Localizing Mathematical Pedagogy in Medieval Kerala

Abstract

This presentation contextualizes the composition and reception of the 16th
century Malayāḷam mathematical text, the Gaṇita Yuktibhāṣā of Jyeṣṭhadeva, which
was composed as a commentary to a slightly earlier Sanskrit astronomical treatise, the
Tantrasaṅgraha of Nīlakaṇṭha Somayājī. This commentarial text has remained
continuously popular in Kerala, but has had a complicated reception in colonial and
post-colonial scholarship. I begin this paper with an overview of its reception in the
19th century, with an examination of colonial scholarly assessments of the work, and
the current challenges to situating it in the larger regional linguistic tradition to
which it properly belongs. I propose some connections with the sociocultural and
linguistic backdrop of the period in which the text was composed, to explain the
unusual choice of the vernacular in composing such a mathematically original
treatise. Locating the text’s composition within this linguistic evolution, I then survey
its deployment of technical vocabulary which, I argue, draws consciously and
creatively from both Sanskrit and the vernacular traditions in the service of a
discursive pedagogy. In this sense, I suggest that the Yuktibhāṣā was conceived as a
participatory response to ongoing linguistic transformations, while also catering to
the requirements of a localized, scholarly audience.