History of Science in Early South Asia

 
Knowledge, Translation, and Commentary: Perso-Islamic Scholars’ Engagement with Sanskritic Tradition
 
Lingli Li (EHESS - University of Göttingen)
 
One of the Persian translations of the Bṛhatsaṃhitā by Varāhmihira (c. 505 - c. 587), known as Tarjuma-yi Kitāb-i Bārāhī, is a rare complete translation from Sanskrit preceding the Mughal era. Commissioned during Fīrūz Shāh Tughluq’s reign (r. 1351–1388) and executed by ʿAzīz Shams-i Bahā Nūrī with assistance from Sanskrit scholars, it reflects the Delhi Sultanate’s interest in celestial and astrological knowledge and sheds light on intellectual exchange in early Persianate South Asia. This study, based on Persian manuscripts in comparison with their Sanskrit sources, reveals that the translator intervened in crafting the translation in a unique manner. These interventions include structural adjustments, the selection and augmentation of content, and the incorporation of commentaries, providing insights into how Perso-Islamic scholars engaged with the Sanskritic tradition of jyotiḥśāstra and the unique characteristics of knowledge transmission across cultures during the Delhi Sultanate period.
 

 
Exploring an Anti-Epidemic Protective Pill Recipe in the 15th Century Tibetan Medical Work, Relics of Countless Oral Instructions by Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorjé (1439-1475)
 
Barbara Gerke (University of Vienna)
 
 
During the plague outbreak in Gujarat (1994), the SARS outbreak (2003), and the recent
COVID-19 pandemic, Tibetan physicians in India produced and distributed protective anti-
epidemic pill amulets. One of these is the “9-compound black pill” or Nakpo Gujor (nag po dgu
sbyor). Worn around the neck as a pendant, Nakpo Gujor is deemed to be effective through the
odors and anti-epidemic properties of its nine ingredients, which are ritually consecrated. The
potency of these ingredients is enhanced through their alignment with nine different deities and
their respective mantras. The formula for this pill is found in many Tibetan medical works dating
back to the thirteenth century.

This presentation explores one version of this formula in the work of the Tibetan physician
scholar Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorjé (Zur mkhar mnyam nyid rdo rje; 1439-1475) from Central
Tibet. I found that some privately practicing amchi in India employed this formula during the
recent pandemic. In his Relics of Countless Oral Instructions (Man ngag bye ba ring bsrel pod
chung rab 'byams gsal ba'i sgron me), Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorjé introduces the nine ingredients of
this protective pill in relation to nine deities, and nine mantras. While attributing the formula to
Nagarjuna—he phoneticizes the formula’s Sanskrit name as kala naba yoga— he also links the
nine ingredients to some of the “wide-spread diseases” (rims nad) discussed in the third section
of the Four Tantras (Rgyud bzhi), the foundational Tibetan treatise dating back to the 13/14 th
centuries.

In analysing Zurkhar Nyamnyi Dorjé’s recipe and interrelated connections to earlier conceptions
of infectious disease categories in the Four Tantras, I argue that in the way he presents and
writes about Nakpo Gujor he establishes a broad therapeutic spectrum for this formula. This not
only includes the three types of potency recognized in Vajrayana Buddhist medical texts (the
potency of substances, mantras, and meditative accomplishments), but also integrates some of
the established “wide-spread disease” categories of the Four Tantras. Thus, Zurkhar Nyamnyi
Dorjé presents Nakpo Gujor as a medico-religious protective formula for all kinds of epidemic
disease. My analysis highlights how a 15 th century anti-epidemic formula weaves together Indian
origins, Tibetan foundational texts, and aromatic substances as carriers of spiritual potencies in
such accessible ways that it was used by amchi practitioners in the 21 st century as a protective
olfactory amulet for COVID-19.
 
Further reading: https://www.medanthrotheory.org/article/view/4996
"Thinking through complex webs of potency: Early Tibetan medical responses to the emerging coronavirus epidemic: Notes from a field visit to Dharamsala, India" by Barbara Gerke

 
Group Discussion: What do we mean by "science" when we study the history of science in early South Asia?
 
Co-facilitated by Eric Gurevitch (Vanderbilt University), Lisa Brooks (University of Alberta), and Dagmar Wujastyk (University of Alberta):
 
 Over the past 30 years, historians and philosophers of science have argued – over and again – that Science is too big of a category to talk of in a singular, coherent manner. Instead of focusing on “the scientific method” or on what makes a scientist, they have instead drawn attention to “the disunities of the sciences.” Talking of sciences in the plural has, perhaps inadvertently, opened up a space to think more broadly about the hierarchies of knowledge in the premodern and non-European world. So what are sciences for this group? Bring a definition of sciences (or of a particular science) from a narrative account (e.g. a tarikh, prabandha) or a scholastic source (e.g. the introduction to a particular śāstra) for group discussion, or simply come prepared to discuss how you have understood/defined this category in your work.

