Krishna Venkateswara Sarma[1] (1919–2005) was an Indian historianofscience, particularly the astronomy and mathematics of the Kerala school. He was responsible for bringing to light several of the achievements of the Kerala school.[2] He was editor of the Vishveshvaranand Indological Research Series, and published the critical edition of several source works in Sanskrit, including the AryabhatiyaofAryabhata. He was recognised as "the greatest authority on Kerala's astronomical tradition".[3]
Sarma's book A History of the Kerala School of Hindu Astronomy recounted the development of astronomy associated with Kerala. In the preface of A History, Sarma described his research "under the supervision of Prof. Ramaswami Sastri, concurrently with my duties as the Supervising Pundit of the Cataloguing Section of the University Oriental Manuscripts Library, Trivandrum. My intimate association, later, with the compilation of the New Catalogus Cataloguum of Sanskrit Works and Authors at Madras university also proved to be of great help in my work."
Sarma became acting-director of Vishveshvaranand Research Institute in 1975, and director/professor in 1978 when he was awarded Doctor of Letters.[4]
He retired from Panjab University in 1980, but the next year accepted the position of honorary professor of Sanskrit at the Adyar Library Research Center.
Rationale in Hindu mathematics and astronomy is expressed by the terms Yukti and Upapatti, both meaning "the logical principles implied". It is characteristic of Western scientific tradition, from the times of Euclid and Aristotle up to modern times, to enunciate and deduce using step-by-step reasoning. Such a practice is almost absent in the Indian tradition, even though the same background tasks, of collecting and correlating data, identifying and analyzing methodologies, and arguing out possible answers have to be gone through before arriving at results.
Sarma then provides the exceptions: five commentaries, the Yuktibhasa and astronomical commentaries, and Ganita-yukti-bhasa.
Sarma was the author of more than 60 books, and 145 research papers, in addition to other academic writing on Sanskrit and Indology. He continued publishing well into his late eighties, his last book being Science Texts in Sanskrit in Manuscripts Repositories of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, published in 2003.[8]
1972: A Bibliography of Kerala and Kerala-based Astronomy and Astrology, Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute, Hoshiapur
1975: Līlāvatī of Bhāskarācārya with Kriyākramakarī of Śaṅkara and Nārāyaṇa. Being an Elaborate Exposition of the Rationale of Hindu Mathematics. Critically edited with Introduction and Appendices, Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute, Hoshiapur[9]
Complete bibliography of the writings of K. V. Sarma[edit]
A complete bibliography of the writings of K. V. Sarma on Indian culture, science and literature was compiled by S. A. S. Sarma and published by Sri Sarada Education Society Research Centre, Adyar, Chennai, in 2000. This runs to about 60 pages. The bibliography is available at the following link:
During the last decade of his life, Prof. Sarma began to convert his personal library into an institution. At first it was called Sree Sarada Education Society, but was later renamed the K. V. Sarma Research Foundation. Prof. Sarma himself was the first director, with Dr Mamata Mishra as secretary and Dr Achyuta Bhat as librarian. The foundation houses approximately 10,000 books, 2000 journals and 900 manuscripts.[10] At the time of writing (2020) the director is Prof. Siniruddha Dash, retired professor of Sanskrit at the University of Madras. The foundation's president and vice-president are Prof. M. S. Sriram and Prof. M. D. Srinivas respectively.
^Divakaran, P. P. (8 December 2007), "The First Textbook of Calculus: Yuktibhāṣā", Journal of Indian Philosophy, 35 (5): 417–443, doi:10.1007/s10781-007-9029-1, S2CID170254981: "The late K. V. Sarma, whose efforts more than of anyone else brought the main texts of Kerala mathematics and astronomy to the attention of the scholarly world, had completed (in association with M. D. Srinivas, M. S. Sriram and K. Ramasubramanian) an English translation of both parts of YB at the time of his death in January 2005, but it is yet to appear."
^ abS. G. Kantawala, "K.V. Sarma: An Academic Profile" in S. A. S. Sarma (2000) Bibliography of K. V. Sarma, Sree Sarada Education Society Research Centre, Adyar, Chennai, India
