D.D. Kosambi

D D Kosambi: Selected Works in Mathematics and Statistics by Ram Ramaswamy

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Thu, 4 May 2017 07:22:00 -0700

Re-posted from: And then...
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After what seems an agonizingly long time since the first ideas of the book took root, I got the following letter from my publishers (how sweet that sounds!) last week,

“We are very pleased to inform you that your book has been published and it is available on http://tinyurl.com/jgn2djj. Customers can order it […] etc.”

D D Kosambi: Selected Works in Mathematics and Statistics is finally done, and is now available in both e and paper formats. The cover on the right shows DDK at three stages of his life, at Harvard, in Aligarh, and finally, in his TIFR years.

To quote from the blurb: This book fills an important gap in studies on D. D. Kosambi. For the first time, the mathematical work of Kosambi is described, collected and presented in a manner that is accessible to non-mathematicians as well. A number of his papers that are difficult to obtain in these areas are made available here. In addition, there are essays by Kosambi that have not been published earlier as well as some of his lesser known works. Each of the twenty four papers is prefaced by a commentary on the significance of the work, and where possible, extracts from technical reviews by other mathematicians.

My personal contribution to the book, other than to edit is, is fairly minimal. Apart from a preface, I have basically tried to describe the academic milieu in which Kosambi found himself at different points in his life, and have also tried to infer what others thought of him in another prefatory essay, “A Scholar in His Time”.

Kosambi gave his academic manifesto in the essay, “Adventure into the Unknown” which also is one of the places where he wrote that Science is the cognition of necessity. (It is quite another matter that the phrase is not one that can be understood in a straightforward manner. Anyhow, as a quote its famous enough.) Reprinting that essay in its entirety seemed appropriate, as also another note “On Statistics” that gives a flavour of DDK’s interdisciplinarity, mixing statistics, erudition, Marxism, etc. The last of the non-mathematical writings is a project completion report submitted by DDK to the Tata Trust in 1945 and it permits, among other things, an inner view of a vastly gifted and somewhat frugal scholar who, in parallel, and for Rs 1800, carried out 6 research projects on issues as diverse as writing a mathematical monograph on Path Spaces, editing a concordance of Bratrihari‘s epigrams, and constructing an electromechanical computational device (the Kosmagraph), among others.

The remainder of the book is a set of reprints. Of his 67 or so papers in mathematics and statistics, about a third are presented, starting with some of his first papers, Precessions of an Elliptical Orbit and On a Generalization of the Second Theorem of Bourbaki, and ending with one of the papers he wrote under the peculiar alias of S. Ducray, Probability and Prime Numbers.

An attempt was made to include all the important papers, in particular the ones that made his reputation such as Parallelism and Path-Spaces that along with two other notes by Cartan and Chern are the basic of the Kosambi-Cartan-Chern theory, the various papers that laid the foundations of scientific numismatics, as well as the papers that he should have followed up but didn’t, such as Statistics in Function Space that foreshadowed the K-L decomposition. The Kosambi distance in genetics was elaborated in The Estimation of Map Distances from Recombination Values, and this is also reprinted.

Kosambi’s obsession with a statistical approach to the proof of the Riemann hypothesis resulted in several papers of which An Application of Stochastic Convergence, Statistical Methods in Number Theory, and The Sampling Distribution of Primes are reprinted here. These, as is well-known, effectively ruined his reputation as a serious mathematician.

Chinese. Japanese. French. German. English. DDK published papers in all these languages, sometimes exclusively, and twice the same article in translation. Also reprinted in this volume are three of the foreign language papers, the ones in German, French, and Chinese. The last is of particular interest since it was written during an exchange visit to China in the late 1950’s and only later published in English.

A number of people have helped me along the way and it is my pleasure to thank them all here. For the initial suggestion that the book be done, and for sustained and general encouragement, I am very grateful to Romila Thapar. I’ve written about this before. Meera Kosambi was keen to see her father’s mathematical legacy appreciated and was very enthusiastic about bringing out this collection and helped greatly in more ways than I can describe. She passed away in January 2015, when she knew the project was afoot, but not in any way certain as to how it would all come out. Michael Berry, S. G. Dani, and Andrew Odlyzko discussed and advised on various points of the mathematics. Indira Chowdhury and Oindrila Raychaudhuri helped vis-à-vis archival matters. Rajaram Nityananda had had many of DDK’s papers digitized, a great boon, and one that made the reproduction of some material much easier! Kapilanjan Krishan, Rahim Rajan, and Mudit Trivedi helped me locate some of the more obscure of DDK’s papers. K. Srinivas retyped almost all the papers, and Cicilia Edwin painstakingly proofread most of them. Toshio Yamazaki and Divyabhanusinh Chavda told me of their interactions with DDK, helping to flesh out the personality. Finally, Aban Mukherji was gracious with permissions, as were all the journal editors who kindly permitted the several articles to be reprinted.

DDK maintained a charmingly frank notebook diary during his Harvard years. On the 19th of January 1927 he notes: A most restless day. I have forgotten to mention Monday the 17th and an important conference with Birkhoff thereon […] Problems: Fermat’s Last Theorem, the Four color map, the functional equation […] Today was unusually restless with a great deal of time spent, possibly wasted in the Widener. Looked up old issues of Outing, Shakespear’s Hindi Readers, most of Burton’s works [of him more later], Roosevelt on African and Brazilian ‘sporting’ – worthless – Stefansson’s excellent and much remembered ‘Friendly Arctic‘…

All this variety in a single day! To recall Wordsworth, Bliss indeed it was in that dawn to be alive! Kosambi, just out of his teens, was just bursting with energy, both intellectual and physical (for which one must read the diaries in some detail). The earnestness that only comes at that age shines through on the pages quite unselfconsciously:

Exuberance indeed, but also some simplicity: Deep interest, well sustained, is essential in the acquisition of knowledge upon any subject. And the third realization of the day: Life is good. Yes indeed, to be young was very heaven.

D D Kosambi: Selected Works in Mathematics and Statistics is published by Springer. ISBN: 978-81-322-3676-4

Sandesh Kadur talk at festival of ideas

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 12:33:00 -0800

PANAJI: With a camera in hand and a mind full of wonder, Sandesh Kadur would often cycle to the outskirts of Bengaluru to shoot images of the wilderness.

Back then, little was he aware that on a given night, the sounds of a Nightjar bird and the sawing call of the leopard would soon lead him on a path dedicated to documenting animals for NatGeo, discovering new species and saving the endangered ones.

An award-winning wildlife photojournalist and documentary filmmaker, Kadur, through the use of still images and videos, is known for advocating the need for conservation and protection of the planet's biodiversity.

Speaking on day one of the 10th D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas on Monday, he shed light on the forested valleys and snow-covered peaks of the Himalayas besides commenting on burning issues of Goa's biodiversity.

"Less than 5% of India's land mass is protected forest area, which is very little. We need to stop with the assault on our green areas and start conserving them," he urged.

His tryst with wildlife has led to the discovery of several new species that are endemic to the mountain regions. "Over 564 species were found until 2014 and they are being discovered on a continuous basis in the Himalayas," he said.

This, in turn, has also led to the shattering of myths about certain animals in India. He explained this through his picture of a tiger scavenging on the carcass of a rhino.

"The image has shattered all romantic stories about a tiger being a gentlemanly creature that feeds on his own kill," he explained.

His expeditions also led him to capture peaks of the Western Ghats in light as well as shadow, a rare sight of purple frog, a foot-flagging frog, purple Nilakuranji flowers that bloom once every 12 years, among others; images of which he showcased to the awe-struck audience in the packed auditorium.

A firm believer of free rivers, Kadur stressed on the need to let water bodies flow sans restriction, "Mountains harness the power of monsoon and create rivers. If we stop that by building dams, it will affect the ecosystem. There are countries removing dams therefore and making rivers free again because they realise that hydropower is not as green".

Sharing his thoughts on the Goa-Karnataka battle over the Mhadei issue, he said, "Rivers initially were protected in the birth places by temples but now they're being affected by too much 'love.' During the riots and bandhs in Bengaluru and Chennai due to Mhadei issue, it was estimated that there were losses of over Rs 25,000 crore per day. If that money had just gone to protect these rivers we wouldn't have to fight over rivers and have a positive impact on the environment".

Elaborating further, he said that building dams do more harm than good, "Respecting rivers and allowing them to flow as they are is very important. Damming them or curtailing them or diverting them can affect everything downstream. Stopping the river from flowing into the ocean gradually leads to a multitude of fish species being destroyed as well."

Kadur also commented on the state's potential for hinterland tourism. "Tourism is a very economic one-way game but that's the shortsighted view. We need to bring about tourism in the most responsible and low-impact manner. If we can bring that about then we can save those places while showcasing them to visitors. We also need education by way of an interpretation centre at the tourist spot so that experts can explain to people the value of the place."

He further pointed out that hinterland tourism should be within a certain limit so as to not cause imbalance in the natural surrounding. "We need to spread out the tourism and have less people in each place instead of too many in one place. Thus keep the density of tourism low and not go beyond the place's carrying capacity."

Source: Times of India

D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas sees diverse line-up

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 12:31:00 -0800

Wildlife photographer Sandesh Kadur

PANAH: The 10th edition of D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas is scheduled to be held from February 13 to 17 at Kala Academy, Panaji.

This year will also have an impressive line-up of stalwarts from various fields who will conduct intellectually stimulating sessions for the Goan audience. Speakers this years are National Geographic explorer and wildlife photographer, Sandesh Kadur who will speak on India's mountains of life on February 13; while professor at Tata institute of fundamental research, Mumbai, Shubha Tole, will speak on 'wiring up the brain' on February 14.

A professor at Newcastle University, UK, Sugata Mitra will speak on the future of learning on February 15. Professor of international mental health and welcome trust principal research fellow in clinical science, UK, Vikram Patel will speak on 'People's health in people's hands: Reimagining health care' on February 16. The concluding session on February 17 will be by founder, BoP HUB, world toilet organization, Jack Sim. He will speak on creating a global movement for sanitation. Live telecast of the lectures will be screened on local channels as well as on the website of directorate of art and culture.

‘Experts over celebs’ at Kosambi festival this year

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 15 Feb 2017 12:27:00 -0800

Panaji: Experts with great oratory skills have been given priority over celebrity status at the 10th edition of DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas, that will be inuagurated on February 13 at 5pm at Kala Academy.

"Over the decade, we have had to attract crowds by inviting glamourous speakers. But this year, we have given importance to good orators over celeb quotient. These speakers will deliver strong content in their talks," said art and culture director Prasad Lolyekar.

The festival will open with Sandesh Kadur's talk on India's mountains of life on February 13. An award-winning wildlife photojournalist and documentary filmmaker, Kadur, through the use of still images and videos, exposes the need for conservation and protection of the planet's biodiversity.

On February 14, Shubha Tole, a neuroscientist whose research involves investigating the development and evolution of the mammalian brain, will speak on 'wiring up the brain'.

Sugata Mitra, known for his 'Hole In The Wall' experiment wherein a computer was embedded in a Delhi slum wall in 1999 for children's use, will speak on the future of learning on February 15.

Co-founder of NGO Sangath, Vikram Patel will speak on 'people's health in people's hands: reimagining health care' on February 16. Patel was listed in TIME Magazine's 100 most influential persons of the year in 2015.

The concluding session on February 17 will be by Jack Sim, who founded the World Toilet Organization in 2001. Sim, widely known as 'Mr Toilet' for breaking the taboo around sanitation, will speak on creating a global movement for sanitation. It is due to Sim's efforts that November 19 has been declared as UN World Toilet Day.

The festival will be inaugurated by IAS officer Daulat Hawaldar.

Source: The Times of India

‘Govt must honour D D Kosambi’: GN Devy

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 23 Nov 2016 15:48:00 -0800

Source: The Times of India

TNN | Updated: Nov 20, 2016, 11.10 AM IST

MARGAO: Stating that Buddhist scholar and Pali language expert D D Kosambi, who had no formal education, was the most original thinker the country had seen in the last 500 years. Literary scholar and cultural activist, G N Devy said the Goa government must consider setting up a centre in his name.

"It was he who introduced B R Amedkar to Buddhism and who introduced Marxism to India. India wouldn't have known about the ancient Pali language, if it wasn't for Kosambi who revived it. He made the entire world his domain for thinking," Devy said, adding that a centre named after him will be a great contribution to his legacy.

Confusing history with myth: Why ICHR should stick to history

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Thu, 25 Aug 2016 11:49:00 -0700

Source: Indian Express

Scholars have written copiously on the foolishness of discounting the role that myths play in understanding life and society, and the value of fiction, stories and tales passed on.

Written by Seema Chishti | New Delhi | Updated: August 18, 2016 8:38 pm

In legendary historian DD Kosambi’s excellent work on ancient India titled ‘Myth and Reality’ (1962), he writes about his essays, almost as if for 2016 India; “they are based upon the collation of field-work with literary evidence. Indian critics, whose patriotism outstrips their grasp of reality are sure to express annoyance or derision at the misplaced emphasis..”

Broadly defined as a story of the past, history has come to mean much more. In a society which is so diverse, it has often come to mean very different things to different people. History is a story that needs to be told cautiously sometimes but nevertheless must be told, taught and studied.

The bid of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) to announce that it is now going down the route of collecting detailed “folklore”, “custom” and “only documenting what is heard”, about the very distant past, appears fraught with monumental issues.

Scholars have written copiously on the foolishness of discounting the role that myths play in understanding life and society, and the value of fiction, stories and tales passed on. To be unmindful of prevalent legends would leave us the poorer in comprehending much harder material truths. But problems begin, when legends, myths and history are all sought to be confused.

The function of recording, teaching or studying History, is surely to learn lessons from the past, to be familiar with compatriots, to learn and unlearn about other lives, or at least that is the purpose we hope history serves for us, when taught in schools and beyond.

Historiography is serious and contested terrain but ground rules about what constitutes evidence and what hearsay suggests that it is very important that the difference be maintained.

There is no harm therefore in knowing about myths and legends, but to be able to tell clearly what a piece of pottery, jewellery, a grave or a monument or cooking utensils tell you about people long gone before us should be a priority in a vast and old civilisation like ours.

History is more important, when governments are involved in writing (and rewriting) textbooks. Textbooks being among the most useful ammunition to control young minds. The1980s phase in our neighbouring state of Pakistan survives uptil today in dangerously altered textbooks, or how history is studied in middle-schools. A recent project by two Pakistani scholars, Qasim Aslam and Ayyaz Ahmed, studies how differently Indian and Pakistani textbooks, learn about exactly the same facts. Not that India has got it all right, but the necessity of feeding myths to Pakistan was such a dominant idea there, that History was firmly pushed out of the frame.

Myths, being privileged over history writing, have been known to serve a useful political purpose. The myth of Aryan supremacy would have been a useful account to spin support for the Nazi view of the world in its time. When the ‘superiority’ of White-skinned plunderers in Africa had to be established, myths and legends, hearsay and anecdotes over years would have been a useful tool to establish why it was the way things should be. Which of us has not heard a story whispered at a monument which says the exact opposite of what we have known to be a recorded fact about the monument/area/people?

If only to avoid history from repeating itself, either as tragedy or a farce, it may be well worth the while of institutions like ICHR, tasked with serious historical research to do exactly that. Myths have a place, but for India to have a functional present and future, they must not be confused with history.

‘Kosambi memory’ today

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Thu, 7 Jul 2016 07:33:00 -0700

Source: The Hindu

The Centre for Gandhian and Peace Studies, Manipal University, in association with Centre for Vedic and Linguistic Inquiry will organise a seminar titled ‘Kosambi memory’ here on July 2 in memory of the late D.D. Kosambi, historian, mathematician, numismatist, and statistician.

A press release here on Thursday said that the seminar was being organised on the occasion of Prof. Kosambi’s 50th death anniversary.

