Srinivasa Ramanujan

तं विस्मितं धेनुरुवाच साधो मायां मयोद्भाव्य परीक्षितो असि। ऋषिप्रभावान्मयि नान्तको अपि प्रभु: प्रहर्तुं किमुतान्यहिंस्त्रा:।। (Raghuvansham II.62)

The (magical) cow addressed the bewildered monarch – “O noble one, I have been testing you by creating illusions. Owing to the prowess of the Sage (Vasishth), even the god of Death could not strike me, what of other beasts of prey”?

Pandit Kalidas, who was himself unusually gifted, makes it known to us, through the continuing adventures of King Dilip, that true Leadership is beyond ordinary happenings. Indeed, only a divine conspiracy coupled with innate endowments of the individual, can bring about great unfoldments to our world – material and spiritual!

The life of Srinivasa Ramanujan is the rare kind, which was touched, blessed and embellished by the divine goddess Mahalakshmi herself. To call the life of this Mathematician extraordinaire, short would be grossly incorrect, for his accomplishments in a short span of 32 years are those which only trained experts can aspire to do, that took over a lifetime (or more). Without any formal training in Pure Mathematics, he had already mastered Trignometry as a teenager – thereafter his obsession for the subject led him to new discoveries and new methods, such was his prowess that even the scholarly world was new to them and could not grasp it easily. He developed so much in mathematical functions, fractions, equations, Bernoulli numbers and so on, that many of the results are still being digested and discovered. However, Ramanujan had no ego, rather he credited his incredible mathematical capabilities to divinity, and said “all the knowledge he ever demonstrated, was revealed to him by his family goddess Namagiri Mahalaxmi.” He famously said, “An equation for me has no meaning unless it expresses a thought of God. Divine Leadership!

In what way are you making your divine faculties contribute to the higher good of mankind?