Augustus De Morgan, famous mathematician at Cambridge, received a book from one of his friends in India in 1850 titled A Treatise on Problems of Maxima and Minima; Solved by Algebra by an India Ramchundra. Morgan was highly impressed by the work. And, decided to get it published and bring it to the notice of European scholarship.
Morgan later wrote, “On examining this work I saw in it, not merely merit worthy of encouragement, but merit of a peculiar kind, the encouragement of which, as it appeared to me, was likely to promote native effort towards the restoration of the native mind in India.”
Morgan, whose birth place was Madurai in India, regarded his country of birth in high regard. As a man whose father and uncles had served as senior officers in the English East India Company (EEIC), Morgan took the matter to the Court of Directors of the East-India Company. He cajoled them to reward Ramchundra and popularise the work in Europe.
Sophia Elizabeth De Morgan, wife of Morgan, recalled, “With his lively interest in all that belonged to India, the land of his birth, and with his still wider interest in every effort of original thought,especially where, as bearing the impress of national character, it had place in the history of mental progress, he called the attention of the Court of Directors to the work of the Hindoo teacher, suggesting that Ramchundra should receive a reward for his work, and that the work itself should be brought under the notice of Mathematicians in Europe. After some correspondence with the authorities and with Ramchundra himself, the Court expressing entire concurrence in his views, his offer to superintend the reprint of Ramchundra’s work was accepted. It was a work of some labour, because it was done so thoroughly.”
The book written by Ramchundra under the superintendence of Morgan was published from London in 1859. It had a 23 pages of preface written by Morgan which traced the history of mathematics in India, its relevance and an introduction to Ramchundra.
Morgan wrote, “Ramchundra, the author of this work, has transmitted to me some notes of his own life, from which I collect as follows. He was born in 1821, at Paneeput (Panipat), about fifty miles from Delhi. His father, Soondur Lall (Sunder Lal), was a Hindoo Kaeth (Kayasth), and a native of Delhi, and was there employed under the collector of the revenue….. In 1844, he was appointed teacher of European science in the Oriental department of the college, through the medium of the vernacular, with fifty rupees a month additional. A vernacular translation society was instituted, and Ramchundra, in aid of its object, translated or compiled works in Oordoo (Urdu), and also on algebra, trigonometry, &c. , up to the differential and integral calculus.”
Afterwards, Morgan quoted Ramchundra’s letters. Where the latter had written, ” I, with the assistance of the higher students of the English and Oriental departments, formed a society for the diffusion of knowledge among our countrymen. We were ambitious enough to imitate the plan of the Spectator. We first commenced a monthly, and then a bi-monthly periodical, called the Fawáedánnázireen (i.e. useful to the reader) , at the cheap price of four annas a month, in which notices of English science were given, and in which not only were the dogmas of the Mohamedan and Hindoo philosophy exposed, but also many of the Hindoo superstitions and idolatries were openly attacked. The result of this was that many of our countrymen, the Hindoos, condemned us as infidels and irreligious ; but as we did not advocate Christianity, but only recommended a kind of deism, and as we never lost our caste publicly, by eating and drinking, all our free discussions did not much alarm our Hindoo friends. When in private meetings our friends, seeing us so warmly advocating English science and knowledge, taunted us by saying we will become Christians, as such and such pundit had become, then we considered this as an insult, and stated in reply, that the pundit referred to had not received any English education, and that he was ignorant, and was therefore deceived by the missionaries, whom we considered as ignorant and superstitious as our own uneducated friends.”
Ramchundra further reports,
“A respectable and learned Mohamedan, secretly assisted by some other celebrated moolwees of the city, published a treatise in Oordoo (Urdu) in refutation of the motion of the earth, on the principles of Aristotelian philosophy ; the whole train of reasonings being copied almost verbatim from a metaphysical work in Arabic, called Myboodee. But no sooner was this publication made over to us, than a moolwee, and some higher students of the Arabic department, got up a sharp reply, and published it ; to which no answer was returned. Afterwards, in addition to the bimonthly periodical, we commenced a monthly magazine, called the Moohib-i- Hind, or the Friend of India. But it must be confessed that we did not receive sufficient support from the native public, and it was principally through the patronage of English authorities, as Sir John Lawrence (the magistrate of Delhi) , Mr. A. A. Roberts (ditto ditto) , Dr. A. Ross, Mr. J. F. Gubbins (then judge at Delhi) , who subscribed for several copies of our periodicals, that we got sufficient money to pay the expenses of our publications. But afterwards, times and circumstances being changed, we were compelled to discontinue them; so that, in 1852, the bi-monthly periodical was also discontinued, after being kept up more than five years.
“In 1850 I published the mathematical work to which this account of my humble life is intended to be attached. As the work was published in Calcutta, I requested a friend of mine there to present copies of it to distinguished men in that city ; but the reviews published in some Calcutta papers were generally unfavourable to the publication. “
It must be noted that Ramchundra published the book with his own money and had no financial support. Dr. Drinkwater Bethune purchased 36 copies from him for Rs. 200 and mailed them to his friends in Europe, Morgan received one of the copies.
After the book was published, Ramchundra was awarded with a khillut (dress) and Rs. 2000 by the English Government. Before this, Ramchundra translated daily news for the English army during the revolt of 1857. Later, he served as headmaster Thomason Civil Engineering College at Roorkee (now, IIT-Roorkee) and afterwards headmaster at a Delhi school.
This Indian mathematician was making news in Europe at least three decades before Srinivasa Ramanujan took birth.
Charles Muses wrote in his review of Ramchundra’s work, “Ramchundra ends his book on page 185 by saying he had more to say, “but being afraid of enlarging the work too much, I conclude these sheets.” We may well wish the author had not so politely “feared” here, for he placed a jewel in our hands. Several years after finding Ramchundra, I came across Ivan Niven’s well written-book ‘Maxima and Minima Without Calculus’ (Mathematical Association of America, 1981). Though Niven addresses the same ideas and even some of the same problems as Ramchundra addressed over a century earlier, he has completely overlooked his Indian predecessor. Despite the illustrious, De Morgan’s efforts to make this remarkable Hindu algebraist known, Ramchundra does not appear in Niven’s text, index, or bibliography.”
(The views are personal to the author)