The speakers will include K.P. Rao, founder-director, Centre for Vedic and Linguistic Inquiry, Manipal, Surendra Rao, retired professor of History, Mangalore University, and Varadesh Hiregange, Director, Centre for Gandhian and Peace Studies.

The seminar will begin at 10.30 a.m. at LH 1, first floor, Old TAPMI building.

Kosambi was not an ‘official Marxist’, says historian

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Thu, 7 Jul 2016 07:32:00 -0700

Kosambi was not an ‘official Marxist’, says historian

Source: The Hindu

K.P. Rao, software expert and Director of Centre for Vedic and Linguistic Inquiry, speaking at a seminar on D.D. Kosambi in Manipal.

B. Surendra Rao, retired Professor of History, Mangalore University, has said that though the late D.D. Kosambi used Marxist notions of history, he was not a reductionist.

He was speaking on ‘D.D. Kosambi’s contribution to history’, a seminar organised by the Centre for Gandhian and Peace Studies, a constituent of Manipal University, and the Centre for Vedic and Linguistic Inquiry, here on Saturday.

According to a press release issued here on Sunday, Prof. Surendra Rao said that Kosambi considered himself a Marxist, but “official Marxists” did not consider him as a Marxist. In this context, the differences between Kosambi and S.A. Dange were worth noting, he said.

A historian was one who looked at the present rooted in the past. Myth was a different order of reality. Socialism would not be redundant so long as there was socio-economic injustice.

In his ‘Exasperating Essays’ and ‘Myth and Reality’, Kosambi was precisely trying to make use of this perspective. Eminent historians such as Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib had profusely acknowledged Kosambi’s contribution to history, Prof. Rao added.

K.P. Rao, software expert and Director of Centre for Vedic and Linguistic Inquiry, said that about five decades ago, Kosambi argued in favour of solar energy against atomic energy even while working with nuclear scientist Homi J. Bhabha.

Recalling his memories and association with both Kosambi and Bhabha, Prof. K.P. Rao said that Kosambi was then itself quite concerned about the “rise in temperature” of the world. It was Kosambi’s hope that sun being the “natural source of energy” was the way forward. On this point, he parted ways with Bhabha in Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, he said. Responding to the view that Kosambi was a Marxist, Prof. K.P. Rao said, “If this is Marxism, then Marxists are welcome.”

Varadesh Hiregange, Director of Gandhian and Peace Studies, who delivered a lecture on Prabhaker Acharya’s essay on Kosambi’s thesis with regard to ‘Urvasi myth of Rigveda’, said Kosambi’s approach to Rigveda was anthropological.

Make hay while the sun shines!

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 18 May 2016 12:21:00 -0700

by KULDEEP KUMAR

Source: The Hindu 13th May 2016

D.D. Kosambi’s essays aptly titled “Adventures into the Unknown” reveal how the scientist pushed for solar power more than half-a-century ago when the world was busy playing with atoms

Believe it or not, India has set an ambitious target of adding 100 gigawatts of solar power by 2022. Before the Paris Climate Summit, it had pledged that by 2032, it would increase its share of non-fossil fuels to 40 per cent of the total power generation capacity. These decisions have come many years after India under the leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had signed the controversial civil nuclear agreement with the United States with a view to meet its energy requirements. So, clearly, solar energy is the flavour of the season.

This reminds me that there was a time in the 1950s and early 1960s when those who advocated solar energy could be pitted against the scientific and technological establishment of the country and viewed with suspicion. D. D. Kosambi, a polymath genius who made seminal contributions in pure mathematics, quantitative numismatics, Sanskrit studies and the study of ancient Indian history and culture, was one such individual who came in direct conflict with the Department of Atomic Energy because of his strong views against the use of nuclear energy as he favoured solar energy in its place. He also had to cross swords with Homi Jehangir Bhabha, widely recognised as the father of the Indian atomic energy programme.

It was Bhabha who had invited Kosambi in 1945 to join the recently established Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and help set up the School of Mathematics. In the initial years their relations were very cordial (as it is clear from Kosambi’s scribble on the newspaper cartoon that he forwarded to Bhabha) but soon differences cropped up as Kosambi emphasised that a country like India that received sunshine in abundance must place greater reliance on solar energy. That he was a die-hard Marxist, who was very active in the international peace movement, did not help matters.

In the 1950s, the Department of Atomic Energy had started funding TIFR and Kosambi’s continuance there became untenable. Moreover, the fact that he had also emerged as a major historian who had brought about a paradigmatic shift in the study of ancient Indian society also made his fellow scientists view him with suspicion as his non-scientific interests were not considered compatible with his senior position in TIFR.

Recently, Three Essays Collective brought out a collection of Kosambi’s essays titled “Adventures into the Unknown”. Ram Ramaswamy, Professor of Physics at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, has edited this volume that contains hitherto unpublished material. In his preface, Ramaswamy informs that in 1960 Kosambi gave a talk to the Rotary Club of Poona and the text has been published here as “Atomic Energy for India”. In this essay, he underlines the need for research and development in the field of solar energy, a need to which our government seems to have woken up only recently. “Solar energy,” Kosambi says, “is not something that any villager can convert for use with his own unaided efforts, at a negligible personal expenditure, charkha style. It means good science and first-rate technology whose results must be made available to the individual user.” Nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima have proved visionaries like Kosambi right.

In 2013, Prof. Meera Kosambi, the sociologist daughter of D. D. Kosambi, edited a book that contained writings of her as well as on her father. Titled “Unsettling the Past”, it was published by Permanent Black. It also contains two other essays of Kosambi on the question of solar energy that were written between 1957 and 1964. In “Sun or Atom?”, Kosambi draws our attention to the fact that scientific and technological research in the developed world is inextricably tied to the military-industrial complex and therefore solar energy was being ignored.

He says, “The research is of no use for war purposes. That is why it attracts some of us, but does not attract those who control the funds.” In another essay “Solar Energy for Underdeveloped Areas”, Kosambi cites another reason why significant technological advances were not being made to solve the problem of storage of solar energy: “The lands where technology is most advanced are just those which have very little sunlight as compared to India and Africa and where conventional forms of energy are highly developed.” However, he was quite confident that ultimately solar energy would become affordable and gave the example of aluminium. “But extracting this metal was a most costly process and aluminium was, a century ago, costlier than gold. Technology has made the metal cheap…”

As India finally turns to solar energy, it is very refreshing to read these essays that were written more than half-a-century ago.

The writer is a senior literary critic

Government revises D D Kosambi Research Fellowship scheme

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 27 Apr 2016 12:40:00 -0700

Source: the Times of India

TNN | Apr 26, 2016, 10.46 AM IST

Panaji: The state government has revised the D D Kosambi Research Fellowship scheme. The objective of the scheme is to encourage Goan scholars to undertake research in the field of Goan history, culture, arts, social studies and related areas. Three fellowships, under the scheme, will be awarded every year by the state - at the junior level, at the senior level and at the post-doctoral level.

"Only topics that are closely connected to Goa will be accepted. However, authentic topics pertaining to Goa may also be considered for the fellowship depending upon the decision taken by the expert committee," the revised scheme document reads.

An individual who has completed post-graduation and is 35 and younger will be eligible to undertake research in the junior category. For the senior category an individual who has completed post-graduation and is above the age of 35 will be eligible. And for eligibility at the post-doctoral level, the individual will have to have completed PhD. There is no age bar for the third category.

"In case of exceptionally talented scholars of proven record with authentic work to their credit, the rules regarding educational qualifications may be relaxed, if recommended by the selection committee. The fellowship shall be awarded to any scholar only once in his lifetime under each category," the scheme states.

Eligible scholars for junior category will be awarded a fellowship up to Rs 10,000 per month for a maximum period of two years, on case-to-case basis. Scholars in the senior and post-doctoral category will be awarded a fellowship of Rs 20,000 per month for a maximum period of two years, again on case-to-case basis.

Every year, the department of art and culture will release an advertisement inviting applications for the "D D Kosambi Research Fellowship" for scholars and a selection committee constituted by the government will select scholars for the fellowship.

The project report in the form of two hard copies and a soft copy will have to be submitted within a period of 30 days after the completion of two years of the fellowship. The project submitted will be exclusively the property of department of art and culture, as per the scheme guidelines.

Reality and Myth

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Sun, 3 Apr 2016 12:44:00 -0700

Reproduced from: And Then, a blog by Ram Ramaswamy

by Ram Ramaswamy

Some years ago, a friend of mine at JNU proudly told me about a book that he had picked up from the library “sale”, a book that had once belonged to D D Kosambi (DDK). Apparently it had not been checked out for years, and was therefore deemed unworthy of staying on in the library, as if finding a place on the library shelf was just some sort of evolutionary game, a survival of the fittest and no more…

The JNU had, at some point in time, acquired Kosambi’s personal collection of books, that was, according to Mr R P Nene (DDK’s friend and assistant, in an interview in June 1985) “sold by his family after his death to the JNU at the cost of Rs. 75, 000.” Details of how this happened are not too clear- Kosambi died in 1966, the JNU was founded in 1969, and the initial seed of the JNU library was that of the “prestigious Indian School of International Studies which was later merged with Jawaharlal Nehru University.” Our website goes on to say that the “JNU Library is a depository of all Govt. publications and publications of some important International Organisations like WHO, European Union, United Nations and its allied agencies etc. The Central Library is knowledge hub of Jawaharlal Nehru University, It provides comprehensive access to books, journals, theses and dissertations, reports, surveys covering diverse disciplines.”

The amount paid suggests that the books were viewed as very valuable: Rs 75K in the late 1960’s was a huge sum of money. And given that, it was quite amazing that the collection had not been kept as one, but the books had apparently been shelved by subject (!) and were then like any other books, and so subject to the periodic culling that most libraries undertake to clear shelves and make space for new books. (In some sense I was not too surprised, having myself bought a book that had been owned by AnandaKentish Coomaraswamy and that had somehow made its way to Princeton. The initials AKC were pencilled in on the first page, but apart from the bookplate, there was little else to show that it had been his. Unfortunately that book is no longer with me, and in hindsight, I think that when libraries acquire collections from scholars of note, they should make some attempt to keep the collections intact. Mercifully the JNU has done that now with more recent acquisitions..).

Nevertheless, a chance conversation shortly thereafter on the vagaries of libraries and the nature of intellectual inheritances started me off on my exploration of Kosambi and his mathematics. The idea was, on the face of, a simple one. What was the extent of Kosambi’s mathematical contributions compared to, say, his contributions to history or numismatics. How would the math stack up? Having been in TIFR before I came to JNU, I had also heard of how he travelled from Pune to Bombay every day on the Deccan Queen, how he was fired from TIFR, etc. etc. But I also found out that precious little was known of DDK’s other life by the historians. That the mathematics was too different and far too difficult is all too true, but still.

To start with, I thought it would be good to put together his life mathematical, namely all his math and stats papers. Much of that was on the web, except that it was in bits and pieces, and all over the place. No single bibliography was accurate, and no matter where I looked, there were gaps. Many of the Indian journals where he published were not (and still are not) digitized. Some of the names that were given in the existing lists were incomplete or incorrect, many papers were missing. The Rendiconti della Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei or the Sitzungsberichten der Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Physikalisch-mathematische klassewere both uncommon journals that were impossible to locate anywhere in India, for instance. I went to the Ramanujan Institute in Chennai in late 2009, looking for copies of the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society and Mathematics Student where DDK had published a lot of his work in the 1930’s and 1940’s. It’s too depressing to recount that visit… Nothing could be located, and I left empty-handed after a wasted morning.

In 2010, though, I was visiting professor at the University of Tokyo for a month, and luckily, the Komaba campus where I was located, housed the mathematics department and more importantly, its library. It took a few hours spread out over several days, but before long, I not only had the bulk of DDK’s papers in photocopy or in digital form, but I also discovered, via MathSciNet, of DDK’s nom de plume S. Ducray, under which name he had written four papers. I also had access to the reviews of many of his mathematical papers by others, and could see many very famous names among the reviewers. As an aside, I should add that the library of Tokyo University is one of the few that have the complete sets of Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society and Mathematics Student, including the volumes published during the World War II years, when Japan and India were on different sides…

In addition to English, DDK wrote in German and French, and there were Japanese as well as Chinese translations, at least one of which was the original language of publication. I was able to put together the titles of about 67 papers that were on mathematics or statistics and then set about getting physical copies of all of them. Some were easy- the Indian Society for Agricultural Statistics is on Pusa Road in New Delhi, the Indian Academy of Sciences has digitised its entire collection, and so on. For some I was lucky- I was invited to Hokkaido University in Sapporo from where the journal Tensor (New Series) is published, so I was able to get two of his papers, and work took me to the Academia Sinica in Taipei where I was able to get one more paper that he had originally published in Chinese. The papers in Comptes Rendu (in French) came via an old student who was in Paris, the one in the Prussian Academy journal from a friend who used to work for JSTOR, and the paper in the New Indian Antiquary via an old student who was in Chicago. Some of this vast international effort was probably unnecessary (in the sense that I could have found some things closer home and with less sturm und drang if I were a properly trained historian of science) but it all seemed good fun as it was happening. And it was, so to speak, a side business anyhow…

In the end there are only two works by DDK that are now not available, both books. One was sent to the publishers a few days before he died: this manuscript, on Prime Numbers was never found. Its loss was not followed up, and now it is too late. The other book, on Path Geometrywas submitted to Marston Morse at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and that was also never published. It so happened that I had spent a sabbatical year there in 2004-5, and had actually met Mrs Morse, so I wrote to ask her if there was any record of the submitted manuscript among the Morse papers (Marston Morse had passed on in 1977). By then Mrs Morse was in her hundredth year, and although a search was made, nothing could be located. Other than these two “missing works”, copies of all other papers can be had for the asking; a listing of all DDK’s papers is now available in the Indian Academy of Sciences Repository of publications by Fellows, DDK having been elected one in 1935.

But also in 2010, I was introduced to Meera Kosambi via email (I was still in Tokyo then) and she in turn introduced me to Professor Toshio Yamazaki who had by then retired from the History Department at Tokyo University, but who had been a student of DDK and H D Sankalia at Deccan College in the late 1950’s to early 1960’s. We met for a coffee one morning, and apart from taking a grim picture (a pre-smartphone selfie, as it were!) to mark the occasion, we chatted about DDK and Yamazaki-san’s Indian experiences. Getting to know Meera Kosambi – Meeratai as she insisted she be addressed- turned out to be a major turning point in this enterprise. For one thing, it made it just that much more concrete and worth the effort involved when I realised that even she was largely unaware of her father’s contributions and the complexity of his mathematical reputation. A few conversations with her cleared up many things – of how he never had the Ph D degree for instance, or of the family dog Bonzo and how he had grown so fat that DDK called him a pig (dukker in Marathi) and so on. All of which was summarized in an article that waspublished in EPW in 2012 on the mathematical legacy of DDK, the abstract of which I quote below:

Today, D D Kosambi’s significance as a historian greatly overshadows his reputation and contributions in mathematics. Kosambi simultaneously worked in both areas for much of his adult life, and to understand the body of his work either in the social sciences or in mathematics, an appreciation of the complementarity of his interests is essential. An understanding of Kosambi the historian can only be enhanced by an appreciation of Kosambi the mathematician. In a fundamental way, Kosambi embodied the multidisciplinary approach, channelling diverse interests – indeed combining them – to create scholarship of high order.

