While I would agree with the general tenor of Janaki Nair’s piece (“ >For a newly imagined ‘historical temper’ ”, Feb.7) on the need to respect alternative versions of the past, her choice of illustration of the remarkable work by Kerala mathematicians in the 14th and 15th centuries was unfortunate. Her highlighting David Pingree as the authority who brought Kerala mathematics to the fore in some unnamed paper is ill-advised, when there are many more deserving candidates such as K.V. Sarma and Saraswathi Amma. The questions that have been raised by the presence of the Madhava School have been studied quite extensively in recent years. Whether they influenced the development of calculus elsewhere remains a moot point since no ‘smoking gun’ has been discovered as yet. This remarkable episode of Kerala mathematics should be known to a wider audience. I would recommend the reading of the relevant sections of the Crest of the Peacok: Non-European Roots of Mathematics (Princeton University Press, 2011) and then moving on to A Passage to Infinity (Sage Publishers, 2009).
George Gheverghese Joseph,
Vizhinjam, Kerala
