chitpAvana, author of the stunning, expansive “History of the dharmashAstras”, whose autobiography is in its epilogue.
- On his motivation via his son at prexA: “It turns out that long before commencing the writing of the volumes, PVK had a keen interest in all subjects related to Indian culture. He also had a deep understanding of the dharma-shastras and matters related to Indian heritage. He was a master of the Sanskrit language and of his own interest, he had read the Vedas, Upaniṣads, the Epics, the Purāṇas, and other traditional works. But time and again, when PVK would come across the writing of some Western scholar or soi-disant Indologist on the subject of the dharma-śāstra that showed Indian culture in bad light, and his blood would boil. His anger would know no bounds when he came across writers who passed loose comments on the dharma-śāstras or concluded that the Indian mind was uncivilized and nascent. At the dining table, he would express his anguish, “What does this fellow know about India and its heritage to comment this way? Where on earth does he find all these things in our dharma-śāstras? What were people in Europe and the Americas doing when we already had a flourishing civilization in India?” Such constant episodes convinced him that he had to write something to shut the mouths of Western scholars who spewed absolute drivel about our ancient works. He made up his mind. “It is my duty to write this. I shall write about the dharma-śāstra in greater detail so that it will put all confusion to rest.” Doubtless he ended up becoming successful. A needle prick in the beginning sufficed to put the great mind on track to undertake the herculean task of compiling all the dharma-śāstras and its commentaries right from Parāśara, Manu, and Yājñavalkya all the way until the day on which he wrote the specific chapter. This included the judgments passed by Indian courts and the Privy Council.”
श्रीनिवास-रामानुजः
shrInivAsa rAmAnujan great mathematician, with good grounding the shrIvaiShNava tradition, whose fecundity was inspired by the devI nAmakkAL, whose great memory was able to recite digits of numbers like pi as well as things like roots of Sanskrit words, (W), who has inspired the likes of Ono(SA), whose works have continued to impact mathematics and its diverse applications 100 years after his passing (YT <- Period depictions), whose experimentation/ intuitive approach to mathematics marked him as a poet/ seer rather than a problem solver.