The same article was published in a book, Unsettling the Past (Permanent Black, 2012) that Meera Kosambi brought out later that year. Perhaps conscious of the limited time that was left to her, she was keen to see the intellectual legacies of Kosambi Père et Fils firmly in place. (For whatever reason, and in my opinion unfairly, she constantly judged herself by their mythical standards and fell short. As indeed, who would not…) In the aftermath of the the D D Kosambi centenary (2007-8), Meeratai published at a furious pace- Dharmanand Kosambi’s writings in translation, his autobiography Nivedan, Gender, Culture, and Performance: Marathi Theatre and Cinema before Independence, Crossing Thresholds: Feminist Essays in Social History,Mahatma Gandhi and Prema Kantak: Exploring a Relationship, Exploring History, Feminist Vision or ‘Treason Against Men’?: Kashibai Kanitkar and the Engendering of Marathi Literature, Women Writing Gender: Marathi Fiction Before Independence, something like ten books in the five years that I knew her. She always had a book to write, and as those who knew her more closely told me, when the end was near, she was ready to go only after she finished the very last bits on her forthcoming Pandita Ramabai: Life and landmark writings.

Meera Kosambi also gave the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library most of what she could of DDK’s papers and writings so that they could be properly archived. But fortunately, this wasafter she let me, and more importantly, Rajaram Nityananda, then Director of the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics in Pune look through them. In the process Rajaram had many of the papers digitised, and there was much in there that was (and still is) waiting to be discovered – unfinished manuscripts, unpublished notes, letters and so forth.

In particular, there are typescripts of many articles and notes. DDK’s notebooks from Harvard, where he had taken lecture notes as an undergraduate are also among the papers. And not just mathematics notebooks, either- in short, material that is ripe for some amount of scholarly analysis. For instance, there is an article on C V Raman, (the somewhat more palatable) half of which was published in People’s War in 1945 by “Indian Scientist”. The latter half of the article seems to have been (correctly, in the opinion of several who have read it) deemed to be left better unsaid. There are also the edited typescripts of several essays.

And then there are letters, several of them. Like many in the pre-email era, DDK was a chatty correspondent. He made good and lasting friends as a teenager and young adult, those that stood by him pretty much through his life. Letters to the (R. J.) Conklins- a few of which have appeared in Unsettling give an unusual and somewhat American view of India in the 1930’s in the period when the freedom movement gained ground. Norbert Wiener remained a close friend, and professionally, he remained close to André Weil through his life, and for a brief while to Élie Cartan and Tulio Levi-Civita as well. Their correspondence, what remains of it, needs to be seen, as also his letters to Divyabhushansinh Chavda. The pictures that emerge of DDK, warts and all, need to be confronted. Of his personal angularities DDK was all too aware as he was of his many talents and his intellect. He was unapologetic, but also, occasionally, un-self-critical, refusing to see what he might have achieved through compromise and (academic) collaboration. As he says, when speaking of the Riemann debacle, at the end of his autobiographical essay, Adventure into the Unknown, with ample self-justification and more than a hint of self pity,

“Let me admit at once that I made every sort of mistake in the first presentation. There is no excuse for this, though there were strong reasons: I had to fight for my results over three long years between waves of agony from chronic arthritis, against massive daily doses of aspirin, splitting headaches, fever, lack of assistance and steady disparagement. It was much more difficult to discover good mathematicians who were able to see the main point of the proof than it had been to make the original mathematical discovery. How much of this is due to my own disagreeable personality and what part to the spirit of a tight medieval guild that rules mathematical circles in certain countries with an `affluent society’ need not be considered here. There is a surely a great deal to be said for the notion that the success of science is fundamentally related to the particular form of society”.

Not being au fait with either the historian or the mathematician’s insider view of DDK, I had to discover many things afresh, such as his use of pseudonyms. This is one area where it is clear that some serious work is needed, given the range of his contributions; I have only poor hypotheses as to why he did this. In three articles, DDK signed himself as Ahriman, Vidyarthi, Indian Scientist, but after he invented the persona of S. Ducray in the early 1960’s he used it professionally in no less than four papers. Meanwhile, Kosambi as Kosambi was publishing Myth and Reality in 1963, and The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline in 1965, as well as the occasional mathematics paper sent off to select journals! In many letters to friends, DDK signs off as Ducray; in one of the papers in the Journal of the University of Bombay, Ducray says “My debt to Prof. Kosambi is obvious”, while in another, the acknowledgment reads “This paper would not have been possible without the constant labour of Prof. D. D. Kosambi.”

Weird. DDK had, as has now been recounted several times, been responsible for the first mention of the name Bourbaki in the mathematics literature. Although the name Bourbaki is a collective pseudonym for a group of (largely French) mathematicians, there is a somewhat light-hearted frivolity to the naming part of the enterprise while the mathematics itself is of the highest order. Not so with the Ducray business, and it is difficult to see it through a hagiographer’s eye, as a piece of childish chicanery and no more.

Clearly there is much more work that needs to be done on Kosambi himself and this goes beyond putting together his articles and situating them. This blogpost started off as a way of my keeping track and not just a vehicle for self-promotion. Two of the discursive essays that were found among his papers have now been printed for the first time in the book Adventures into the Unknown that I have edited, and which is published by Three Essays Collective, Gurgaon. My “Collected Works” of DDK project is also under way, though it will probably take the better part of this year to complete, and will become a “Selected Works in Mathematics and Statistics” in the process.

Within a relatively short working life – he died at 59 – DDK made many original and fundamental contributions to many aspects of scholarly enquiry. The Promethean epithet applies very aptly to Kosambi, though- when the Gods give such gifts, and they do not give these to many, there is a price to be paid… A verse from Bhartṛhari that DDK surely knew (having three monumental contributions on the works of the 7th c. poet) says it all too well:

Nor do the gods appear in warrior’s armour clad
To strike them down with sword and spear
Those whom they would destroy
They first make mad.

'Classroom is the worst place to teach science'

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 10 Feb 2016 15:27:00 -0800

A news report from Panaji where the ongoing DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas. Arvind Gupta has been an inspiration and a big time contributor in keeping DD Kosambi's writings available on the internet, including via this blog.

Source

TNN | Feb 3, 2016, 10.23 AM IST

Panaji: Play is very serious business. If there is no play, there is no learning taking place, said IITian Arvind Gupta, well-known for his movement to popularise science among children by making toys from everyday waste. He also said that like Finland, India, too, should give its teachers a status equivalent to IAS officers, to turn its faulty education system around.

Gupta, who was the guest speaker on day two of the D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas being held at Kala Academy.

In his lecture on Tuesday Gupta awed the audience with demonstrations of some science experiments for which he used every day and inexpensive objects. "Barbies, He-Mans and such toys are very sexist and very expensive. Hopefully, they will become extinct like the dinosaurs," said the 'toy-inventor' who maintained that the Goa science centre and 36 similar centres established by the central government across states are unimaginative in their displays. "These science centres do nothing besides occupying five acres of state land," Gupta said.

Gupta also criticised the government's Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan mission and the NCERT syllabus, calling them ineffective.

"The classroom is the worst place to teach children science as all the science is outside the classroom. If children see the science that exists in real life, they will be hooked," he said. Gupta said that adding achieving learning through experiments is possible in a state like Goa, where the target size is small. He said that each private school in the country needs to lend its teachers for a few days to a government school to trigger a big movement in experimental learning.

Paying tribute to the genius of D D Kosambi, Gupta said, "He was spared the Indian childhood because his father, the great acharya Kosambi, had left for Harvard in the 1920s. Had he been sent to one of our schools he would not have excelled." He said that Kosambi was not given due recognition for his work during his lifetime after he wrote a critique of Jawaharlal Nehru's book 'The Discovery of India' and "exposed Nehru's lack of knowledge of Indian history."The Goa government, Gupta said, could consider making a comic strip on the lines of the Amar Chitra Katha series on the life of Dr Kosambi to inform young generations about his genius.

Responding to an audience question, Gupta said that he did not want students to make joining IITs their top priority, rather they should follow their passion, no matter what it was.

A confluence of ideas

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 13 Jan 2016 17:54:00 -0800

A confluence of ideas

Posted by: nt January 13, 2016 in Buzz

The 9th D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas will be held from February 1 to February 5 at Kala Academy, Campal, Panaji. This year, Sudha Murthy (author), Arvind Kumar Gupta (toy maker), George Papandreou (former prime minister of Greece), Poonam Khetrapal Singh (regional director of WHO South-East Asia Region), Richard Schechner (theatre director, author), will share their thoughts and Ideas with the people of Goa

NT BUZZ

The 9th D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas will be held from February 1 to February 5 at Kala Academy, Campal, Panaji. It is truly a platform of sharing thoughts and mutual interaction. Young students, along with people from various social strata participate in this festival.

This year, Sudha Murthy(chairperson of the Infosys Foundation in India and trusty of the Infosys Foundation USA, a prolific writer in Kannada and English), Arvind Kumar Gupta (toy maker), George Papandreou (former prime minister of Greece), Poonam Khetrapal Singh (regional director of WHO South-East Asia Region), Richard Schechner (theater director, author, editor of TDR, and University Professor at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York University), will share their thoughts and Ideas with the people of Goa.

The inaugural address is by Sudha Murty who will speak on ‘The Circle of Life’; on February 2 Arvind Kumar Gupta will speak on ‘Nurturing Scientific Spirit in Children’, on February 3 George Papandreou will speak on ‘Intercultural Dialogue for Humanising Globalisation’, on February 4 Poonam Khetrapal Singh will speak on ‘Sustainable Development Goals, the Challenges and Opportunities for Health’. The concluding lecture will be held on February 5 where Richard Schechner will speak on the topic- How to perform the 21st century.

All these lectures will be held at 5 p.m. at Dinanath Mangueshkar Kala Mandir, Kala Academy, Panaji

The Directorate of Art and Culture had initiated the D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas to commemorate the birth Centenary of the legendary Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi the Indian mathematician, statistician, historian, and polymath who contributed to genetics by introducing Kosambi’s map function. He is well-known for his work in numismatics and for compiling critical editions of ancient Sanskrit texts. D D Kosambi was also a Marxist historian specialising in ancient India who employed the historical materialist approach in his work. He is described as the patriarch of the Marxist school of Indian historiography. He was an enthusiast of the Chinese revolution and its ideals, and, in addition, a leading activist in the World Peace Movement.

About the speakers

Sudha Murthy: Sudha Murthy was born in 1950 in North Karnataka. She started her career as an engineer with TELCO (now Tata Motors) and is now the chairperson of Infosys Foundation. A prolific writer in English and Kannada, her books have been translated into all major Indian languages and have sold over four lakh copies around the country. She is a columnist for English and Kannada dailies with 25 books and 156 titles to her credit – including novels, non-fiction, travelogues, technical books, and memoirs.

Arvind Kumar Gupta: Arvind Gupta graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (1975) with a degree in Electrical Engineering. He has written 24 books on science activities, translated 175 books into Hindi and presented 125 films on science activities on Doordarshan. His first book ‘Matchstick Models & Other Science Experiments’ was translated into 12 Indian languages and sold over half a million copies. He has received several honors, including the inaugural National Award for Science Popularization among Children (1988). For 11-years he worked in a Children’s Science Center located at the Inter-University Center for Astronomy & Astrophysics, Pune. He shares his passion for books and toys through his popular website www.arvindguptatoys.com

Source

A Scholar in his time: The contemporary views of Kosambi the mathematician

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Sat, 9 Jan 2016 07:23:00 -0800

Thanks to Arvind Gupta for sending this paper.

A SCHOLAR IN HIS TIME: CONTEMPORARY VIEWS OF KOSAMBI THE MATHEMATICIAN

RAMAKRISHNA RAMASWAMY

University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, TS 500 034

“Kosambi introduced a new method into historical scholarship, essentially by application of modern mathematics.” J. D. Bernal [1], who shared some of his interests and much of his politics, summarized the unique talents of DDK [2] in an obituary that appeared in the journal Nature, adding, “Indians were not themselves historians: they left few documents and never gave dates. One thing the Indians of all periods did leave behind, however, were hoards of coins. [...] By statistical study of the weights of the coins, Kosambi was able to establish the amount of time that had elapsed while they were in circulation . . . ”

The facts of DDK’s academic life, in brief are as follows. He attended high–school in the US, in Cambridge, MA, and undergraduate college at Harvard, graduating in 1929. Returning to India, he then worked as a mathematician at Banaras Hindu University (1930-31), Aligarh Muslim University (1931-33), Fergusson College, Pune (1933-45), and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (1945-62), after which he held an emeritus fellowship of the CSIR until his death at the age of 59, in 1966.

Today the significance of D. D. Kosambi’s mathematical contributions [3–71] tends to be underplayed, given the impact of his scholarship as historian, and Indologist. His work in the latter areas has been collected in several volumes [72] and critical commentaries have appeared over the years [73, 74], but his work in mathematics has not been compiled and reviewed to the same extent [75, 76, 77, 78]. Indeed, a complete bibliography is not available in the public domain so far [79]. This asymmetry is unfortunate since, as commented elsewhere [75], an understanding of Kosambi the historian can only be enhanced by an appreciation of Kosambi the mathematician [80].

DDK is known for several contributions, some of which like the Kosambi-Cartan-Chern (KCC) theory [81], carry his name, and some like the Karhunen–Loève expansion [37, 39, 82], that do not. The Kosambi mapping function in genetics [40] continues to be used to this day [83], but the path geometry that he studied for much of his life [84] has not found further application. DDK’s final years were mired in controversies, both personal and professional. His papers on the Riemann hypothesis (RH) [65, 66] brought him a great deal of criticism and not a little ridicule, while his personal politics put him in direct conflict with Homi Bhabha and the Department of Atomic Energy. This contributed to his eventual and somewhat ignominious ouster from employment at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. His early and passionate advocacy of solar energy was practical and based on sound scientific common sense. In some of his arguments, he seems even somewhat Gandhian, and although this was a contrary position to hold in the TIFR at that time, the essential validity of his argument remains to this day [85].

DDK was just about 23 years old when he returned to India and took up a temporary position at Banaras Hindu University with a BA (summa cum laude) from Harvard. A year later he had moved to the Aligarh Muslim University where he was appointed in the Mathematics Department at the suggestion of André Weil [86] who, just about a year older, was then already well known as a mathematician and as a prodigy, and who had been invited to the AMU by then Vice Chancellor Syed Ross Masood.

Although Weil did not last long in Aligarh, his influence on Kosambi was considerable. In addition to giving him the position and encouraging him on the matter of the Bourbaki prank, [86], Weil helped DDK forge early mathematical links with, among others, T. Vijayaraghavan [87] and S. Chowla [88]. He undoubtedly influenced his taste in mathematics, possibly sparking DDK’s interest in the Riemann hypothesis. Weil would, in the early 1940’s make important contributions to this field [89] although when DDK turned to it almost thirty years later [65] his efforts were to come a cropper. Weil spent the summer of 1931 in Europe and upon his return to Aligarh, he found that not only had his own position been compromised, but the group of mathematicians that he had put together had also fragmented, with Vijayaraghavan having moved to take up a Professorship in Dacca [90]. By early 1932, Weil had returned to Europe, and DDK was to leave Aligarh soon thereafter.

Kosambi started his independent work in Aligarh, choosing the area of path–geometry, a term he coined, submitting his papers to leading European journals [7, 9, 10]. One that was sent to Mathematische Zeitschrift was also communicated to Elie Cartan who was inspired enough by the result to write a detailed commentary, which included an extract of the correspondence that Kosambi had with him. This was also published in Mathematische Zeitschrift [11] immediately following DDK’s paper in 1933. Along with a later paper by the Chinese mathematician, S. S. Chern, these three works constitute what is now termed the KCC-theory, a topic that has, in recent years, found new applications in physics and biology [81]. Some years later, in 1946, Kosambi tried to have Chern invited to visit India when he was at the TIFR but nothing came of it.

DDK wrote many papers on path geometry, and in the mid 1940’s summarized his work in a manuscript that was submitted to Marston Morse at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In a letter [91] to Bhabha he says, “The book on Path-Geometry will, according to a letter from Morse, appear in the Annals of Mathematics Studies, Princeton.” This book was never published—indeed very few books in this series were, and efforts to locate a copy of the manuscript in the Morse archives have proved fruitless [92]. DDK makes reference to a second copy of the manuscript that he gave to Bhabha, but that copy has not been located either.

