Brief by Shorts91 Newsdesk / 11:07am on 31 Aug 2025,Sunday Education
PP Divakaran (PPD), a physicist turned pre-eminent historian of Indian mathematics, passed away recently in Kochi. A polymath and clarifier of complex ideas, he authored The Mathematics of India: Concepts, Methods, Connection, spotlighting ancient Indian mathematicians on the global stage. PPD argued that Aryabhata expressed a rational, even “godless secularist” mindset—eschewing traditional invocations—and may have hinted at Earth’s rotation through verses in the Āryabhatiya. He also provided evidence that the Kerala Nila school developed trigonometric series for sine, cosine, and their inverses long before Western mathematicians. (PC: X)
