented by the equally hard to find Geometry in Ancient and Medieval India by Sarasvati Amma (1979)", where, "one can get an overview of most topics" in Indian mathematics.

Her book Geometry in Ancient and Medieval India is a survey of the Sanskrit and Prakrt scientific and quasi-scientific literature of India, beginning with the Vedic literature and ending with the early part of the 17th century. It deals in detail with the Sulba Sutras in the Vedic literature, with the mathematical parts of Jaina Canonical works and of the Hindu Siddhantas and with the contributions to geometry made by the astronomer mathematicians Aryabhata I & II, Sripati, Bhaskara I & II, Sangamagrama Madhava, Paramesvara, Nilakantha, his disciples and a host of others. The works of the mathematicians Mahavira, Sridhara and Narayana Pandita and the Bakshali Manuscript have also been studied. The work seeks to explore the theory that the Indian mathematical genius was predominantly algebraic and computational and that it eschewed proofs and rationales. There was a school in India which delighted in geometric demonstrations of algebraic results.

She was the doctoral advisor to historian of mathematics Radha Charan Gupta for his thesis “Trigonometry in Ancient and Medieval India”.

Selected publications

Book

Papers