The Nobel laureate, C. V. Raman had visited Aligarh in 1931 as the member of a selection committee, and although there is no specific record of his having met Kosambi, his subsequent actions suggest that he quickly gathered, either directly or indirectly, a very high opinion of DDK. In 1934 when Raman founded the Indian Academy of Sciences in Bangalore, he elected Vijayaraghavan and Chowla. The very next year Kosambi was elected to the IASc at the age of 28, when his mathematical œuvre was slight, and along with others such as P C Mahalanobis and V V Narlikar. Kosambi was one of the younger of the Founding or Foundation Fellows (namely those elected in 1934 and 1935). Since the initial election to the Academy was almost entirely his decision, the estimation that Raman had of Kosambi’s scholarship or of his potential, must have been considerable. It is possible that Vijayaraghavan may have played some role in this early recognition [93], and it is also likely that the award of the first Ramanujan Prize of the Madras University in 1934 to S. Chandrashekar, S. Chowla and DDK [94] would have favourably impressed Raman. As it happened, in later years Kosambi was privately and publicly very critical of Raman’s style of functioning [95].

This early recognition, however, stood him in good stead. He published a couple of papers in the Academy journal, Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences in 1935 (and not again until the 1960’s when, as S. Ducray, he published two more). Reviews of his papers in other journals began to appear in Current Science, the general science journal started by Raman, in addition to original articles that he chose to publish in this journal as well. Indeed his initial papers on the quantitative approach to numismatics [26, 27, 34, 36] all appeared in Current Science.

1. Reviews and Commentaries

One of the early references to the work of DDK on numismatics that was brought to the attention of readers of Current Science was a review in 1941 [96] by K. A. N. (this was probably the well known historian K. A. Nilakantha Sastry) of two papers of DDK’s in the New Indian Antiquary [97]. By this time, DDK seems to have been well established as an eminent mathematician. While generally admiring of the work, KAN comments on a number of DDKs characteristics: the use of “hard phrases” in his critique of the methods used by others, his exposure “of the hollowness of much pseudo–expertise that has held the field”, etc. Nevertheless, the review is not uniformly accepting of DDKs conclusions, and KAN does alert the reader to potential areas of inaccuracy. In a charming final paragraph, for instance, he says “Yet, this conclusion hardly tallies with the impressions of the Mauryan epoch gathered from other sources like the inscriptions of Asoka, or the polished stone pillars–-not to speak of Megasthenes and the Arthasastra. There are other statements, obiter dicta, which may surprise the reader, and even shock him; but there is much, very much in these papers and their method for which he will be grateful”.

The journal Mathematical Reviews (MR) was started in 1940 by the American Mathematical Society as a way for working mathematicians to keep up with the increasing numbers of papers that appeared each year in diverse journals. The practice was (and still is) to have a brief summary of these papers sometimes with commentary, and sometimes without. Indeed, some papers are merely noted or abstracted, and all reviews are signed.

Of DDK’s sixty or so papers in mathematics, about half were reviewed in MR; these are indicated in the bibliography [3–71]. The reviewers include R. L. Anderson, R. P. Boas, Jr., N. Coburn, J. L. Doob, W. Feller, V. Hlavaty, M. Janet, A. Kawaguchi, J. B. Kelly, M. S. Knebelman, J. Korevaar, J. Kubilius, R. G. Laha, W. J. LeVeque, A. Nijenhuis, E. S. Pondiczery (a pseudonym of R. P. Boas Jr), A. Rényi, J. A. Schouten, E. W. Titt, J. L. Vanderslice, O. Varga, B. Volkmann, A. Wald, and J. Wolfowitz. Several of these reviews are just summaries of the papers, but some are serious commentaries on the work of Kosambi, and, significantly, are by some of the leading contemporaneous mathematicians, probabilists, and statisticians. Indeed R. P. Boas Jr. who reviewed some of the papers was one of the main editors of Mathematical Reviews.

It may be pertinent to note that it is not just DDK’s papers that were published in journals outside India that were reviewed in Mathematical Reviews; several of the papers published in Indian journals were also commented upon critically. These include the important paper, “Statistics in function space” [39] that was reviewed by the probabalist, J. L. Doob, who went on to become the President of the American Mathematical Society (and who was awarded the National Medal of Science by then President of the United States, Jimmy Carter in 1979).

Although Doob gave a careful and comprehensive review of the work soon after it was published in 1943, unfortunately neither Karhunen nor Loève who essentially rediscovered these results [82] were aware either of the paper or of its review, and today these results go under their names, and Kosambi’s contribution is largely unrecognized. One important feature of the paper pointed out in the review,

The author discusses statistical problems connected with continuous stochastic processes whose representative functions x(t) [. . . ] Various mechanical and electrical methods are suggested for combining functions x(t), given graphically, as necessitated by this type of statistical approach.

was the idea of a mechanical or electrical computer. This was to be part of Kosambi’s Kosmagraph project that was in part funded by a grant from the J. R. D. Tata Trust in 1945. It is not clear if a working model was ever successfully constructed, though there is a reference to it in a report he sent to the Tata Trust [80],

The Kosmagraph is finished, and a working model being improved at St. Xavier’s College. The total outlay for workshop charges, electric motors, cathode ray oscillographs, valve tubes etc. would have exceeded the total amount of the Tata grant. But the St. Xavier’s authorities stood the expense of these items, as Fr. Rafael has collaborated in the work. My total expenses from the grant have been a nominal honorarium of Rs. 250/- to K. B. McCabe, the third collaborator; and another of Rs. 50 to Salvador D’Souza, head mechanic at the St. Xavier’s workshop. Both have deserved far more, and the work of McCabe in particular seems to me to be beyond recompense.

A joint paper is being made ready for publication, though it will be some months before all the points are checked.

The paper alluded to does not appear to have been published, and no drafts been located among DDK’s papers. It is also not clear what became of the project; the interest in a computing machine stayed with Kosambi when he later moved to TIFR, and indeed was one of purposes of his visit to the USA in 1948-49 [75].

Another of DDK’s reviewer’s was Abraham Wald (who was later to die in a plane crash in India when he was visiting the country at the invitation of the Indian government) who commented, generally favourably, on four of his papers. What is interesting is that many of the papers were published in journals such as Mathematics Student and the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society, both of limited circulation, and which to this day remain somewhat difficult to locate [98].

It should be mentioned that most of DDK’s publications in mathematics are independently authored. He did, however, mentor several students, both formally and informally at the TIFR in the 1950’s, and among these were S. Raghavachari and U. V. Ramamohana Rao who are his only coauthors.

2. The RH papers

Arguably the most important as yet unresolved problem in pure mathematics is a hypothesis that was enunciated in 1857 by the celebrated mathematician, Bernhard Riemann. A brief introduction to the nature of the mathematical problem [99] is included here for those who are less acquainted with it, to give some flavour of why it is interesting and a challenge. (I should also add that at the risk of losing half the potential readership with each equation [100], it is absolutely essential that some be retained. For all of mathematics there is no greater game than to solve the Riemann hypothesis, and to appreciate both what Kosambi tried, and where he did not succeed, some equations are needed.)

The Riemann Hypothesis concerns properties of a mathematical function that has been studied for at least four centuries. This is the zeta function, the sum of inverse powers of the integers,

the ellipsis signifying that the sequence does not terminate. When z is equal to zero, then each term is 1, and the sum, namely 1+1+1+1…. becomes infinitely large:

Such infinite sums have long been of interest: an example that will be familiar to many is the sum that arises in Zeno’s paradox regarding Achilles and the tortoise. (In a 100 metre race, the tortoise, which is 100 times slower than Achilles is given, say, a head-start of 90 metres. In the time that Achilles covers 90 m, the tortoise covers 90 centimetres and is therefore still ahead. In the time that Achilles covers the 90 cm, the tortoise goes ahead by 9 millimetres, when Achilles covers the 9 mm, the tortoise is ahead by a smaller fraction, and so on. So Achilles would, it seems, never catch up with the tortoise. The resolution of the paradox is that this infinite sum is actually a finite quantity, and Achilles wins the race easily [101].)

The harmonic series, is the sum of inverses of the integers,

and this also diverges or becomes infinite (the → in the equation below signifies “tends to”). In contrast, when z = 2, the sum is a finite number,

Clearly the value of the zeta function,

depends on the value of z, and Riemann was interested in its “zeroes”, namely those values of z when

In order to study the general properties of such a function, it is necessary to consider all possible values for z, in particular when z is a complex number, namely of the form z = x + iy where x is the real part and y the imaginary part, and . It turns out then that the ζ function can take values that are either positive or negative depending on the value of z, or equivalently, on the values of x and y. When y=0 and x is a negative even integer, namely -2, -4, -6 and so on, the function takes the value 0: these are termed “trivial” zeroes since the function can be shown to vanish through a straightforward procedure [102].

The ζ function has in addition an infinite number of “nontrivial” zeros, and Riemann’s hypothesis is that for all of these, x (namely the real part of z) has the value 1/2. In the complex plane, these zeroes therefore all lie on the so–called “critical” line, x = 1/2. While being simple enough to state, it remains unproven to this day. Because of connections between the zeta function and prime numbers, a proof of the RH would have significant implications for the distribution of prime numbers, and via this, for much of mathematics. An alternate measure of its importance can be gauged from the fact that it is one of the so–called Millennium Prize problems for which the Clay Mathematical Institute has announced a grand cash award in the past decade.

DDK’s mathematical reputation suffered greatly as a result of two papers he published in the Journal of the Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics [63, 67]; in one of them, he claimed a result that was essentially a proof of the RH. Notwithstanding its name, the journal does publish serious mathematics, particularly in the area of probability. Although obscure and highly specialized, the journal may not have been as inappropriate for the papers as might appear since the methods suggested by Kosambi were probabilistic. However, it is not clear that the journal had a proper peer—review process in place whereby submitted articles would, prior to publication, be examined by experts in the field. The lack of appropriate reviewing was a real deficiency, more so for a claim of this magnitude and the charge remains that DDK chose to publish the papers in JISAS to be able to pass off a doubtful “proof”.

Both papers were reviewed subsequently in MR, one by W. J. LeVeque, a number theorist who eventually became Executive Director of the American Mathematical Society. His critique of “An application of stochastic convergence” [63] goes straight to the point, that the claim made by DDK is a result which easily implies the Riemann hypothesis. However, since the proof is probabilistic in nature, there are major problems that he identifies. Of the two proofs given for the crucial Lemma 1.2, the reviewer does not understand the first, which seems to involve more ‘hand-waving’ than is customarily accepted even in proofs of theorems less significant than the present one. The second proof appears to be erroneous. The review concludes The reviewer is unable either to accept this proof or to refute it conclusively. The author must replace verbal descriptions, qualitative comparisons and intuition by precise definitions, equations and inequalities, and rigorous reasoning, if he is to claim to have proved a theorem of the magnitude of the Riemann hypothesis.

The kindest analysis of these works of DDK comes from the Hungarian mathematician, A. Rényi who says in a posthumous review of the paper “Statistical methods in number theory” [67] that

The late author tried in the last 10 years of his life to prove the Riemann hypothesis by probabilistic methods. Though he did not succeed in this, he has formulated the following highly interesting conjecture on prime numbers.

Rényi, who had been sent both this and the earlier papers [63, 64] prior to publication, goes on to say that Neither in this paper nor in his previous paper [Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 49 (1963), 20–23; MR0146168 (26 #3690)] did the author succeed in proving his hypothesis, nor in deducing from it the Riemann hypothesis. The PNAS paper [64] was reviewed by J. B. Kelley who states, after summarizing the main result, that The exposition is rather sketchy; in particular, the reviewer could not follow the proof of the crucial Lemma 4.

Either because of the timing of the review or because he may have appreciated the valiant attempts of DDK to prove the Riemann hypothesis by an unusual route, Rényi, concludes the review by saying that at that point in time (1968) one does not have enough knowledge of the fine structure of the distribution of primes to prove or disprove the author’s conjecture. The problem seems to be even more difficult than the problem of the validity of the Riemann hypothesis. As a matter of fact, no obvious method exists to prove the author’s hypothesis even under the assumption of the Riemann hypothesis. Nevertheless, the conjecture is worthy of study in its own right, and the reviewer proposes to call it “the Kosambi hypothesis” in commemoration of the enthusiastic efforts of the late author.

Rényi’s suggestion has not found favour. The probabilistic approach has inherent limitations, as the physicist Michael Berry points out [103]. Indeed, as these reviews suggest, the rigour emphasised by DDK in his early years had deserted him. What is somewhat surprising is that there are elementary errors in these papers that become evident even with a fairly cursory examination, and which could have been detected by an alert referee. The fact that IJSAS published this paper with the errors added to the feeling that DDK deliberately chose the journal to avoid qualified peer review. These papers essentially destroyed DDK’s mathematical reputation.

Given the ongoing interest in the RH, only in part increased by its inclusion as a Millennium Prize problem, there are a number of popular books [104] that summarize the approaches to proving it. Not surprisingly, the work of DDK is not mentioned, although Berry remarks [103] that his idea for proving RH based on showing that a certain function is nonsingular off the line, is ingenious. Andrew Odlyzko, another mathematician who has worked extensively on the RH says [105] that he was really intrigued by these approaches, but after a while decided that it would take some clever insights far beyond what [he] could think of to accomplish anything rigorous in this area. Among Odlyzko’s major contributions to a study of the RH is the computation of a large number of zeros (several million of them, in fact) to fairly high precision; for all of these, the real part equals 1/2. As an experimental mathematician he has a good insight into the approach suggested by DDK, adding, In summary, I think it is a pity that Kosambi did not see the flaws in his arguments and published this paper, but the basic idea is an interesting one, and certainly worth exploring. I would be surprised, but not shocked, if somebody clever managed to do something with it.

3. Bhabha and DDK

DDK joined the newly formed Tata Institute of Fundamental Research on June 16, 1945. His appointment, which was for an initial period of five years was decided at the first meeting of the provisional council of TIFR.

The initial correspondence between Bhabha and DDK, although formal, was extremely cordial [74]. In 1946, when Bhabha traveled to England, he appointed DDK Acting Director, leaving him in charge of the fledgling institute. This was a position of considerable responsibility, and one that DDK clearly enjoyed, and in a long letter [91] written on 8th July he writes “About building up a School of Mathematics in India, we also think alike; but, as you are fully aware, we have to get people trained in a considerable number of branches for which there are no real specialists in this country.”

The relationship also grew warm, especially since they had to plan the Institute together, concerning themselves with details regarding land acquisition, equipping the laboratories, hiring staff, planning for the future. That same year DDK was elected Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy, and the next, in 1947, was awarded the Bhabha Prize (named for Bhabha’s father, Jehangir Hormusji Bhabha). He was also chosen President of the Mathematics section of the 34th Indian Science Congress that was held in Delhi in December 1947 [47] with the active support of Bhabha who also realized that this would bring DDK into contact with Nehru. Kosambi’s mathematical and statistical expertise was also greatly appreciated—a number of colleagues, Bhabha among them, acknowledge his advice and help explicitly in their scientific publications.

In 1948, when DDK was to go to the US for a year’s visit, to Chicago and Princeton, Bhabha threw a party for him at his residence in Malabar Hill. This visit was in fact largely arranged by Bhabha, and among other things, DDK was to investigate the possibility of getting a computing machine for the new institute [91] as well as to attract new faculty, K. Chandrasekharan and S. Minakshisundaram in particular. On this trip, he pursued all aspects of his wide–ranging interests, visiting Einstein and von Neumann in Princeton, Norbert Wiener in Boston, as well as the historian, A. L. Basham in London. In Chicago, he was visiting Professor at the University, where he gave a course of 36 lectures on tensor analysis. This was a special interest of his: he had been invited to the editorial board of the Hokkaido University journal, Tensor (New Series), and indeed an article of his had been translated into Japanese already in 1939 by the same journal [25].