 
Surgical Instruments of Indian “oculists”

Leo Weiß (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
 
The Karl Sudhoff Institute for the History of Medicine in Leipzig houses a collection of Indian surgical Instruments that were donated between 1907 and 1913 by the Indologist A.F. Rudolf Hoernle. This presentation deals with a part of this collection that supposedly belonged to “two practicing Indian oculists from Benares” and its provenance.
 
According to the Indian Medical Service doctors writing about these practitioners, they were commonly called suttiah or vaidya and were hereditary practitioners who almost exclusively practiced the couching of cataract. Unfortunately, there seem to be no texts by these practitioners themselves. How the practices and instruments of these oculists relate to classical works of Indian Medicine like the Suśrutasaṃhitā is still an open question that requires further discussion. Some preliminary aspects of the topic will be explored during the presentation and I would greatly welcome further discussion on this subject afterwards.
 
While there are no written sources by these oculists their instruments have been collected both at the KSI as well as in various UK collections. I will therefore try to develop a closer understanding of these so called ‘oculists’ by examining their instruments. It is noteworthy that the instruments contain not only ones that were used for couching, but also for other medical procedures unrelated to ophthalmics. Furthermore, a significant number of Instruments are quite evidently from western manufacture, hinting at a complex entanglement between colonial and indigenous practices of healing.
 
Unfortunately, there are no textual sources written by these oculists, who, according to the colonial discourse about them, were largely illiterate. The primary textual source on these subaltern health practitioners are publications by Indian Medical Service doctors, who viewed them as both unwanted competition as well as a public health hazard.

 
Are the Elements and the Pañcabhūta the Same (Thing)? Epistemic Objects between
Science, Religion, and Philosophy in Colonial North India, c.1920

Dr. Charu Singh (University of Cambridge)

What are things made from? If elements are the foundational matters of fact in global
chemopolitics, what happens to elementary conceptions of life and world when new concepts
challenge existing ontologies? This chapter examines an early twentieth century debate
about the status of the pañcabhūta, also called the pañcatattva, a concept foundational to
Hindu ontology and authority. In British India, these “five Hindu elements” were described
by European orientalists, Sanskrit scholars, emerging Indian scientists and philosophers, and
lay readers. The tattva presented significant difficulties in linguistic, conceptual, and material
translation. While pṛthivī, jal, and vāyu were easily rendered as earth, water, and air, the two
other tattva – tejas and ākāśa – proved less pliable. Is tejas fire or energy? Is ākāśa ether? As
the Sanskrit scholar Chandrashekhar Shastri asked in the Hindi-language popular science
monthly Vigyan in 1920, “are the elements and the pañcabhūta the same (thing)?” In the
subsequent debate, Vigyan’s authors drew on ancient Sanskrit knowledge alongside the
history of European chemistry. They evaluated the tattva in light of phlogiston and caloric,
new theories of chemical structure, and also cited traditional theories on the nature of things
associated with the Vaisheshika, one of the six ‘schools’ of Hindu philosophy. The views of
the legendary seer Kanada, Antoine Lavoisier, and John Dalton were all cannily deployed.
Thinking about elements and tattva as epistemic objects, this chapter brings into view the
complex mediations by which early twentieth century vernacular readers identified these
objects with reference to and through the intercalation of two distinct standards: Vaisheshika
philosophy and European chemical writings.

 
"Show and Tell" 
Presentations and Group Discussion
 
Join us for a special meeting on April 15! We are excited to welcome six scholars who will use an object or an image to introduce themselves and their work. Each mini-presentation of approximately 3 minutes will be followed by an opportunity for discussion. 

One of the primary aims of our working group is to cultivate inclusive community, collaboration, and conversation among people who study science in South Asia (pre-1800) from a range of disciplinary perspectives, so we hope many folks will attend this meeting.
 
Presenters:
 

Leo Weiß (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
 
Lingli Li (EHESS (Paris) and University of Goetingen)
 
Dhammaloka Jambugahapitiye (Department of Classical Languages, University of Peradeniya)
 
Madhusudan Rimal (University of Alberta)
 
Bradley Lewis Scott (Queen Mary University of London)
 
Divya Kumar-Dumas (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, NYU)
 
 

After the presentations we will open up some broader questions for discussion. What is our shared object/field of study? What do me mean when we say “science” in this context of “early South Asia”? What are some of the methodological problems that we face across the group? How can we better share resources and collaborate?
 
We would also like to know what kinds of conversations and formats would be most helpful for you in our group for next year.
 
We look forward to seeing you on April 15!

