To: Gswamynathan@sanskriticuniv.com
From: McDiarmidsquared@gmail.com
21 June
Dear Professor Swaminathan,
I read with interest your paper attempting to prove that Indian Sanskritic mathematicians first formulated the equation which the world knows and acknowledges as the geometrical discovery of Pythagoras, viz, that the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides.
Interesting though your attempt to prove this is, I am writing to say that your contention is full of conjecture and that what you call your “proof” that Aryabhata formulated the Pythagorean (forgive my insistence on calling it by that name) theorem is just based on a sketch by the prehistoric Baudhayana.
As a fellow academician I feel I should write to you and declare (confess?) that I am working on a refutation of your thesis and its conclusions which I intend to publish in the journal of the Royal Mathematical Society.
I am certain that the editors of the journal will be privileged to give you space to reply to my examination and critique of your rewriting of mathematical and civilisational history. I look forward to the debate and to subjecting your thesis to assessment by other mathematical historians.
I remain your humble servant,
Dr Colin McDiarmid, FRMS
T0: McDiarmidsquared@gmail.com
From: Gswamynathan@sanskriticuniv.com
24 June
Dear Dr McDiarmid,
How pleasant though surprising to get a letter from the foremost world authority on Pythagoras. I very much look forward to reading and studying your attempt at refuting my thesis—nay, call it discovery!—of the truth of Aryabhata’s proofs in the equation of squares. You will find that it is irrefutable.
Just as you have kindly given me notice of your intentions, I am returning the compliment by telling you that I and a colleague at the Sanskritic University are working on proof positive that Western scholars knew about the discovery of Aryabhata (and also several other mathematical innovations from India) but deliberately and maliciously suppressed the knowledge.
Doctorji, you have used very lofty language such as “civilisational history” and accused me of distorting it. We intend to positively prove the fraudulence of the claims of European historians of the mathematical and scientific fields, and for good measure we will also prove that a deliberate colonial and Orientalist ideological bent of mind prevailed and inspired the perfidious suppression of truth.
I hope, doctorji, that your last comment about peer review was not meant as a threat!
With best wishes,
Prof Ganesh Swaminathan
To: Gswamynathan@sanskriticuniv.com
From: McDiarmidsquared@gmail.com
17 July
Dear Prof Swaminathan,
I don’t know of any scientist or historian who would take an allusion to peer review of his or her work as a “threat”. It is in the West an accepted part of research and verification.
I have now consulted my colleague, the professor of Sanskrit at Oxford. He assures me that the work of Baudhayana and Katyayana can in no way be seen to anticipate the Pythagorean theorem.
It’s rather far-fetched, isn’t it? To base your entire contention on some prehistoric sketches and faint diagrams, attributed to characters who may or may not have existed. Nevertheless, I and my “Western” colleagues would welcome further elucidation of this recondite connection, which frankly eludes all those I know who have read your paper.
Ever,
C McDiarmid (FRMS)
T0: McDiarmidsquared@gmail.com
From: Gswamynathan@sanskriticuniv.com
19 July
Dear C McDiarmid,
I am in receipt of your latest email and find it puzzling. You said initially you were writing a rebuttal of my historical and mathematical arguments in a learned journal. Instead you have sent me some half-baked argument about dates of pre-Vedic and Vedic mathematicians. Is that your only response to my proof? I thought the British mottos were stiff upper lip and keep your powder dry!
I am aware that part of your distinguished career has entailed expositions of the influences on and precursors of Pythagoras—all Greek to me, as you racist British say—and no doubt the fact that it is a Sanskritic theorem and not Pythagoras’ theorem will put a dent in your extensive work, if not cause it to crumble entirely.
I appreciate that the loss of the three-square equation from Pythagoras’ reputation would leave very little else. It would not of course demolish the truth that Pythagoras, far from being a scientific observer, was a fantasist and a sophist given to superstition. Isn’t it a fact, doctorji, that your Pythagoras was scared of beans? Didn’t he write several attacks on beans to the effect that the souls of evil spirits inhabited them and didn’t he forbid Greeks from cultivating and eating them? I suppose, with the theorem taken away from his work, scholars specialising in Pythagoras would have to concentrate on his bean obsession.
I wish you luck with that one.
Yours sincerely,
Prof G Swaminathan
T0: Gswamynathan@sanskriticuniv.com
From: McDiarmidsquared@gmail.com
7 August
Dear Prof Swaminathan,
I do apologise for the delay in replying to your interesting email.
You are of course right. The Pythagorean theorem is central to the work of the first known person to have called himself a philosopher.
It is true that I have twice addressed the question of Pythagorean “bean phobia”. Once in my paper entitled “The Supernatural Invasion of Olympus in Pythagorean Thought” and the other in “Idealism’s Infusion in Pythagorean Materialism”. Do study them, if you are so inclined. They may indicate to you that what you dare to call “superstition” may have reason—perhaps not evident to us yet—behind it.
And speaking of superstition, hasn’t it become fashionable even among your colleagues at your “Sanskritic ‘University’” to claim that ancient Indians discovered genetics, flew flying saucers and performed surgical transplants? And isn’t this reasoning, into which your fantasy about Indians discovering the theorem falls, part of some revival of a false ancient pride which has led to religious division and heinous assaults in your country?
I think before you venture to cast stones about “superstition”, look around at the “academic” glasshouse in which you live!
Truly,
C McDiarmid (MA Cantab, PhD FRMS)
T0: McDiarmidsquared@gmail.com
From: Gswamynathan@sanskriticuniv.com
8 Aug
Dear McDiarmid,
So now we have it. I expect nothing better from Western racist, colonial attitudes. You can’t countenance the research that the Sanskritic University and other Indian institutions are doing because it threatens your expertise, and perhaps, livelihood.