In the event, Chandrasekharan joined the TIFR in 1950 or so, and shortly thereafter, so did K. G. Ramanathan, who had obtained his Ph. D. at Princeton. They were to play a much more influential role in shaping the TIFR School of Mathematics. In the next few years, though, the cracks in the relationship between Bhabha and DDK surfaced, first in regard to students and then gradually, with regard to details such as his attendance in office and other aspects of his working.

The spiral downwards, though, began in 1959 with the publication of the JISAS paper [63], and the subsequent grand obsession with a probabilistic proof of the Riemann hypothesis. His differences became more pronounced with Bhabha who relied more and more on Chandrasekharan’s opinion and estimation of DDK’s work. The coup de grace was a letter signed by four of the mathematicians at TIFR stating that Kosambi had become an embarrassment to the Institute with his claim of the proof of the RH and of Fermat’s Last Theorem [106] that was being broadcast internationally.

There were other differences with Bhabha which were of a political nature, but these differences were already present in 1946 when Bhabha invited DDK to join TIFR. The unpublished (and largely unknown) essay ‘An Introduction To Lectures On Dialectical Materialism’ relates to a set of 15 lectures given by Kosambi to the citizenry of Pune in 1943. Later, when he gave a set of lectures on Statistics at TIFR the notes conclude with an appreciation of Lenin [107]. Indeed, Bhabha facilitated DDK’s visits to the Soviet Union and China, and it is not possible that DDK’s views were hidden under a bushel until the early 1960’s.

In July 1960 DDK gave a talk to the Rotary Club of Poona on “Atomic Energy for India”. This essay [108] is an unabashed advocacy of solar power over atomic power, mirroring in a sense his ideological conflict with the DAE. Half a century later, many of these issues remain current and the arguments remain valid, as for example the following observation.

It seems to me that research on the utilization of solar radiation, where the fuel costs nothing at all, would be of immense benefit to India, whether or not atomic energy is used. But by research is not meant the writing of a few papers, sending favoured delegates to international conferences and pocketing of considerable research grants by those who can persuade complaisant politicians to sanction crores of the taxpayers’ money. Our research has to be translated into use.

There is more in these essays on solar energy that merits attention even today such as his observations on energy storage and distribution, and on environmental issues [108]. Eventually matters came to such a pass as to cause the DAE to not renew DDK’s contract. As already pointed out, the RH papers had caused a serious blow to Kosambi’s mathematical reputation and while this was made out as the proximate cause for his dismissal from TIFR, trouble had been brewing for some time. The letters between Bhabha and DDK grew increasingly formal, bureaucratic, and strained. There was a distinct difference in styles, and the iconoclastic Kosambi was hardly one to fit into the DAE mould.

4. Pseudonyms and Aliases

DDK was responsible for the first mention of Bourbaki in the mathematics literature in his publication [4] in the Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences, UP, in 1931, although the obscurity of the journal has resulted in the article receiving less attention than it deserved, even from a purely historical point of view. André Weil had suggested a prank, that he ascribe a theorem to a nonexistent Russian mathematician, in order to put down an older colleague in Aligarh who was giving the young Kosambi a difficult time. There is not much more than a paragraph in Weil’s autobiography [86] on this episode, so the circumstances surrounding the event are difficult to reconstruct. Nevertheless, this parodic note passed off as a serious contribution to a provincial journal is not entirely facetious.

It was not until December 1934 that the Bourbaki idea acquired more momentum [109, 110], when Weil along with Henri Cartan, Claude Chevalley, Jean Delsarte, Jean Dieudonné, and René de Possel, decided ... to define for 25 years the syllabus for the certificate in differential and integral calculus by writing, collectively, a treatise on analysis. Of course, this treatise will be as modern as possible. The book [111] would eventually appear in 1938, authored by the group that now called themselves Nicolas Bourbaki [112]; they then went on to write many more (and extremely influential) volumes. An Indian connection remained: when Boas mentioned (in the Britannica Book of the Year) that Bourbaki was a collective pseudonym, he got an indignant letter of protest, from Bourbaki, writing from his ashram in the Himalayas [113]. It should also be noted that Kosambi cites D. Bourbaki [4] who is allegedly of Russian extraction, while the first name eventually adopted by the Bourbaki collective [114] is Nicolas, who is of Greek descent.

Aliases were used by DDK on several occasions although he did not use them extensively enough to warrant a distinction between his “aesthetic” or pseudonymous writing and that published under his own name. S. Ducray was merely the last nom de plume in a series, although by far the most elaborate. His first article in the magazine of Fergusson College was signed off as ‘Ahriman’ [115]. Subsequently he wrote an expository article on the Raman effect as ‘Indian Scientist’ [116], and a note as ‘Vidyarthi’ [117]: this was almost surely his nod to William Sealy Gosset, the chemist and statistician who, as ‘Student’ invented the t-test in statistics.

It is difficult to discern what led him to use the pseudonym S. Ducray. The alleged etymology is that Bonzo, the Kosambi family dog in the 1960’s was quite plump, and DDK affectionately called him Dukker, namely ‘pig’ in Marathi. This evolved into Ducray, a name that sounds vaguely French, with the forename being the Sanskrit for dog, namely Svana. The choice of such a name remains enigmatic, and while it may have been prompted initially by his anger with the establishment—to date Kosambi is among the very few persons to have had their appointment terminated by the Department of Atomic Energy—there is enough to suggest that there may be more to the use of this alias than pique.

DDK published four articles as S. Ducray, two in the Journal of the University of Bombay [65, 66] and two in the Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences [68, 69]. The latter two were in fact communicated by C. V. Raman. While this may have been a formal device employed by the journal, it is highly unlikely that Raman knew of the masquerade. Had Raman known, it is also highly unlikely that he would have permitted such subterfuge in a journal of his Academy. These two papers were serious enough as works of mathematics, as were the other two Ducray papers that were submitted to the Journal of the University of Bombay. Indeed, two of these four papers were reviewed in Mathematical Reviews. All the four articles show a strong connection to DDK, acknowledging him in one and quoting a private communication from Paul Erdös in another, in addition, of course, to citing his related papers written as D. D. Kosambi.

These papers continued the prime obsession that DDK showed in his last years. Regrettably, the manuscript of his book [71] that was mailed to the publishers a short time before his death has never been retrieved. If nothing else, it would have provided some clues as to how he hoped to use probability theory in this arena.

Although reviewed in MR, the papers had serious shortcomings. J. Kubilius who himself worked in the area of probabilistic number theory says of ‘Probability and prime numbers’ [68] that The reviewer could not follow the proof of the cardinal Lemma 3. The paper “Normal Sequences” [66] was comprehensively reviewed by B. Volkmann who pointed out a number of inaccuracies and misprints.

One of DDK’s earlier papers had been reviewed in Mathematical Reviews by E. S. Pondiczery: this was the editor Ralph Boas Jr’s pseudonym, a fanciful ‘slavic’ spelling of Pondicherry. The name, which Boas used even when writing serious mathematics, was apparently concocted for its initials, ESP, and was to have been used for writing an article debunking extra–sensory perception. Boas had a well–developed sense of the ludic and was one of the authors of the brilliant article “A Contribution to the Mathematical Theory of Big Game Hunting” that was published in the American Mathematical Monthly under the (collective) pseudonym H. W. O. Pétard [118]. Both Boas and Kosambi were publicly dismissive of extra–sensory perception, and in 1958 DDK in collaboration with U. V. R. Rao authored an article analysing the statistical defects underlying parapsychological experiments [60]. This paper was subsequently commented upon by A. W. Joseph [119] who pointed out an error in analysis as well as in the conclusions, ending with The above comments do not detract from the valuable experiments in card–shuffling made by the authors, but it is suggested that there is little weight left in their criticism of the ESP investigations. Perhaps it was these connections that inspired Kosambi when he was to later adopt the Ducray alias.

5. Concluding Remarks

History may not have been particularly kind to Kosambi the mathematician, but in his lifetime DDK was appreciated for his scholarship and intelligence [120] early in his career and by his peers. The manner in which Kosambi was viewed by his contemporaries—many of who were more distinguished than him and had a more significant impact in mathematics—is revealing. From 1930 to 1958 or so, DDK enjoyed the respect and admiration of a large professional circle. As has been noted earlier [75], his contributions in areas such as ancient Indian history, Sanskrit epigraphy, Indology, as well as his writings of a political and pacific nature grew both in volume and in substance in the 1940’s and 1950’s, overshadowing his mathematics, although the constancy of his work in the area remained. His wide scholarship and his ability to integrate different strands of thought gave him a large and dispersed audience, although his temperament and his politics were also well known and not as widely appreciated.

One important recognition that was accorded him, in part due to his being at the TIFR and the association with Bhabha, but also for his work and his mathematical antecedents [121], was his appointment as a member, in 1950, of the Interim Executive Committee of the International Mathematical Union, to serve along with Harald Bohr, Lars Ahlfors, Karol Borsuk, Maurice Fréchet, William Hodge, A. N. Kolmogorov and Marston Morse. One of the tasks of this rather distinguished group was to choose Fields medalists, and DDK served on this committee for two years.

It is thus noteworthy that in a period that spans three decades, Kosambi was mathematically productive, prolific, original, and was taken seriously by the scientific establishment in the country, as his elections to the Fellowships of the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Indian National Science Academy and the Presidency of the Mathematics section of the 34th Indian Science Congress in 1947, among other distinctions, testify. His papers appeared in leading journals of the world, and were communicated by or reviewed by some of the leading mathematicians of the time. And that this happened while his reputation in a diametrically different field was also burgeoning can only be seen as evidence of a complex but nevertheless Promethean intellect.

Acknowledgment

I have greatly benefited from conversations and/or correspondence with Michael Berry, S. G. Dani, Meera Kosambi, Mrs. Marston Morse, Rajaram Nityananda and Andrew Odlyzko. The TIFR archives have been very helpful in providing copies of the correspondence between Kosambi and Bhabha, and Kapilanjan Krishan, Rahim Rajan and Mudit Trivedi have helped me obtain copies of articles by DDK that proved to be the most difficult to locate. The main effort of putting together the collected mathematical works of DDK was completed at the University of Tokyo in January 2010, and their hospitality is gratefully acknowledged.

References

[1] J. D. Bernal, Nature 211, 1024 (1966).

[2] For convenience, in this essay I will refer to Professor Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi as  DDK or just Kosambi. Other abbreviations used frequently in this essay are MR (Mathematical Reviews), JISAS (Journal of the Indian Society for Agricultural Statistics), RH (Riemann hypothesis), TIFR (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research). Journal names are given in full, and the MR reference number will help locate the reviews of the pertinent papers.

[3] D. D. Kosambi, “Precessions of an elliptical orbit”, Indian Journal of Physics 5, 359–64 (1930)

[4] D. D. Kosambi, “On a generalization of the second theorem of Bourbaki”, Bulletin of the  Academy of Sciences, U. P. 1, 145–47 (1931)

[5] D. D. Kosambi, “Modern differential geometries”, Indian Journal of Physics 7, 159–64 (1932)

[6] D. D. Kosambi, “On differential equations with the group property”, Journal of the Indian  Mathematical Society 19, 215–19 (1932)

[7] D. D. Kosambi, “Geometrie differentielle et calcul des variations”, Rendiconti della Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei 16, 410–15 (1932)

[8] D. D. Kosambi, “On the existence of a metric and the inverse variational problem”, Bulletin of the Academy of Sciences, U. P. 2, 17–28 (1932)

[9] D. D. Kosambi, “Affin-geometrische Grundlagen der Einheitlichen Feld–theorie”, Sitzungsberichten der Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Physikalisch-mathematische klasse 28, 342–45 (1932)

[10] D. D. Kosambi, “Parallelism and path-spaces”, Mathematische Zeitschrift 37, 608–18 (1933); MR1545422.

[11] D. D. Kosambi, “Observations sur le memoire precedent”, Mathematische Zeitschrift 37, 619– 22 (1933); MR1545423.

[12] D. D. Kosambi, “The problem of differential invariants”, Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society 20, 185–88 (1933)

[13] D. D. Kosambi, “The classification of integers”, Journal of the University of Bombay 2, 18–20 (1933)

[14] D. D. Kosambi, “Collineations in path-space”, Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society 1, 68–72 (1934)

[15] D. D. Kosambi, “Continuous groups and two theorems of Euler”, The Mathematics Student 2, 94–100 (1934)

[16] D. D. Kosambi, “The maximum modulus theorem”, Journal of the University of Bombay 3, 11–12 (1934)

[17] D. D. Kosambi, “Homogeneous metrics”, Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences 1, 952–54 (1935)

[18] D. D. Kosambi, “An affine calculus of variations”, Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences 2, 333–35 (1935)

[19] D. D. Kosambi, “Systems of differential equations of the second order”, Quarterly Journal of Mathematics (Oxford) 6, 1–12 (1935)

[20] D. D. Kosambi, “Differential geometry of the Laplace equation”, Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society 2, 141–43 (1936)

[21] D. D. Kosambi, “Path-spaces of higher order”, Quarterly Journal of Mathematics (Oxford) 7, 97–104 (1936)

[22] D. D. Kosambi, “Path-geometry and cosmogony”, Quarterly Journal of Mathematics (Oxford) 7, 290–93 (1936)

[23] D. D. Kosambi, “Les metriques homogenes dans les espaces cosmogoniques”, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences 206, 1086–88 (1938)

[24] D. D. Kosambi, “Les espaces des paths generalises qu’on peut associer avec un espace de Finsler”, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences 206, 1538–41 (1938)

[25] D. D. Kosambi, “The tensor analysis of partial differential equations”, Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society 3, 249–53 (1939); MR0001882 (1,313f) Reviewer: E. W. Titt. Tensor, 2, 36–39 (1939); MR0001075 (1,176c) Reviewer: A. Kawaguchi.

[26] D. D. Kosambi, “A statistical study of the weights of the old Indian punch-marked coins”, Current Science 9, 312–14 (1940)

[27] D. D. Kosambi, “On the weights of old Indian punch-marked coins”, Current Science 9, 410–11 (1940)

[28] D. D. Kosambi, “Path-equations admitting the Lorentz group”, Journal of the London Mathematical Society 15, 86–91 (1940); MR0002258 (2,21f) Reviewer: J. L. Vanderslice.

[29] D. D. Kosambi, “The concept of isotropy in generalized path-spaces”, Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society 4, 80–88 (1940); MR0003125 (2,166g) Reviewer: J. L. Vanderslice.

[30] D. D. Kosambi, “A note on frequency distribution in series”, The Mathematics Student 8,  151–55 (1940); MR0005390 (3,147h).

[31] D. D. Kosambi, “A bivariate extension of Fisher’s Z–test”, Current Science 10, 191–92 (1941);  MR0005589 (3,175h) Reviewer: A. Wald.

[32] D. D. Kosambi, “Correlation and time series”, Current Science 10, 372–74 (1941); MR0005590  (3,175i) Reviewer: A. Wald.

[33] D. D. Kosambi, “Path-equations admitting the Lorentz group–II”, Journal of the Indian Math ematical Society 5, 62–72 (1941); MR0005713 (3,192g) Reviewer: J. L. Vanderslice.

[34] D. D. Kosambi, “On the origin and development of silver coinage in India”, Current Science  10, 395–400 (1941)

[35] D. D. Kosambi, “On the zeros and closure of orthogonal functions”, Journal of the Indian  Mathematical Society 6, 16–24 (1942); MR0006770 (4,39d) Reviewer: E. S. Pondiczery.

