History of Science in Early South Asia

Speaker: Dr Cristina Pecchia, Austrian Academy of Sciences (URL)
Title: Gangadhar Ray Kaviraj and the Carakasaṃhitā.
Abstract: Gangadhar Ray (1798–1885) was the editor of the first printed edition of (part of) the Carakasaṃhitā, that appeared in 1868 in Calcutta and seemingly became the basis of several successive editions of the text. His edition of the Carakasaṃhitā and commentary on it, the Jalpakalpataru, can be counted among the important achievements of his scholarly life. The presentation aims to analyse Gangadhar’s philological activity concerning the Carakasaṃhitā, that also represents a piece of traditional scholarship from 19th century South Asia. In the absence of documentary evidence, we will mainly be examining the text of the Carakasaṃhitā transmitted in manuscripts and printed books associated with Gangadhar’s name. We will explore the context made up of texts – in Ganeri’s words the “intertextual context” – that actors involved in this transmission inhabited, we will look at what variants can reveal about philological practice, and reflect on the larger topic of philology in colonial South Asia as a chapter of Indian intellectual history.