T. A. Sarasvati Amma (Tekkath Amayankottukurussi Kalathil Sarasvati, also spelled as T. A. Saraswathi Amma; 26 December 1918 – 15 August 2000) was a scholar born in

Cherpulassery Cherpulassery (also known by its former name Cherpulacherry) is a town and municipality in the Palakkad district, of Kerala, India. Cherpulassery is often called the Sabarimala of Malabar as the famous Ayyappankavu temple is located here . The ...

Palakkad Palakkad (), formerly known as Palghat, historically known as Palakkattussery is a city and municipality in the Indian state of Kerala. It is the administrative headquarters of the Palakkad District. Palakkad is most densely populated municipal ...

District,

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. She has contributed to the fields of history of Mathematics and Sanskrit, through her work on ''Geometry of ancient and medieval India''.

Biography

Sarasvati Amma (born in Cherpulachery,

Palakkad district Palakkad District () is one of the 14 districts in the Indian state of Kerala. It was carved out from the southeastern region of the former Malabar District on 1 January 1957. It is located at the centre of Kerala. It is the largest district i ...

) was the second daughter of her mother Kuttimalu Amma and father Marath Achutha Menon. She took her basic degree in mathematics and physics from

Madras University The University of Madras (informally known as Madras University) is a public state university in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. Established in 1857, it is one of the oldest and among the most prestigious universities in India, incorporated by an a ...

and obtained an M.A. degree in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

from Benares Hindu University. She did her research under the guidance of Dr.

V. Raghavan Venkataraman Raghavan (1908–1979) was a Sanskrit scholar and musicologist. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including the Padma Bhushan and the Sahitya Akademi Award for Sanskrit, and authored over 120 books and 1200 articles. Early ...

, a

scholar. Sarasvati Amma taught at Sree Kerala Varma College,

Thrissur Thrissur (), formerly Trichur, also known by its historical name Thrissivaperur, is a city and the headquarters of the Thrissur district in Kerala, India. It is the third largest urban agglomeration in Kerala after Kochi and Kozhikode, and t ...

, Maharaja's College,

Ernakulam Ernakulam () is the Central Business District of the city of Kochi in Kerala, India and has lent its name to the Ernakulam district. Many major establishments, including the Kerala High Court, the office of the Kochi Municipal Corporation a ...

and also at Women's College,

Ranchi Ranchi (, ) is the capital of the Indian state of Jharkhand. Ranchi was the centre of the Jharkhand movement, which called for a separate state for the tribal regions of South Bihar, northern Odisha, western West Bengal and the eastern area ...

. She served Shree Shree Lakshmi Narain Trust Mahila Mahavidyalaya,

Dhanbad Dhanbad is the second-most populated city in the Indian state of Jharkhand after Jamshedpur. It ranks as the 42nd largest city in India and is the 33rd largest million-plus urban agglomeration in India. Dhanbad shares its land borders with Pa ...

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...

as its principal from 1973 to 1980. After retirement she spent her last years in her home town

Ottappalam Ottapalam, (also spelled Ottappalam) is a town, taluk and municipality in the Palakkad District, Kerala, India. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ottapalam taluk. Ottapalam is located about 36 km from district headquarters Palakkad. ...

. She died in 2000. Her younger sister T. A. Rajalakshmi was a well-known story-writer and novelist in

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

, but committed suicide in 1965.

Academic career

The

Kerala Mathematical Association Kerala Mathematical Association is an organisation established in 1962 to serve the mathematical community comprising students, teachers and researchers inside Kerala and outside. It has a membership of around 1000 of which nearly half are life m ...

started a regular ''Prof. T. A. Sarasvati Amma Memorial Lecture'' in its annual conference in 2002. 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 Kim Leslie Plofker (born November 25, 1964) is an American historian of mathematics, specializing in Indian mathematics. Education and career Born in Chennai, India, Plofker received her bachelor's degree in mathematics from Haverford College. She ...

'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 Indian mathematics emerged in the Indian subcontinent from 1200 BCE until the end of the 18th century. In the classical period of Indian mathematics (400 CE to 1200 CE), important contributions were made by scholars like Aryabhata, Brahmagupta ...

. 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 upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''. The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...

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 The word Nilakantha may refer to: * Shiva, one of the principal deities of Hinduism * ''Nilakantha'' (spider), a genus of jumping spiders * Neelakantha Chaturdhara (Nīlakaṇṭha Caturdhara), seventeenth-century commentator on the ''Mahābhārat ...

, 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 explode 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.

Selected publications

Book

Papers

* * * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amma, T.A. Sarasvati Malayali people Indian women mathematicians 1918 births 2000 deaths 20th-century Indian mathematicians 20th-century Indian women writers Scientists from Kerala People from Palakkad district University of Madras alumni Writers from Kerala Indian women science writers Indian scientific authors Indian Sanskrit scholars Banaras Hindu University alumni Academic staff of Maharaja's College, Ernakulam 20th-century Indian women scientists Women writers from Kerala 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers Women scientists from Kerala Indian technology writers Indian popular science writers 20th-century women mathematicians