Now it is fairly well known that Mādhava (c. 1340 CE) of Saṇgamagrāma arrived at the infinite series for π /4, sine and cosine functions—in a way that is profoundly different from the way it was invented in Europe much later—and couched them in the form of beautiful Sanskrit verses. What is not so well known among the historians is the intellectual atmosphere that was prevalent in Europe around 1820s when Charles Whish, a civil servant of the East India Company, discovered these series in Kerala and tried to communicate it to his counterparts as inventions of the ‘Natives’. It is quite interesting to note the exchanges that took place among the three, George Hyne, John Warren and Charles Whish regarding the invention of the series by Hindu mathematicians.

From the account of some of those exchanges noted down by John Warren in his Kālsaṅkalita, one could easily imagine the disquietude that would have been experienced by Whish at the instance of his senior officials recommending him to inquire on the discovery of the series by the ‘Natives’, and thereby create a certain confusion, where there was none. The kind of discomfort is quite evident from the fact that it took almost a decade for him to get his findings published in the year 1834, though Whish - based on his own studies and close interactions with the native pundits in the Malabar region - had clearly convinced himself that the series had been invented by the natives as early as mid 1820s.

Yet another confusion that had been hovering around for quite some time – even as late as 1970s – was regarding whether the text Tantrasaṅgraha itself includes the famous verses on the various infinite series for π/4 as also the series for sine and cosine functions. Much of this confusion had its origin from the historic paper of Whish itself, wherein he had ascribed the verses outlining these series to Tantrasaṅgraha of Nīlakaṇṭha. A careful study of Whish manuscript (currently with the Royal Asiatic Society, London) of the Malayalam commentary Kriyākalāpa on Tantrasaṅgraha clearly establishes that these verses are all citations made in the commentary by Śaṅkara Vāriyar and are not part of Tantrasaṅgraha, a point which has been earlier emphasized by the renowned scholar K. V. Sarma based on his careful study of several manuscripts of the text.

During our presentation we plan to trace the origin of confusion related to both the issues mentioned above, and also narrate how they got themselves evaporated in due course.