Pavuluri Mallana
The 11th-Century Poet Who Sang Numbers
The Story of a Mathemagician
Imagine a time almost a thousand years ago, in the beautiful land of Andhra Pradesh. In a village filled with the sweet smell of mangoes and jasmine, lived a very special person named Pavuluri Mallana.
Now, Mallana wasn't just any ordinary person. He had a secret power! While others saw simple fields, trees, and rivers, Mallana saw numbers, shapes, and patterns everywhere. He saw the perfect geometry in a lotus flower and heard a rhythm in the clatter of a bullock cart's wheels. To him, mathematics was not a boring subject in a book; it was music!
"One day, the local king announced a great challenge. He wanted to build a magnificent new temple, but the plot of land he had was a very strange shape..."
All the wise ministers and scholars brought out their slates and chalk, but their calculations were long and confusing. News of the royal puzzle reached Mallana's village. With a gentle smile, he traveled to the king's court, ready to solve the problem not with dry formulas, but with poetry!
He stood before the king and began to recite a poem in beautiful Telugu. His verses were like a recipe for math:
"To find the space for gods to reside,
Take this length and multiply that side!
Add them up with a rhyming trick,
And you'll have the answer, nice and quick!"
He continued his poem, explaining how to solve what we now call linear and quadratic equations using simple, musical words. The royal architects followed his poetic instructions, and like magic, every calculation was perfect!
Linear Equations
$$ax + b = 0$$Quadratic Equations
$$ax^2 + bx + c = 0$$The king was so impressed that he asked Mallana to write down all his mathematical knowledge. He took on the task with joy. Instead of just copying an older book, he created his own masterpiece in Telugu called Sarasangraha Ganitham. It was a "transcreation"—he took old ideas and gave them new life with his beautiful poetry, making difficult math easy and fun to learn.