I have now read your absurd papers on Pythagoras’ theses on beans being infested with deadly devils. It is clear: take away the square theorem from Pythagoras and what are you left with? Some witch doctor writing mumbo jumbo about beans!
Your attack on my arguments and discoveries seems to be no better.
G Swaminathan
T0: Gswamynathan@sanskriticuniv.com
From: McDiarmidsquared@gmail.com
11 September
Dear Prof Swaminathan,
In case you haven’t seen it, I attach my essay refuting your argument about the theorem. You will note that I have pointed out in the course of my refutation, with dates and proof positive, that there was certainly some interchange of ideas across the trade routes between India, China and Greece at the time of and before the Pythagorean era. I have in all intellectual honesty considered the possibility of an East–West transfer of this pivotal mathematical discovery but have proved that if there was a transfer, which is doubtful, it was from the West to the East.
Again in fairness and in the interests of intellectual debate, I have persuaded the editors of the journal of the RMS to write to you with an offer to publish any reply you or your colleagues may wish to make to my refutation.
I remain your humble servant,
Colin McDiarmid
(One attachment of 32 pages)
T0: Gswamynathan@sanskriticuniv.com
From: McDiarmidsquared@gmail.com
1 October
Dear Professor Swaminathan,
I have received no word from you or reaction to my paper. Several people, Indians and others, have written to the journal and, indeed, to me, with comments.
The editors of the journal tell me that they have made at least two approaches to you and have had no reply. I do hope that your reticence is not owing to anything other than that you are preparing the arguments or defences of your thesis. I hope you are in good health. In the interests of historical enquiry, I look forward to a detailed assault on my refutation of your constructs. Let battle commence!
Yours ever,
Dr C McDiarmid
T0: McDiarmidsquared@gmail.com
From: Gurunath666@me.com
Dear Professor McDiarmid,
Allow me to introduce myself and forgive me for intruding in your august
correspondence. I am Ganpat Gurunath, secretary to Professor Ganesh Swaminathan. I am officially reading, transcribing, etc, all his official and, even sometimes, his personal, private correspondence.
I have seen the emails from the editor and from you asking why professorji is not answering your queries. I have great respect for your pre-eminence and was quite disappointed that professorji did not revert to you or the esteemed editors with their generous offer.
I have from my own bat decided to make amends and give you an explanation for the deafening silence. Please don’t take it as an intrusion on professorji’s privacy. You were very kindly asking if professorji was in good health. Actually, he is in physical good health but recently has suffered some very heavy worry.
His son is married with two children, one girl and one two-years-old boy. The young boy suddenly in the night began to vomit and got very ill, and professorji, his son and his daughter-in-law, all rushed off to the hospital where the professor saheb is well acquainted with the big doctors.
As he told me next day, ten doctors and 15 nurses were gathered around the little boy, whose red corpuscle count had fallen to life-threatening levels. They gave the poor infant blood transfusions and antibiotics.
Doctorji, you can imagine how worried our professorji was for the little grandson whom he loves very much. This was on the same day that your attachment of the essay you have written came to our office, and I printed and filed it for his attention. He certainly read it in the next few days when he came to office.
I and the professorji’s students were enquiring every two hours after the health of the little boy. Five or six days thereafter, the consultant doctor specialist came up with the diagnosis. By this time, the boy, thank God, was recovered and was eating by mouth, and laughing and playing.
What the doctor said was that the little infant had a genetical disease called G6PD which was transmitted to him by his mother, professorji’s daughter-in-law, who is from a caste called Parsis. The doctor said that this caste and community carry this disease because they come from Persia, which in olden times included Greece and Italy. Our family didn’t know about this.
Sir, I am writing about this to you because the expert doctor asked the little boy’s mother what he had eaten that day and she told him that he ate his normal food. Then the doctor asked if the little boy had eaten any broad beans and his father said yes. They grow in the back garden and when he was playing there, the little boy was plucking the broad beans and simply loving them. That was the fatal problem. The doctorji said this G6PD (its full name is glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase) is like allergy and is triggered when the patient eats broad beans. If you are having G6PD, then the beans will attack your blood and can kill you unless you are given blood transfusion.
All this professorji explained to his PhD students, and then one of these students said, “Sir, you know you were telling us that Pythagoras was warning people in Greece against eating beans? Now we know why. He must have seen people dying from this thing.”
Professorji became very silent. I know that he read your papers over and over again about Pythagoras and he ordered me to find all the material on the subject from Google.
Sir, he will never reply to your essays. Professorji has told the university that he is doing no more research on the mathematical history of ancient India but is now switching to medicines in the Vedic texts.
I hope all what I have written is explaining why professorji has not written to you or the editors, and also that it is helpful to you to know why Mr Pythagoras was scared of beans and was scientifically warning.
Good luck, sirji.
Your servant,
Ganpat Gurunath
Farrukh Dhondy was born in Pune, studied at Cambridge and worked in the UK as a teacher and as a commissioning editor at Channel 4 Television. Dhondy’s first collection of stories, East End at Your Feet, was published in 1977. He has written for younger readers (Come to Mecca, 1978; Run, 2002), the Whitbread Award-nominated novel Bombay Duck (1990), the biography CLR James: A life (1996), and screenplays for films and television, including Split Wide Open (1999), The Rising: Ballad of Mangal Pandey (2005) and The Path of Zarathustra (2015).
This piece was first published in the October-December 2015 issue of The Indian Quarterly magazine. Buy the magazine here to read more.
