Inspector and the manuscript
Aditya Rishi

ON a hot afternoon in the summer of 1881, Mian Anwar-ud-din, Inspector of Police, takes off from Bakhshali (also Bakhshalai) village of the Yusufzai subdivision (Mardan tehsil) of Peshawar (now in Pakistan) and lands himself in the office of the the Assistant Commissioner at Mardan. He can’t catch his breath and his superior officer can’t catch his words, so, he is given a chair and some water.

With water down his throat, words trickle out: "The ruins, Sir...huff...huff," "Yes, Inspector, what about the ruins? Come on, come on," "The ruins, Sir...puff, puff," "Yes, I’ve heard that before, go on, and what is in this packet you are carrying?" The Inspector hands him the packet; its contents can only please the Assistant Commissioner. "We found this in the ruins near Bhakshali," says the Inspector."

Who was with you, Mian, when you made this discovery?" "Actually, my tenant discovered this while digging a stone enclosure in the ruined place." "This is rare discovery, Inspector, which will bring you a reward. It’s an ancient manuscript, no less than a treasure." "What do you plan to do with it, Sir?" "I intend to forward it to Lahore Museum, where its value can be rightly judged.

Some days later: The Lieutenant Governor of Punjab receives a packet from Lahore Museum. The covering letter reads: "Sir, only you can be the best judge of it." The Lieutenant Governor sends it to General A. Cunningham for advice. The packet returns with this reply: "I suggest that you send it to Dr Rudolf Hoernle of the Calcutta Madarsa for study and publication."

The Seventh Oriental Conference at Vienna in 1886: Dr Hoernle (presenting a description of the Bhakshali manuscript): "Written in Sanskrit on 70 leaves of birch bark that have survived, it is a handbook of rules and illustrative examples together with their solutions, devoted mainly to arithmetic and algebra. On one of the leaves, this formula for the calculation of a square root is written:

Sqrt Q = sqrt(A^2 + b) = A + b/2A - (b/2A)^2/[2(A + b/2A)]

In the case of a non-square number, subtract the nearest square number, divide the remainder by twice this nearest square; half the square of this is divided by the sum of the approximate root and the fraction. This is subtracted and will give the corrected root. Taking Q = 41 (then A = 6, b = 5), we obtain 6.403138528 as the approximation to sqrt 41 = 6.403124237. In other cases, this third century formula gives correct results to more than four decimal places and is 38 per cent faster than Newton’s method in giving most square roots." The Lieutenant Governor to General Cunningham (they are listening to the lecture): "Dr Hoernle could judge its value, while we could not; why’s that?" "Maybe, he wasn’t thinking about it in terms of money or antiquity,"says the General. In 1902, the Bakhshali manuscript was given to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where it lies still. (Write at The Tribune or adityarishi99@yahoo.co.in)