Prof. Ramasubramaniam, IIT, Bombay
Prof. Ramasubramanian is a traditionally trained Sanskrit scholar and also holds a doctorate in Theoretical Physics. His investigations of the classical Indian texts have shed a lot of light on the development of Indian Mathematics and Astronomy

It is fairly well known that mathematicians and astronomers of the Kerala
School pioneered by Madhava (c. 1340{1420) of Sangamagrama have blazed a trial
in the study of analysis by expressing and other trigonometric functions in the
form of innite series. Though Madhava's works containing these series are not
extant today, by way of citations that are found in the later works, we come to
know that Madhava anticipated some of the discoveries made by Newton, Gregory
and Leibniz, a couple of centuries later.
What is noteworthy is, besides discovering the so-called `Gregory-Leibniz' se-
ries, which is an excruciatingly slowly converging one, Madhava has also obtained
several fast-convergent approximations of the same. Interestingly, all the series
have been couched in the form of beautiful metrical compositions in Sanskrit.
During the talk, starting with the origin of mathematics in India, we shall try
to trace the need that was felt by the astronomer-mathematicians for developing
that branch of mathematics which goes by the name of innitesmal calculus today.
We will also discuss the approach taken by Indian mathematicians in arriving at
the innite series|which is considered to be one of the most brilliant achievements
of the human mind.