 
Material aspects of some early modern Sri Lankan medical manuscripts
 
Dr. Anna Elizabeth Winterbottom (McGill University)
 
At McGill University, there is a collection of around 125 olas (palm leaf manuscripts), several of which are concerned with medicine, astrology, or veterinary medicine. These manuscripts were collected in the 1920s and 1930s by Casey Wood, an ophthalmological surgeon and keen collector of historical manuscripts. Most date from the Kandyan period (1595-1815). While several of the manuscripts are copies of well-known texts, like the Sinhalese Yogāratnākara, others are compilations of excerpts, prescriptions, and recipes made by physicians for personal use. In this talk, I will consider the material aspects of the texts, including the length of the leaves used for the text, the decoration of their covers, the buttons used to secure the cords, and the illustrations and decorations that many of these texts contain. I will argue that rather than acting solely as vehicles for medical knowledge, the texts were also considered to play an active role in healing through these material elements.

*NOTE SPECIAL DATE AND SCHEDULE CHANGE*
 
Hues of faces and phases: insights on crafting high-tin bronzes in southern India
 
Dr Sharada Srinivasan (National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science Campus, Bangalore, India)
 
 
Generally speaking, as-cast binary copper-tin alloys with over 15% do not seem to have been widely used in antiquity as they get embrittled at higher tin contents due to the increasing presence of the intermetallic delta phase compound. Nevertheless, the use of the unusual and skilled binary bronze alloys of a higher tin content and skillfully manipulating the high temperature intermetallic compounds properties of bronzes are reported from various contexts in Indian antiquity. In particular the specialized use of the hot forged and quenched high tin beta (23%) bronze was used to skillfully make vessels with finds reported by the author from archaeometallurgical studies from numerous peninsular and south Indian megalithic contexts ranking amongst the early such finds known; with continuing traditions particularly in Kerala. Sadly, these days it is largely cymbal making that survives.
 
Another exotic high tin-bronze craft tradition that thrived in Kerala is the making of mirrors exploiting the silvery delta compound of bronze of around 33% to get a good reflective surface. Further insights on more recently excavated finds from sites such as the Iron Age site of Adichanallur are also touched upon in terms of background. Thus, an attempt is made to trace the trajectory of the usage of bronze in the Indian and south Indian context in this illustrated talk, tracing the numerous ‘faces’, ranging from celebrated lost wax statuary bronzes such as of the Chola period to the mirrors, and the ‘phases’, the unique properties of which were skillfully exploited to fashion the intriguing artifacts, not to mention the related historic ‘phases’…

*NOTE SPECIAL DATE AND SCHEDULE CHANGE*
 
Noah’s Grandsons and the Elephant: Functions of Pseudepigraphic Writing in Persianate South Asia
 
Dr. Fabrizio Speziale (School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Paris-Marseille)
 
This lecture examines Muslim elephant keepers, and the function of Persian forged texts in South Asian society. It will inquire into forgery as a tool to domesticate technological knowledge translated from Indic sources and to legitimate the status of a guild that has emerged from Muslims’ interaction with the South Asian natural environment and society. It investigates the function of apocryphal writing in the translation context as a stratagem to produce semantic shifts concerning features of both the translated and the translating cultures. In the Kursī-nāma-yi mahāvat-girī (Genealogy of the mahout), a text of uncertain period about the elephant and the elephant keeper, apocryphal writing functions as a device that allows to Islamize professional and technical skills assimilated from the Indian environment. This is accomplished by making them congruent with Muslims’ conception of the origin of technical and scientific professions as practices connected to the early Islamic prophets. Thus, the Kursī-nāma-yi mahāwat-girī creates a legend about the mahout as a profession practiced by Noah’s grandsons. This fictional account also entailed a reflexive meaning in that it operated a significant shift from earlier Muslim negative views on the elephant and provided a new framework for emerging Muslim professional groups involved in the care of this animal. 

 
Incurability as ‘disability’ in classical Āyurveda: The case of vision disorders
 
Tulika Singh (University of Alberta)
 
In classical Āyurveda, disorders become disabilities, marked by inauspiciousness and social stigma, only when they are entirely incurable. The medical literature considers all treatable conditions as ‘normal,’ and it is primarily the incurability of a condition that renders it ‘disabling’ for the body. This perspective stands in contrast to prevailing legal and normative discourses, which often perceive disorders as socially and legally disabling simply due to their existence. However, the early Indian medical perception of normality and disability is not centered on disorders or the body that possess them but rather on the potential for curability or incurability of the condition in the body.
 
To illustrate this point, this paper will discuss curable and incurable vision disorders and their connection to the perception of blindness in the literature. The first section will examine the causes and treatments of curable vision disorders, ranging from partial blindness (timira) to mature cataract (liṅganāśa), to demonstrate that even severe vision loss that can be cured is regarded similarly to any other eye ailment, and therefore is not considered a ‘disability.’ The second section will place importance on incurable vision disorders, highlighting that the physician is advised to neglect curing these conditions primarily because they are deemed incurable. Attempting to treat an inherently incurable condition may incur a bad reputation to the physician. Thus the incurability of a condition contributes to the stigma associated with it. This perspective provides us context for understanding occasional references to the inauspiciousness of blindness, viewing it as a disability in Āyurveda. It is not the disorder itself or the body possessing it but rather the intrinsic incurability of the condition that makes it a disability in medical thought.