Srinivasa Ramanujan As A Hero's Hero

Srinivasa Ramanujan was one of the greatest mathematicians in India. With no formal training in pure mathematics, he made significant contributions to the analytical theory of numbers and made an outbreak in continued fractions, elliptical functions and infinite series. He is deeply religious and credits his mathematical abilities to divinity (“Srinivasa Ramanujan”, n.d., para 1). He once told his friend, “An equation for me has no meaning, unless it expresses a thought of God” (Robert, 1991). Starting with the ordinary world, Joseph Campbell gives a detailed description of a hero’s journey in 12 stages (Campbell, 1949). I consider Ramanujan to be my hero as he fulfills all the stages in Joseph Campbell’s theory of hero’s journey.

Joseph Campbell gives a detailed description of the 12 stages in a hero’s journey. Starting with the ordinary world, he gives a vivid description of the hero in his initial years as a usual man. The hero faces the beginning of change in the call to adventure stage and subsequently feels the fear of the unknown and tries to turn away from the adventure in the next stage- Refusal of the call. The meeting of the mentor is the stage where the hero discusses the

Twice he wrote with no response; on the third try, he found Hardy. On 8th February 1913, Hardy wrote a letter to Ramanujan expressing his interest in his work, adding that it was “essential that I should see proofs of some of your assertions” (Robert, 1991). Before his letter arrived in Madras during the third week of February, Hardy contacted the Indian office to plan for Ramanujan’s trip to Cambridge (Robert, 1991). The hero faces the beginning of change and is invited to travel abroad as is the case in the second stage of Joseph Campbell’s theory of hero’s journey. I believe that the hero’s call to adventure often occurs unexpectedly, usually when the hero is unaware of