Body and Cosmos

Toke Lindegaard Knudsen, Ph.D. (2008), Brown University, is Associate Professor of Mathematics at the State University of New York at Oneonta. He has published on astronomy and mathematics in ancient and medieval India, including The Siddhntasundara of Jnarja: An English Translation with Commentary (Johns Hopkins, 2014). Jacob Schmidt-Madsen, Ph.D. (2019), University of Copenhagen, is a postdoctoral researcher in Indology at the same university. He specializes in the history of South Asian board games and has written on the origins of the games of caupa and gyn caupa. Sara Speyer, M.A. (2017), University of Copenhagen, works as an yurvedic therapist. She is also part of an international research group working on the Grgyajyotia, an ancient text on astral sciences, her focus being the section on animal omens.

"The volume is at its strongest when authors work across disciplines to show the relationships between different types of scholarship in precolonial India that are often treated as distinct from each other. Many of the essays convey results from ongoing collaborative research, editorial, and translation projects, which advertise eagerly anticipated future publications.(...) Overall, the volume provides specialist readers with a set of focused essays about a wide array of scholastic topics in premodern India and occasionally further afield. When interactions across cultures are presented, it is largely within an East-West framing. Contributions from scholars working with Persian sources as well as from scholars participating in the broader turn toward vernacular languages in South Asian studies would have been appreciated. Kenneth Zysks work on Tamil Siddha medicine shows that Classical Indologists trained in Sanskrit have much to contribute to these discussions. - Eric Moses Gurevitch, Asian Medicine 18 (2023).

• PrefaceList of Figures and TablesPart 1 Introduction1 Kenneth G. Zysk and the University of CopenhagenErik Reenberg Sand2 Kenneth G. Zysk as the Narains Remember HimKamal SheelPart 2 History of Medicine3 Agni and Soma Revisited: A Primordial Āyurvedic Concept?Vitus Angermeier4 Humoral Constitutions in the CarakasaṃhitāPhilipp Maas5 Diachronic Migration of Ancient Indian Medical Literature: Divisions and Paratextual Elements in the CarakasaṃhitāCristina Pecchia6 A New Translation of Carakasaṃhitā, Vimānasthāna, Chapter 1, Based on the Vienna Critical EditionDominik Wujastyk7 On the Textual History of the Suśrutasaṃhitā, (2): An Anonymous Commentary and Its Identified CitationsAndrey Klebanov8 On Attaining Special Powers through Rasāyana Therapies in Sanskrit Medical LiteratureDagmar Wujastyk9 Karman, Prāyaścitta, and Disease: A Reading of the Karmavipāka Digression in Mādhavācārya’s ParāśaramādhavīyaMikael Aktor10 Plagues and Brahmins: Did a Combination of Epidemics and Ideology Empty India’s Cities?Johannes Bronkhorst11 Allegory and History, Life and EmbodimentAnthony CerulliPart 3 Astral Sciences12 The Ritualization of Omens in Late Vedic Ritual: A Consideration of Early EvidenceMarko Geslani13 The Rāmāyaṇa and the YugasLuis González-Reimann14 The Size of the Universe in Indian AstronomyMichio Yano15 Trigonometry through Geometry: Bhāskarācārya’s Generation of SinesKrishnamurthi Ramasubramanian and Clemency Montelle16 Mathematics and Presentation of Eclipse Diagrams in Sanskrit AstronomyKim Plofker17 Numerical Systems Followed in Grantha ManuscriptsSaraju RathPart 4 Interactions across Culture and Time18 Inventing the Pothi: The Adoption and Spread of a New Manuscript Format in Indian BuddhismStefan Baums19 Indian Physicians in Greco-Roman Literature?Klaus Karttunen20 Greco-Indian Astrological Theories on Conception and Childbirth: Chapters Three and Four of Mīnarāja’s VṛddhayavanajātakaBill M. Mak21 Modern Sāṃkhya: Plurality of Sāṃkhya Traditions in Modern IndiaKnut A. JacobsenThe Works of Kenneth G. ZyskIndex