[36] D. D. Kosambi, “The effect of circulation upon the weight of metallic currency”, Current  Science 11, 227–31 (1942)

[37] D. D. Kosambi, “A test of significance for multiple observations”, Current Science 11, 271–74  (1942); MR0007235 (4,107b) Reviewer: A. Wald.

[38] D. D. Kosambi, “On valid tests of linguistic hypotheses”, New Indian Antiquary 5, 21—24  (1942); MR0007247 (4,109a) Reviewer: A. Wald.

[39] D. D. Kosambi, “Statistics in function space”, Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society 7,  76–88 (1943); MR0009816 (5,207c) Reviewer: J. L. Doob.

[40] D. D. Kosambi, “The estimation of map distance from recombination values”, Annals of Eugenics 12, 172–75 (1944)

[41] D. D. Kosambi, “Direct derivation of Balmer spectra”, Current Science 13, 71–72 (1944)

[42] D. D. Kosambi, “The geometric method in mathematical statistics”, American Mathematical  Monthly 51, 382–89 (1944); MR0010937 (6,91c) Reviewer: R. L. Anderson.

[43] D. D. Kosambi, “Parallelism in the tensor analysis of partial differential equations”, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 51, 293–96 (1945); MR0011793 (6,217e) Reviewer: J.  L. Vanderslice.

[44] D. D. Kosambi, “The law of large numbers”, The Mathematics Student 14, 14–19 (1946);  MR0023471 (9,360i) Reviewer: W. Feller.

[45] D. D. Kosambi, “Sur la differentiation covariante”, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences  222, 211–13 (1946); MR0015274 (7,396b) Reviewer: J. L. Vanderslice.

[46] D. D. Kosambi, “An extension of the least–squares method for statistical estimation”, Annals  of Eugenics 18, 257–61 (1947); MR0021290 (9,49d) Reviewer: J. Wolfowitz.

[47] D. D. Kosambi, “Possible Applications of the Functional Calculus”, Proceedings of the 34th  Indian Science Congress. Part II: Presidential Addresses, 1–13 (1947)

[48] D. D. Kosambi, “Les invariants differentiels d’un tenseur covariant a deux indices”, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences 225, 790–92 (1947); MR0022433 (9,207b) Reviewer: N.  Coburn.

[49] D. D. Kosambi, “Systems of partial differential equations of the second order”, Quarterly  Journal of Mathematics (Oxford) 19, 204–19 (1948); MR0028514 (10,458d) Reviewer: M.  Janet.

[50] D. D. Kosambi, “Characteristic properties of series distributions”, Proceedings of the National  Institute of Science of India 15, 109–13 (1949); MR0030731 (11,42h) Reviewer: J. L. Doob.

[51] D. D. Kosambi, “Lie rings in path-space”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 35, 389–94 (1949); MR0030807 (11,56a) Reviewer: O. Varga.

[52] D. D. Kosambi, “The differential invariants of a two-index tensor”, Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society 55, 90–94 (1949); MR0028653 (10,480b) Reviewer: V. Hlavaty ́.

[53] D. D. Kosambi, “Series expansions of continuous groups”, Quarterly Journal of Mathematics (Oxford, 2) 2, 244–57 (1951); MR0045732 (13,624b) Reviewer: M. S. Knebelman.

[54] D. D. Kosambi and S. Raghavachari, “Seasonal variations in the Indian birth–rate”, Annals of Eugenics 16, 165–92 (1951); MR0046135 (13,691b) Reviewer: R. P. Boas, Jr.

[55] D. D. Kosambi, “Path-spaces admitting collineations”, Quarterly Journal of Mathematics (Oxford, 2) 3, 1–11 (1952); MR0047387 (13,870d) Reviewer: O. Varga.

[56] D. D. Kosambi, “Path-geometry and continuous groups”, Quarterly Journal of Mathematics (Oxford, 2) 3, 307–20 (1952); MR0051562 (14,498g) Reviewer: A. Nijenhuis.

[57] S. Raghavachari and D. D. Kosambi, “Seasonal variations in the Indian death–rate”, Annals of Human Genetics 19, 100–19 (1954)

[58] D. D. Kosambi, “The metric in path-space”, Tensor (New Series) 3, 67–74 (1954); MR0061869 (15,898a) Reviewer: J. A. Schouten.

[59] D. D. Kosambi, “Classical Tauberian theorems”, Journal of the Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics 10, 141–49 (1958); MR0118997 (22 #9766) Reviewer: J. Korevaar.

[60] D. D. Kosambi and U. V. R. Rao, “The efficiency of randomization by card–shuffling”, Journal of the Royal Statistics Society 121, 223–33 (1958)

[61] D. D. Kosambi, “The method of least–squares”, Journal of the Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics 11, 49–57 (1959); MR0114265 (22 #5089) Reviewer: R. G. Laha.

[62] D. D. Kosambi, “The method of least–squares. (In Chinese.)”, Advancement in Mathematics 3, 485–491 (1957); MR0100960 (20 #7385).

[63] D. D. Kosambi, “An application of stochastic convergence”, Journal of the Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics 11, 58–72 (1959); MR0122792 (23 #A126) Reviewer: W. J. LeVeque.

[64] D. D. Kosambi, “The sampling distribution of primes”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 49, 20–23 (1963); MR0146168 (26 #3690) Reviewer: J. B. Kelly.

[65] D. D. Kosambi (as S. Ducray), “A note on prime numbers”, Journal of the University of Bombay 31, 1–4 (1962)

[66] D. D. Kosambi, (as S. Ducray), “Normal Sequences”, Journal of the University of Bombay 32, 49–53 (1963); MR0197433 (33 #5598) Reviewer: B. Volkmann

[67] D. D. Kosambi, “Statistical methods in number theory”, Journal of the Indian Society of Agricultural Statistics 16, 126–35 (1964). MR0217024 (36 #119) Reviewer: A. Rényi.

[68] D. D. Kosambi (as S. Ducray), “Probability and prime numbers”, Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences 60, 159–64 (1964); MR0179148 (31 #3399) Reviewer: J. Kubilius.

[69] D. D. Kosambi (as S. Ducray)“The sequence of primes”, Proceedings of the Indian Academy of Sciences 62, 145–49 (1965)

[70] D. D. Kosambi, “Numismatics as a Science”, Scientific American, February 1966, pages 102–11.

[71] D. D. Kosambi, “Prime Numbers”, Monograph completed a few days before the author’s death;  untraced.

[72] “The Oxford India Kosambi”, Compiled, edited and introduced by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2009); “Combined Methods in Indology & Other Writings: Collected Essays”. D. D. Kosambi, Compiled, edited and introduced by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2005; “Indian Numismatics”, D. D. Kosambi (Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 1981); D. D. Kosambi, Steps in Science (Prof. D. D. Kosambi Commemoration Volume) Popular Prakashan Bombay, 1974; D. D. Kosambi, Exasperating Essays, Peoples Publishing House, 1957.

[73] ‘The many careers of D. D. Kosambi: Critical essays’, edited by D. N. Jha (Leftword, Delhi,  2011); ‘Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi’ (in Hindi) edited by R. S. Sharma (SAHMAT, New  Delhi 2010).

[74] Meera Kosambi, ed., “Unsettling the Past: Unknown Aspects and Scholarly Assessments of D.  D. Kosambi ”, (Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2012).

[75] R. Ramaswamy, ‘Integrating Mathematics and History: The scholarship of D. D. Kosambi’,  Economic and Political Weekly, 47, 58–62 (2012). Reproduced in [74].

[76] S. G. Dani, “Kosambi, the Mathematician”, Resonance journal of Science Education, June 2011, pp. 514–28. This issue of the journal is dedicated to D. D. Kosambi and contains several articles that discuss the scientific contributions of DDK as well as two essays on his life and  historical work.

[77] R. Narasimha, “Kosambi and Proper Orthogonal Decomposition”, Resonance journal of Science Education, June 2011, pp. 574–81.

[78] C. K. Raju, “Kosambi the Mathematician”, Economic and Political Weekly, 54, 38 (2009).

[79] References [3–71] are a complete set of the papers of DDK that are of a mathematical nature.  The list has been compiled in part from incomplete sources in the biography by Chintamani Deshmukh as well as web listings. In addition to the papers listed above, several of his essays relate to scientific issues, but these are not included here.

[80] R. Ramaswamy, ed., “D. D. Kosambi: Selected Works in Mathematics and Statistics”, (Springer Verlag), forthcoming.

[81] P. Antonelli, R. Ingarden and M. Matsumoto, “The Theory of Sprays and Finsler Spaces with Applications in Physics and Biology”, (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, 1993).

[82] K. Karhunen, “Über lineare Methoden in der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung”, Ann. Acad. Sci.  Fennicae. Ser. A. I. Math.-Phys. 37, 1–79 (1947); M. Loève, “Fonctions aleatoires de seconde  ordre”, C. R. Acad. Sci. 220, 295 (1945) and related papers.

[83] K. K. Vinod, “Kosambi and the genetic mapping function”, Resonance journal of Science  Education, June 2011, pp. 540–50.

[84] Starting with [10] in 1933, DDK wrote a series of papers on path spaces, the last being [58] in  1954.

[85] “Atomic Energy for India”, the text of a talk by DDK to the Rotary Club of Poona, on July 25,  1960 was published in the posthumous volume, “Science, Society, and Peace”, (The Academy  of Political and Social Studies, Pune, 1967, reprinted by People’s Publishing House, 1995)).

[86] A. Weil, “The apprenticeship of a mathematician”, (Birkhäuser, Basel, 1992).

[87] Tirukkannapuram Vijayaraghavan (1902–1955) was a Founding Fellow of the IASc, being  elected in 1934. He did his Ph. D. under the supervision of G. H. Hardy in Cambridge. From Dacca he moved to Waltair, and eventually became the founding director of the Ramanujan Institute of Mathematics in Madras.

[88] Sarvadaman Chowla (1907–1995) moved to the US in 1947 after a career at Delhi, Banaras, Waltair and Lahore in undivided India. A student of J. E. Littlewood, Chowla was a number theorist.

[89] In 1940, Weil was in military prison in Bonne-Nouvelle for refusing to take part in the war as a conscientious objector (since his true dharma was the pursuit of mathematics and not war, he said) when he proved an analogue of the Riemann hypothesis (for the zeta function of curves over finite fields). He did discuss the Riemann hypothesis with T. Vijayaraghavan, who is supposed to have said that if he could have six months—undisturbed and undistracted—in a prison, he could have a crack at solving the RH. See Ref. [86], and M. Raynaud, ‘André Weil and the Foundations of Algebraic Geometry’, Notices of the AMS, 46, 864 (1999).

[90] The historical spellings of city names have been retained where it seemed appropriate.

[91] The Kosambi–Bhabha correspondence has been made available through the kind courtesy of the TIFR archives. There are a large number of letters that are presently being catalogued and  edited. Some have been reproduced in [74].

[92] The most recent effort was in 2010, when Louise J. (Mrs Marston) Morse was nearly 100 years  old. She was kind enough to have the Morse archives searched, but was not able to locate this  manuscript or any reference to it.

[93] Of the 110 or so Founding Fellows, about two thirds were from the south of India or worked  there and Raman might have had greater familiarity with their work or their reputation.

[94] The University of Madras announced the Ramanujan Memorial Prize for “the best thesis based on original contributions submitted by an Indian (or one domiciled in India) on some definite branch of mathematics, applied or pure” in 1933. The prize was awarded in 1934, as reported  in Nature 135, 28–28 (1935).

[95] “A Chapter in the history of Indian science”, an unpublished essay by DDK is a damning  indictment of Raman’s role in suppressing creativity in Indian science.

[96] K. A. N., “Metrology of Punch-Marked Coins”, Current Science 7, 345–6 (1941). This might have been the historian of South India, K. A. Nilakantha Sastry (R. Thapar, private communication).

[97] D. D. Kosambi, ‘A Note on two hoards of punch marked coins found at Taxila’, New Indian  Antiquary 3, 156–57 (1940) and ‘On the study and metrology of silver punch marked coins’,  New Indian Antiquary 4, 1–35 and 49–76 (1941).

[98] The existence of a complete archive of these journals at the University of Tokyo has proved to  be an invaluable resource.

[99] H. M. Edwards, “Riemann’s Zeta Function”, (Academic Press, New York, 1974).

[100] S. Hawking, ‘A brief history of time’, (Bantam Books, 2011). 

[101] See, e.g. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, for a discussion of this very classic paradox, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradox-zeno/#AchTor

[102] These results need elementary but unfamiliar methods of complex analysis that can be found in standard textbooks. There are a number of websites on the internet that give a reasonable introduction to the mathematics. 

[103] M. Berry, private communication.

 [104] M. du Sautoy, “The Music of the Primes”, (Harper Perennial, London, 2004); K. Sabbagh, “Dr. Riemann’s Zeros”, (Atlantic Books, NY, 2003); J. Derbyshire, “Prime Obsession: Bernhard Riemann and the Greatest Unsolved Problem in Mathematics”, (Plume Books, New York, 2004); D. Rockmore, “Stalking the Riemann Hypothesis”, (Vintage, New York, 2005)

[105] A. Odlyzko, private communication. 

[106] In addition to Chandrashekaran and Ramanathan, the other two signatories were C. S. Seshadri and M. S. Narasimhan. Fermat’s last theorem, that the equation xn + yn = zn has no solutions with integer x, y, z if n is larger than 2 was proved conclusively only in 1995 by Andrew Wiles (see Simon Singh, “Fermat’s Enigma: The Epic Quest to Solve the World's Greatest Mathematical Problem”, (Anchor Books, 1998)). Kosambi could not have had the proof he claimed in his letters to eminent mathematicians such as Carl Siegel (who was at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) and others.

[107] D. D. Kosambi, ‘Lectures on Statistics’, unpublished. This essay concludes, But if I go any further into his achievements, I shall be preaching Bolshevism in the sacral portals of Bombay House and so must stop here.

[108] This is one of three essays on solar energy that were first reprinted in “Science, Society and Peace”, (The Academy of Political and Social Studies, Pune, 1986), as well as now in [74].

[109] L. Beaulieu, ‘Bourbaki’s Art of Memory’, Osiris, 14, 291 (1999). 

[110] See http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/HistTopics/Bourbaki 1.html.

 [111] N. Bourbaki, ‘Éléments de Mathématique, Book 1: Théorie des ensembles: Fascicule de Resultats ’, (Paris, Hermann, 1939). 

[112] The history of the Bourbaki collective has been written about extensively by Maurice Mashaal, Bourbaki: a secret society of mathematicians, (American Mathematical Society, Providence, 2006) as well as others, including Liliane Beaulieu [114]. While the eventual name chosen by the group was Nicolas, in the original Kosambi paper, it is D. Bourbaki. Whether the initial was for Damodar, or whether this refers to another of the Bourbaki scions remains a mystery.

[113] R. P. Boas Jr., ‘Bourbaki and me’, Math. Intelligencer, 8, 84 (1986). 

[114] L. Beaulieu, ‘Nicolas Bourbaki: History and Legend, 1934-1956’, (Springer Verlag, Berlin 2006).

[115] D. D. Kosambi, “The function of leadership in a mass movement; The Cawnpore Road”, Fergusson College Magazine, pp. 1–7 (1939). Ahriman is the destructive spirit in Zoroastrian mythology. 

[116] D. D. Kosambi, “The Raman effect”, Peoples Age, July 1945.

 [117] D. D. Kosambi (with Miss Sushila Gokhale), “Progress in the production and consumption of textile goods in India”, Journal of the Indian Merchants’ Chamber (Bombay), January, pp. 11–15 (1943). 

[118] H. W. O. Pétard, ‘A contribution to the mathematical theory of big game hunting’, American Mathematical Monthly, 45, 446 (1938). 

