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Both the Sri Rama Chakra and the Seetha Chakra are found in the Hindu almanacs.
Both the Jaina square and the Sri Rama Chakra belong to the group I classification of the Dudeney.
My Mother was fascinated with the Sri Rama Chakra by looking at the Hindu almanac.
She thought about why this 4x4 matrix is named after a Hindu God.
This magic square was used to predict one’s future in the Hindu almanacs. That comes under the philosophy of the magic squares. That is an interesting topic. It would imply that the good and the bad co-exist.
Whichever way you start from you reach the Ultimate. This life is a zero-sum game.
That is a wonderful philosophy. The Hindu almanac was using the Sri Rama Chakra and the Seetha Chakra only for that purpose.
Evidently, they are genius and they must have known more about the whole field of the magic squares.
They didn’t reveal anything to the modern world explicitly.
The rare genius of the Hindu is to apply all the knowledge and science at his command to living a contended and God-centric life.
They used the science of the magic squares for the very same purpose.
My Mother was only a Matriculate and she didn’t know anything about magic squares before.
She kept thinking why this 4 x 4 matrix was named after a Hindu God. This thought kept her engaged. This Sri Rama Chakra beckoned her again and again and it was throwing this challenge to her.
On close observation she found that no number is repeated and that all the row, column and the two main diagonals add up to 34.
Then she knew that it was a magic square.
Then she wanted to construct the magic square for any magic sum (based on the Sri Rama chakra).
She found a way to do the same.
Still the Sri Rama Chakra was teasing her with a question ‘can you scale me up?’
She wanted to construct an 8 x 8 magic square based upon the pattern of the Sri Rama Chakra.
Hindu women have the peculiar habit of drawing geometric figures using dots and lines in front of their houses every day. This is called Kolam in Tamil and Rangoli in Hindi.
From a small kolam, she would want to draw a bigger kolam.
Likewise, she wanted to scale up the 4 x 4 into an 8 x 8 based upon the Sri Rama Chakra.
She spent many years on this project and then found out a way to do the same.
Initially, she didn’t think her work was unique. She thought that someone could have already done it. You can call that modesty. Yes. The character of the Indians is being humbly humble.
She didn’t lay any claim to it. After all, she was indulging in this hobby only to amuse herself.
Once she constructed the 8 x 8 she knew that she can construct the magic square of any dimension in the multiples of 4 for any sum.
Then she constructed the 100 x100 and the 1000 x 1000 and she found a mention in the Limca Book of records in the year 2001.
She was honored by the Ramanujan Museum in the Royapuram in Chennai.
She was also interviewed in Sun TV’s Saadhanai Nayagan program.
We cannot thank adequately Mr. P.K. Srinivasan, who encouraged my Mother. He also suggested to her writing a book about her discoveries in the magic squares.
Eventually, she did write a book on magic squares titled ‘MAGIC OF MAGIC SQUARES’
Sri Rama Chakra is one of the 880 different 4 x 4 magic squares.
Then I took over the work of my Mother.
I thought why only the Sri Rama Chakra alone could be scaled up. How to scale up all the 880 4 x 4 Magic Squares?
Then I found out the answer in the form of the mimic method.
This method I shall explain later. Now let us continue with our rambling on Magic Squares.
Once I could scale up any 4 x 4 into an 8 x 8 I knew that the possibilities are enormous. One peculiarity about this mimic method is that not only the 8 x 8 is a
Magic Square, also all the four 4 x 4 subsquares are Magic Squares.
Let us see this with an example.
The following 4 X 4
Magic Square :
| 34 |
1
|
8 |
10 |
15 |
14
|
11 |
5 |
4 |
|
7 |
2 |
16 |
9 |
|
12 |
13 |
3 |
6 |
Table 8
has been scaled up into a 8 X 8 magic square as given below using the mimic method.
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