Shakuntala Devi, Astrologer of the Gods

When Shakuntala Devi was born on November 4, 1929 in Bangalore, a family member and temple priest declared, “This baby will have a very great gift from God,” she later recounted. Born into an orthodox Brahmin family, her father was to be a priest but decided to work in the circus instead. Realizing his 3-year-old daughter could do mathematical calculations quickly, he took her on tour to show off these skills. She became the family’s biggest earner as she visited classrooms and did cube roots and multiplications of large numbers in mere seconds. But all this came at a huge cost: unlike others, her family couldn’t afford to have their sole provider miss any shows and go to school. 

Though much has been written about the self-taught mathematical talents of the “human computer” and Guinness World record holder (for the fastest human computation of two 13-digit numbers, at 28 seconds), perhaps what made Shakuntala Devi so successful weren’t these talents at all. She believed her ability came from God, and even refused to tour Communist countries for that reason. By her later years, she was mostly doing astrological readings for everyone ranging from Hong Kong businessmen to presidents and even once for my mother. So why do we often minimize this part of her life — often putting astrology at odds with math and science?