[119] A. W. Joseph, ‘A note on the paper by D. D. Kosambi and U. V. Ramamohan Rao on “The efficiency of randomization by card–shuffling”, Journal of the Royal Society of Statistics, 122, 373–74 (1959). 

[120] In ‘Artless innocents and ivory-tower sophisticates: Some personalities on the Indian mathematical scene’, Current Science 85, 526–537 (2003), M. S. Raghunathan ~~recalls~~recounts a conversation with André Weil in 1966 or 1967, when he (Weil) says of DDK, “... Let me tell you this: he was one of the finest intellects to come out of your country.” In his autobiography [86] André Weil recalls: I appointed Kosambi for the following year. He was a young man with an original turn of mind, fresh from Harvard where he had begun to take an interest in differential geometry. I had met him in Benares (now Varanasi) where he had found a temporary position.

[121] G. D. Birkhoff, ‘Mathematics at Harvard in the 1940’s’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 137, 268–272 (1993)

Researchers, activists bat for Mhatoba shrine status quo

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 11:13:00 -0700

Source: Times of India

Ananya Dutta,TNN | Sep 21, 2015, 03.00 AM IST

PUNE: The shrine dedicated to Mhatoba on top of Vetal Tekdi is an important cultural and historical site and should be maintained as it is, instead of obscuring it with a modern structure, feel experts and environmentalists.

"The Mhatoba shrine is important from an archaeological point of view as well as in terms of the folk and cult geography of Pune. Building a modern-style temple on the site would erase the actual ritual association that pastoral communities had with the shrine," said Indologist and researcher Saili K Palande Datar.

As far back as 1962, historian and polymath D D Kosambi had commented on the importance of the site in mapping the cult of Mhatoba. In his book 'Myth and Reality — Studies in the Formation of Indian Culture', Kosambi terms this shrine on the hilltop as "the original locus" of the Mhatoba of Kothrud village. According to him, it came here along with "herdsmen" from Wakad, where there is a temple to Mhatoba and his consort — a structure older than 1678AD.

Kosambi also found prehistoric artefacts in the vicinity of the shrine, including what may be megaliths (large stones) from an ancient burial site.

"I have been visiting the site from the 1960s. It used to be as Kosambi has described it, 'a red-daubed boulder' minimally covered with a tin shed. It was revered by Dhangar and Wadar communities, who would offer a sacrifice to the deity when passing through Pune," said environmental activist Vijay Paranjpye.

Palande Datar said the communities that have historical associations with the shrine, such as the Dhangars, don't even pass through the area anymore. "Altering the structure would be an appropriation of their cultural symbols and amount to an erasure of history. Introducing something new will damage the cultural significance of the site," she said.

She said that several hills in and around Pune are associated with similar folk and tribal deities, many of them closely connected with the conservation of biodiversity. The Waghjai and Taljai goddesses on Taljai Tekdi for instance were associated with their own sacred groves on the hill.

"Both these deities are Mother Goddesses worshipped by forest-dwelling communities. Over the years, the land-use pattern of the hill has changed, but they were originally protectors of its environment," she said.

A key aspect of retaining the shrines in their original form is that many of them were not meant to be enclosed by any artificial structure. Kosambi had noted that the "primitive origin and nature" of the cults was shown by the injunction that the stone must be open to the sky. He saw it as a sign that the cults date back to a period "before houses were in fashion, and when the 'village' was on the move".

"The shrine on top of Vetal Tekdi, along with its natural precincts, is a very important cultural heritage site. The shrine as I have known it all these years was always open to the skies. It should be maintained as it is, without disturbing its natural precincts," Paranjpye said.

A dissenting voice silenced, again

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Thu, 3 Sep 2015 07:14:00 -0700

Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi died in 1966. He was both a formidable mathematician and an unparalleled historian. His remarkable scholarship, his reading of ancient Sanskrit texts aside, he also had a very caustic, irreverent style. His Myth and Reality should be required reading for every believing Hindu. I would say also for every atheist but I suspect that Indian atheists of the educated variety are already very well acquainted with D D Kosambi. He is a star in the galaxy of Maharashtra’s fine traditions of scholarship and writing. Through his work he cut through several myths and exposed our many realities.

Mourners follow the funeral procession for scholar MM Kalburgi as he is taken to be buried at Karnataka University in Dharwad on August 31. Pic/AFP

I think about Kosambi in the aftermath of the murder of writer and scholar M M Kalburgi in the Karnataka town of Dharwad on August 30, shot down by gunmen who rang his doorbell. Kalburgi was what we like to call a “rationalist”. That is, he was not religious and had written against idol worship and superstition. For this, his life was under threat from members of organisations which hold allegiance to the Sangh Parivar and related Hindutva outfits. He had only recently asked the government to withdraw police protection. Perhaps neither fear nor giving in to threats was part of his character.

As the news of his death broke, a Bajrang Dal activist tweeted words to the effect that people like Kulbargi who mock Hinduism will die a “dog’s death” and suggested K S Bhagwan, another Kannada writer, was next. The tweet and account were soon deleted. The activist was arrested and then let out on bail even before he was produced before a magistrate. He has been involved in three earlier cases of assault.

It is tempting to blame the BJP government at the Centre for the rise of Hindutva right-wing bravado and audacity. But the problem runs deeper than one election result. Karnataka is a Congress-ruled state but is no less a simmering communal cauldron for all that. Moreover, atheist and anti-superstition activist Narendra Dhabolkar was shot in Pune, while on a morning walk in 2013, in what was then a Congress-NCP-ruled state. Veteran communist leader and rationalist Govind Pansare was shot in Kolhapur in February 2015, before the general elections and the state Assembly elections.

The suspects for all three murders are the same, however — Hindutva outfits. The undertone is chilling: if you are seen to oppose Hindu practices, death will be your reward. It is dangerous to dismiss this as the thinking of kooks, nutcases and fringe elements. We are talking about more insidious and fearless elements of our society, who obviously feel they can get away with murder. And we are also talking about tacit acceptance from larger sections of society. In spite of being around 80 per cent of the population, there are Hindus in India who are riven with insecurity about their numbers and an imminent threat from religious minorities. I have heard gentle arguments about how you should not criticise Hinduism or this is what will happen, with a small aside that murder is not correct.

Interestingly, the same people were very quick to come out in support of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and the horrific attack on it by Islamists. They possibly do not see the irony in condemning violence by those who believe Islam has been “abused” while saluting those who murder when Hinduism is “insulted”.

Some people will argue that it is best not to challenge such murderous ideologies and thus remain safe from attack. But how far will that get us? Must we all look askance at the atrocities committed by IS and then pretend that Kalburgi, Pansare and Dhabolkar were not murdered for threatening the status quo? Is there space left in India for argument or is a “dog’s death” now an acceptable response?

Many years ago, Minoo Masani told me about a conversation he had many many years earlier with C Rajagopalachari. Rajaji asked him, “Do you believe in mumbo-jumbo?” Masani answered, “No.” Rajaji’s reply: “Then you will find life very difficult in India.”

So what would we make of Rajaji and Masani in today’s India? And if it comes to that, DD Kosambi? I am re-reading Kosambi’s Myth and Reality while you ponder on that.

Ranjona Banerji is a senior journalist. You can follow her on Twitter @ranjona

Source

Meera Kosambi Passes Away

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Mon, 2 Mar 2015 09:19:00 -0800

Reposted from Permanent Black

Over our many years of publishing Meera Kosambi's books, including her brilliant translation of the memoirs of Dharmanand Kosambi, the author became a friend with whom much was shared and exchanged. She will be deeply missed.

A detailed blogpost will follow shortly.

From the Hindu:

A wide-ranging writer and intellectual, she authored numerous essays and books on topics ranging from Marathi theatre to the social ecology of Mumbai.

Noted sociologist Meera Kosambi, the youngest daughter of the great historian and mathematician D.D. Kosambi, passed away at a private hospital in Pune on Thursday after a brief illness aged 75.

Ms. Kosambi, who did not marry, had an illustrious academic pedigree. Her father, a polymath, was India’s pre-eminent Marxist historian, while her grandfather was the renowned Buddhist scholar and Pali language expert, Acharya Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi.

Ms. Kosambi, who did her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Stockholm, wrote, co-wrote or edited more than 15 books which reflected a lifelong preoccupation and passion for with the notion of the modern, emancipated Indian woman.

While all her works are shot through with brilliant and incisive scholarship, Ms. Kosambi’s crowning achievement was to turn the light on Pandita Ramambai, the great 19 century Indian reformer and educationist and early pioneer of women’s emancipation in India.

Through her splendid translations of Returning the American Gaze: Pandita Ramabai’s the people of the United States (1889) and a volume of Ramabai’s Selected Works, Ms. Kosambi was instrumental in salvaging the great reformer’s reputation from the debris of time and restoring Pandita Ramabai to the pedestal of one of Modern India’s most illustrious figures.

A wide-ranging writer and intellectual, she authored numerous essays and books on topics ranging from Marathi theatre to the social ecology of Mumbai.

She retired as a professor and director of the Research Centre for Women’s Studies, a post that she held for a decade, at the SNDT Women’s University in Mumbai.

From the Times of India

Sad news of the death of prominent sociologist, writer, and translator Meera Kosambi, in Pune on February 26, was received as

a double blow in her ancestral Goa. Many friends and admirers did not know she was ailing. The news was a shock.

There was also immediate recognition that an era had passed—76-year-old Meera Kosambi was the last living link to the prodigious intellectual legacy of her father, D D Kosambi, and her grandfather, Dharmanand Kosambi, who set out on foot from Sancoale in Goa in 1899 to found one of the greatest intellectual dynasties of the 20th century.

Every Indian schoolchild learns about the Tagores, but very few are taught about the Kosambis, despite three generations of truly exceptional achievement backed by pioneering work in multiple fields of research and scholarship. This 'recognition gap' can be attributed to the fact that the Kosambis stood alone, usually far ahead of their contemporaries.

Meera's description of her grandfather aptly summarizes the family character: "solitary thinker(s)... refusal to court public adulation, coupled with plain-speaking and unwillingness to compromise."

The combined story of the Kosambis is almost unbelievable.

Dharmanand's powerful thirst for knowledge—first, about Buddhism—led him to leave his wife and infant daughter and walk out from Sancoale across the border of Portuguese India to Pune, then Varanasi, where he learned Sanskrit while subsisting like a mendicant.

He trudged to Nepal to study Pali, then to Sri Lanka where he was ordained a Buddhist monk. By 1910, he was working at Harvard University in the USA. After learning Russian, this intrepid Goan scholar went on to teach at Leningrad University as well.

Dharmanand returned to India to participate in the freedom struggle against the British. He was imprisoned for six years for his key role in the salt satyagraha. But he continued to write and teach about Buddhism—his influence led B R Ambedkar to convert.

When he sought to give up his life through voluntary fasting just before independence, Mahatma Gandhi prevailed upon him to reconsider, but Dharmanand was steadfast. He died at Sevagram in June 1947.

In the introduction to her masterly translations of 'the essential writings' of Dharmanand, Meera acknowledged: "I did not

know my grandfather", but sought to "claim him as an intellectual ancestor".

She did meet him as a child, and her rigorous, sensitive approach to translating his writings from Marathi —especially the spellbinding autobiographical 'Nivedan' —more than demonstrates a powerful connection.

Even stronger ties bound the adamantine scholar D D Kosambi to his devoted daughter.

Her last book 'Unsettling the Past: Unknown Aspects and Scholarly Assessments of D D Kosambi', was released in Goa in December 2013.

Meera's father was a spectacular polymath with major contributions to the study of ancient history, mathematics, Sanskrit literature, numismatics, and energy policy.

He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard in 1929, before returning to India and writing a long series of highly original papers—backed by painstaking, innovative fieldwork—that define the meaning of 'Renaissance Man'.

Just as Meera's terrific translations of her grandfather's work have proven integral to Dharmanand Kosambi's continuing relevance, her collection of D D Kosambi's writings secured her father's place in history.

The three essays on solar energy alone illustrate how far ahead he was of his time. If India had heeded him instead of his some-time nemesis Homi Bhabha, there is no doubt the country would be far ahead today.

The youngest link in the Kosambi intellectual chain was much more than merely the champion of her father and grandfather.

Meera was a strikingly distinctive feminist thinker and writer, as well as one of the most meticulous scholars and translators

of her generation.

Some Theoretical comments on DD Kosambi's The Culture and Civilization of Ancient India

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 08:19:00 -0800

A paper by R. Sundara Rajan.

Indian Philosophical Quarterly : Volume 3. January 1976

"Conflict is the main spring of Marxian social dynamics, whereas in Kosambi, there is no such clear identification of a dynamic factor; he merely speaks of successive changes in the means and relations of production. But if we wish to identify the dynamic factor in Kosambi's model of change, we have to look to another context and surprisingly enough, it turns out to be population growth"

Download: https://app.box.com/s/15db6oy3m91moo5wjw7c9gly7m1xc5j3

Alternate download from source: Indian Philosophical Quarterly, University of Pune

Kosambi’s ‘An Introduction to the Study of Indian History’ Translated into Telugu

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 11:13:00 -0800

Source: The New Indian Express

Delhi University retd professor Uma Chakravarti and Veekshanam editor N Venugopal in conversation before her talk on DD Kosambi’s approach to history at the release of the Telugu translation of ‘An Introduction to the Study of Indian History’ in Hyderabad on Monday | A RADHAKRISHNA

HYDERABAD: DD Kosambi is the first historian to adopt a logical approach to Indian history and his books reflect his ideas, which are very different from other historians, according to Prof. Uma Chakravarthi, a retired history faculty of the Delhi University.

Speaking at the launch of the Telugu translation of noted mathematician and Marxist historian DD Kosambi’s classic, ‘An Introduction to the Study of Indian History,’ here Monday, Uma felt that, even after five decades, Kosambi’s work still stands as a landmark in the field of history.

“Many scholars pick some paragraphs from his books and make an entire thesis out of them, but I don’t think they follow the method he followed,” she opined. Though his work in history is considered to be one of the best, interestingly, he never pursued it as his full-time profession. He wrote all his papers while working as a mathematics teacher, she added.

Kosambi was also the first historian to talk about caste and gender in ancient India. Most of the historians begin Indian history only from 16th or 17th century while Kosambi begins his reference way back from the 12th century, Uma explained, adding that chapters on Buddhism are her favourites among Kosambi’s works.

Prof Inukonda Thirumali, chairman of the joint action committee of the Telangana Praja Sanghalu, described Kosambi’s book as an ‘eye-opener’ which shows the difference between truth and myth. He said such ideas should be brought to light and the book should be translated into as many languages as possible. “This is the reason why Geeta Ramaswamy of Hyderabad Book Trust decided to bring out the Telugu translation,” he added. Translated by N Venugopal, editor of Veekshanam magazine, the Telugu translation titled, ‘Bharata Charitra Adhyayananiki Oka Parichayam,’ was jointly published by Hyderabad Book Trust and Veekshanam.

‘Kosambi broke with the past, pioneered a new methodology’

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 28 Jan 2015 11:10:00 -0800

Source: The Hindu

Historian Uma Chakravarti said Kosambi was a pioneer in social history at a time when the basic writing of history was either colonial or nationalistic

Eminent historian Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi made path-breaking contributions to historical analysis through his methodology, noted well-known feminist historian and civil liberties activist Uma Chakravarti.

During her talk on Kosambi’s Approach to History here on Monday, Prof. Chakravarti said Kosambi was a pioneer in social history at a time when the basic writing of history was either colonial or nationalistic.

This was stated in an introduction to a Telugu translation of D.D. Kosambi’s An Introduction to the Study of Indian History by N. Venugopal.

Though emerging as an antidote to the colonial narrative, the problem with nationalist history was that it constantly evoked a “glorious past”, and its reluctance to look at caste and gender meant disengagement with the present, Prof. Chakravarti noted.

