Krimi-gaṇita-śāstram

Translation:

O worshipful one, what are these beings called “germs”? How do they exist here, O Lord? How do they become the cause of disease, and what is their true nature?

Translation:

Listen, O King, I shall explain this ancient secret: how these minute bodies cause disease in living beings.

Translation:

I shall explain the mathematical basis by which the spread of disease and the growth of infections are calculated in their true essence, O King.

Translation:

The susceptible, the infected, and the recovered – these are the three. Their increase and decrease are always governed by equations.

Translation:

The decrease of the susceptible occurs due to contact with the infected; the infected increase, and the recovered come into being.

Translation:

The number by which one infected person makes others infected again is called the “contagion number” (r-śūnyaḥ, i.e., R₀), known as the potency of the disease.

Translation:

If this [R₀] is greater than one, then the disease grows; if it is less, it declines. Knowing this, one attains well-being.

Translation:

Now, how these [germs] enter inside and bring about disorder, and the battle within the body with them – that is explained through mathematics.

Translation:

The unrestrained harmful cells, the attacking disease-causing ones and the sentinels (immune cells) – their commanders are also sentinels. They are known through equations and numbers.

Translation:

Just as a single germ, being tiny deep inside, damages its own host (body), so too the number of its defenders is knowable through mathematics.

Translation:

The growth and decline of the defender cells, and the attachment of disease cells – these are analyzed by these equations.

Translation:

Germs, through the course of time, acquire new qualities; and toward those medicines which destroy them, they quickly develop resistance.

Translation:

That power of resistance is known by the wise through population genetics (lit. lineage‑mathematics), which is comparable to algebra.

Translation:

And also in dense aggregation, the self‑signal‑triggering (quorum sensing), when these [germs] form an array like an army, O King.

Translation:

Understand this formation (or strategy) through mathematics: when they attain a large number, then they cause harm.

Translation:

The gross body and its constituents have within them subtler entities; these are atoms, called paramāṇus (ultimate particles), by which this [physical] movement is set forth.

Translation:

Their mutual combination is called “union”; binding and separation are governed by the number of particles.

Translation:

O King, by the power of the number of particles, either union or dissociation is ascertained by those who perceive reality through these mathematical procedures.

Translation:

Just as the gross body exists from the aggregation of atoms, so the causation of disease is also brought about by the subtle ones alone.

Translation:

Whatever gross thing is conceived, such as the body etc., O King, all that is, in the highest truth, an aggregate of subtle parts.

Translation:

The subtle part itself, O King, divides again in manifold ways, where being one, it becomes twofold and effortlessly pervades the universe.

Translation:

This subtle seed (germ), just as in mathematics it is called the “seed” (bīja, i.e., the germ of a function), from which the expansion and contraction of worlds arise; similarly in the disease‑causing body and in mathematics, that indeed is the principle of Brahman (the ultimate reality). It reveals the One, existing in multiplicity, as the subtlest of the subtle.

Translation:

Just as in this science of mathematics the subtle “seed” (germ of a function) is proclaimed, exactly so is the seed of germs the instigator of disease.

Translation:

Whatever gross visible thing exists, its root is indeed the subtle; from the subtle the gross arises, and this is also observed in mathematics.

Translation:

Thus the relationship of subtle and gross falls within the domain of mathematical tradition. In the same way, the seed of disease, O King, these two are established as one.

Translation:

Thus, O King, I have told you the great secret, more hidden than the hidden: mathematics and the science of germs, by the understanding of which [well‑being] comes.

Translation:

I am blessed, I am favored by your words, O Lord. Salutations to you for the sake of the knowledge of Brahman; salutations to you, who are attainable only by yogins.