India has a rich, diverse and intellectual past.

India is applauded and known the world over thanks to its contributions, advancements, and achievements in many fields since time immemorial. It is one of the greatest ancient civilizations and because of its glory and heritage, it is respected worldwide.

India gave solutions to the world’s problems. Through its ingenious solutions, it helped the world advance and progress especially in the fields of science and mathematics.

‘Zero’ is one of the greatest contributions from the times of Aryabhatta in the 5th century. India also invented the decimal number system which is used to this day among other mathematical concepts. India had a series of astronomers and mathematicians like Bhaskaracharya, Brhamagupta, Madhava etc who worked relentlessly and made path-breaking achievements possible.

It is in this context that a spiritual guru who was also a mathematician wrote a book in the early 20th Century in India. As the legend goes, he went into solitude in the forests of South India between 1911 and 1918, meditated and researched for nearly a decade and came up with an ingenious way to speed up mathematical calculations – mentally.

Much has changed, after over 55 years since the book was published. The academic student community, in general, loves the methods given by Tirthaji. It is important for mental mathematics and its importance among competitive exam aspirants cannot be denied.