Indologists who narrowed down their tools to texts have typically left the history before 1200 AD to the realm of mythology, which offered nothing in terms of caste and gender.

In contrast, Kosambi, a mathematician by profession, was incredibly eclectic and used all tools at his disposal, including numismatics, statistical derivatives and archaeology to study ethnography, and brought out a set of questions that had not been seriously considered before 1956.

The observation that India did not need slavery thanks to its caste system and debt bondage, and that the Indus Valley could have been a static civilisation as its script remained unchanged for 800 years, were remarkable examples of his historical understanding. His study of Buddhism and State formation were brilliant, Prof. Chakravarti remarked.

“I don’t think Kosambi should be treated as God. The method he followed made him open to analysis…Nobody has adopted his methodology, but just want to follow the line he gave,” she pointed out.

She also noted that Kosambi made a gendered analysis of history in Myth and Reality , even though gender was a dimension much ignored.

I don’t think Kosambi should be treated as God. The method he followed made him open to analysis…Nobody has adopted his methodology, but just want to follow the line he gave

Prof. Uma Chakravarti

Historian

Historian Uma Chakravarti said Kosambi was a pioneer in social history at a time when the basic writing of history was either colonial or nationalistic

DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas Facebook page

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 09:29:00 -0800

Please "Like" the DD Kosambi Festival of Ideas Facebook page to get updates about the annual festival.

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Lessons from D D Kosambi

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 19 Nov 2014 09:23:00 -0800

Lessons from D D Kosambi

Posted by: Navhind Times in Panorama

By Victor Ferrao

Link to source article

‘Give us today our daily bread’ is already a highly developed prayer and cannot have been prayed by humanity in the stone age as nothing like bread was known to us then writes Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi in his famous book Myth and Reality.

Indeed, the prayer could not be directed to God the father in that era, when Mother Goddess was predominant. All our beliefs today have evolved and gained in complexity. Scientist Newton recognised that he saw further because he stood on the shoulders of giants. Our past has a constitutive relationship with the present. Most of us in India accept this truth more radically through our belief in the law of karma.

Kosambi, being a great intellectual giant, drove home this plain truth effectively through his book. He demonstrated that some of our myths and rituals have primitive roots, opening a new widow to our understanding of our history and culture. He showed how these practices remain fossilised in the caste and religious practices of today.

We can identify two dynamic processes in the religio-political past our country. Some ancient cults amalgamated with each other and consolidated their socio-political and even economic dominance while the quest for the same lead other cults to refuse merger with others.

Kosambe maintained that it is not the cults that clash with each other, but rather the people who follow them, who sometimes even take to violent paths. In this context, he presented the conflict between the followers of Acharya Shankara and Acharya Ramanuja as model and asserted that nothing in the noble theology of the two could inspire such violence and yet it occurred.

Kosambe stated that the cult of Shiva grew out of primitive aniconic cult-stones and steadily sublimated into the god that he is today. He pointed out that at one stage his lower form came into more or less violent conflicts with various mother Goddesses, who were senior deities of that era. We can trace a naked three-headed God of Indus civilization that appears to have graduated into modern Shiva. He further stated that the Indus man-tiger metamorphises into man-lion Narasimha, the incarnation of Vishnu. Besides this, he taught that the marriage between Shiva and Parvati is a latter event, when human marriage had become a high ceremony. This means that the God’s of today have evolved from dynamic stratum that can take us to the origin of our civilization. Society often forgets the ideologies of the past that are associated with its gods but carry further older imagery within new spectrums of meanings. The gods of our days have complex and dynamic genealogies and have evolved with our evolving society. This means locals gods got absorbed into the senior and dominant deities as power equations in our societies also shifted.

The views of Kosambe resonate with ideas articulated in Max Weber’s celebrated book Sociology of Religion. It only shows that gods are not static but evolve and metamorphise along with socio-political changes that take place in our society.

We might be able to trace the complex genealogy of our god’s in the context of Goa. The senior deities that are reining today in Goa certainly tell us a complex tale of the in migration and demographic settlements of our ancestors. Almost all of our senior deities of today have their substratum in the original settlers of Goa. These original Goans belong to a tribal society who have their heirs among us even today.

The first to come into Goa were the mhars, followed by the kols and then mundas. They came along with their gods. Eventually others who came in, especially the Aryans, absorbed their gods and more complex deities evolved. Thus, the amalgamation of the santer with Durga became Santa Durga. The Malkajan became Mallikarjun. This tendency of hybridising of our local deities with the main stream Brahmanical deities is said to have increased after our liberation. This dynamic process has steadily reinterpreted our local deities and bestowed on them new genealogies.

The profound lessons from Kosambe’s work can indeed give us a great insight into the socio-dynamics of our religions. Our societies are not frozen in time but are in on a dynamic march of evolutions. Even our gods have not remained fossilised but have evolved with our evolving society. There is nothing wrong in rejecting the static notion of god. The divine is certainly divining. God cannot be caged into our categories. It seems that the neti neti or the negative approach is the only way we can understand the nature of god with our own power.

Besides, there is another profound lesson in the work of Kosambe. It tells us that our past is never static. It remains dynamic, plural and inter-related. There is no singular narrative of the past. The narrative that we singularise is the narrative of the victors. Hence, both Goa and India have plural pasts, which can be narrated and even exploited to suit one’s interest. Thus, our openness to the dynamic metabolism of our society certainly interrogates a nationalism that freezes our past into a golden era and fools us that we can recreate it in our days.

We can only hybridise our past but never really recreate it. Hence, the lessons from the work of Kosambe can liberate us from the false dream sold to us in the name of nationalism. Our religio-political history has brought into dominance gods that belonged to communities that enjoyed hegemony. Kosambe demonstrated how these dominant communities co-opted gods of the subalterns and subjugated them. Hence, we need to ask ourselves how the religio-centric nationalism is not exploitative.

Its exclusionary and discriminatory ideology does not suit a nation whose soul is plural. That is why it is imperative for us to understand the relevance of the work of. Kosambe so that we can understand the evolutionary dynamism of our society and respond adequately to the divisive politics that seem to have been unleashed by an emboldened Hindu right wing after its stupendous political gains in the national elections. It is urgent and important that we understand how the social space in our society is polarised and communalised with a strategy to further consolidate their political gains so that we are not sucked into their divisive sinister designs.

Orgy of Myth making

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 09:10:00 -0800

The ignorance the three RSS leaders exhibit about a religion they publicly espouse is remarkable. They seem not to have read the Rg Veda, the source of numerous Hindu traditions and beliefs. The historian D.D. Kosambi had read it in Sanskrit, and according to The Oxford India Kosambi, compiled, edited and introduced by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, the Rg Veda speaks of four major castes, tribes being outside the then localised caste scheme: “Brahmana was his (the Supreme Being’s) mouth, Kshatriya made of his arms; the Vaisya his thighs, and the Sudra generated from his feet (RV.X.90.12), says the particularly sacred Puru-sasukta hymn. Yet the four-caste system is not described as prevalent outside of India, where the earliest division into Arya and Dasa was known to persist.”

As far as animal sacrifice is concerned, Kosambi had this to say: “The function of Vedic ritual is the celebration of certain animal sacrifices at the fire-altar. The five principal sacrificial animals are in order of importance: man, horse, bull (or cow), ram, he-goat…, and their flesh was to be eaten as is seen from rubrics for the disposal of the carcasses….” Horse sacrifice is particularly significant, given the importance Aryans attached to horses.

Will Subramanian Swamy give a call now to burn Kosambi’s books along with the “Nehruvian books” of Bipan Chandra and Romila Thapar?

Full article: Orgy of Myth making

HISTORICAL revisionism has attained a certain kind of urgency in the country today. The blurring of the lines between fact and myth is being expedited like never before. Sweeping generalisations about the past are being made publicly and repeatedly, not only by individuals but also by formal organisations. Conferences are being organised to rearrange facts and show “Hindus” as the true inheritors of the land and all “others” as foreigners or invaders. This is to build a narrative of a glorious Hindu Rashtra that negates the contributions of the Mughals, Buddhists, Christians and everybody else.

Interestingly, the favourite whipping boy is the medieval period. This October, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Itihas Sankalan Yojana commemorated the medieval king Hemu, or Hemchandra Vikramaditya, in a grand function in Delhi for having ascended the throne after 350 years of Mughal rule. The fact that throughout his life Hemu worked under the Pashtun/Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri and towards furthering his reign was reduced to a footnote. It was only by defeating other Afghan rebels that Hemu became king. His reign is being glorified as extraordinary, never mind that it did not last for even a month as he lost in battle and died.

At the frontiers of such revisionism are people like Dina Nath Batra, who has made a career out of forcing publishers (legally) not to publish books he disapproves of, and Subramanian Swamy, who threatens television anchors live on air (“The Newshour” with Arnab Goswami, September 17) and calls citizens who ask him questions “demented” (Ram Kumar from Mumbai asked Swamy during a phone-in when the VVIP culture would end, “The Newshour”, September 17). Research institutions and educational bodies are being filled with people who triumph through rhetoric rather than with professionally capable academics.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seems to be in a hurry to consolidate its vote bank further by including the backward castes in the Hindu fold. The fuelling of Dalit-Muslim antagonism, tested in Gujarat 2002 and successfully rejigged in western Uttar Pradesh before the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, peaked with the Trilokpuri riots in Delhi, which saw clashes between the low-caste Valmikis and Muslims. While politically the BJP is making great strides in co-opting the lower castes by using groups such as the Valmikis, in the social sphere it is relying on reconversions, or ghar wapsi, and spreading the myth of love jehad.

A 2.45-minute-long audio recording Frontline accessed via WhatsApp has a girl’s voice warning listeners about a Muslim extremist organisation headquartered in Dhaka (Bangladesh) with its Indian centre in Kerala through which “mullahs” and “maulvis” advise [Muslim] Bollywood stars to marry at least two Hindu girls and produce 12 children each. This will inspire the average Muslim man to lure two Hindu girls and produce 12 children each. At this rate, India will be converted to an Islamist state in just 24 years! Apparently reading from a text in Hindi, the girl’s voice says: “Recently, the police have apprehended a Muslim man named Wasim Akram, who created a Facebook profile by the name of Daksh Sharma and lured Hindu women and sexually assaulted them.” The recording begins and ends by advising listeners to circulate it widely. Such propaganda not only undermines a woman’s agency but also strengthens anti-Muslim prejudice, and it aims to disrupt the communal harmony that inter-religious marriages bring to the fabric of any society.

In the academic sphere, revisionism is rapidly taking place through the writing of books with distorted histories. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent comments on Ganesha’s elephant head being proof of the existence of cosmetic surgery in ancient India are an indication of the path spin doctors of history are expected to follow. At a Mumbai hospital, he told a gathering of doctors: “We worship Lord Ganesha. There must have been some plastic surgeon at that time who got an elephant’s head on the body of a human being and began the practice of plastic surgery.” To support his claim of the use of advanced science in ancient India, Modi said: “We all read about Karna in the Mahabharata. If we think a little more, we realise that the Mahabharata says Karna was not born from his mother’s womb. This means that genetic science was present at that time. That is why Karna could be born outside his mother’s womb.” No doctor in the audience challenged him.

While delivering the third Nikhil Chakravartty Memorial Lecture, titled “To Question or Not to Question, That is the Question”, the historian Romila Thapar raised the issue of academics’ silence in the face of blatant untruths. “When it comes to religious identities and their politics, we witness hate campaigns based on absurd fantasies about specific religions and we no longer confront them frontally. Such questioning means being critical of organisations and institutions that claim a religious intention but use their authority for non-religious purposes,” she said.

The BJP spokesman Vijay Sonkar Shastri recently authored three books—Hindu Charmakar Jati, Hindu Khatik Jati and Hindu Valmiki Jati. The RSS leaders Bhaiyyaji Joshi (general secretary), Suresh Soni and Krishna Gopal wrote the forewords. Released by the RSS supremo Mohan Bhagwat, all three texts claim that Dalits, Indian Muslims and tribal people were “created” by Muslim invasion and subsequent atrocities in medieval times and that Sudras were never untouchables in the Hindu religion.

Joshi said: “To violate Hindu swabhiman (dignity) of Chanwarvanshiya Kshatriyas, foreign invaders…, Muslim rulers and beef-eaters forced them to do abominable works like killing cows, skinning them and throwing their carcasses in deserted places. Foreign invaders thus created a caste of charma-karma (dealing with skin) by giving such works as punishment to proud Hindu prisoners.” Soni wrote: “Dalits had their genesis during Turk, Muslim and Mughal eras. Today’s castes like Valmikis, Sudarshan, Majhabi Sikhs and their 624 sub-castes came into being as a result of atrocities against Brahmins and Kshatriyas during medieval or Islamic age.”

The ignorance the three RSS leaders exhibit about a religion they publicly espouse is remarkable. They seem not to have read the Rg Veda, the source of numerous Hindu traditions and beliefs. The historian D.D. Kosambi had read it in Sanskrit, and according to The Oxford India Kosambi, compiled, edited and introduced by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya, the Rg Veda speaks of four major castes, tribes being outside the then localised caste scheme: “Brahmana was his (the Supreme Being’s) mouth, Kshatriya made of his arms; the Vaisya his thighs, and the Sudra generated from his feet (RV.X.90.12), says the particularly sacred Puru-sasukta hymn. Yet the four-caste system is not described as prevalent outside of India, where the earliest division into Arya and Dasa was known to persist.”

As far as animal sacrifice is concerned, Kosambi had this to say: “The function of Vedic ritual is the celebration of certain animal sacrifices at the fire-altar. The five principal sacrificial animals are in order of importance: man, horse, bull (or cow), ram, he-goat…, and their flesh was to be eaten as is seen from rubrics for the disposal of the carcasses….” Horse sacrifice is particularly significant, given the importance Aryans attached to horses.

Will Subramanian Swamy give a call now to burn Kosambi’s books along with the “Nehruvian books” of Bipan Chandra and Romila Thapar?

Michael Witzel, the Harvard University Indologist, and Steve Farmer, a comparative historian, in the article “Horseplay in Harappa” (Frontline, September 30, 2000) proved how a fake seal of a horse was trumped up by a Hindutva propagandist historian and warned against the dangers of inflicting on the present such anti-scientific twisted images of India.

“In the past few decades, a new kind of history has been propagated by a vocal group of Indian writers, few of them trained historians, who lavishly praise and support each other’s works. Their aim is to rewrite Indian history from a nationalistic and religious point of view…. Unquestionably, all sides of Indian history must be repeatedly re-examined. But any massive revisions must arise from the discovery of new evidence, not from desires to boost national or sectarian pride at any cost…. The current ‘revisionist’ models contradict well-known facts: they introduce horse-drawn chariots thousands of years before their invention; imagine massive lost literatures filled with ‘scientific’ knowledge unimaginable anywhere in the ancient world; project the Rigveda into impossibly distant eras, compiled in urban or maritime settings suggested nowhere in the text; and imagine Vedic Sanskrit or even Proto Indo-European rising in the Panjab or elsewhere in northern India, ignoring 150 years of evidence fixing their origins to the northwest.”

Mahishasura

In the process of myth making, denying certain myths their space also becomes important as in the case of Mahishasura. The festival of Vijayadashami, which falls on the 10th day of the Hindu festival of Navratri, celebrates the killing of Ravana by Rama. The goddess Durga’s killing of the demon king Mahishasura is also celebrated. These stories depict Rama and Durga as “good” and Ravana and Mahishasura as “evil”. There are 300 versions of the mythological epic Ramayana and as many interpretations of which character in the story stands for what. While upper-caste Hindus pray to Rama and Durga, several communities, including the backward classes, some tribes and some Brahmin sub-sects, consider themselves to be descendants of Mahishasura and Ravana and worship them.

The burning of effigies of Ravana has been carried out in public for many years in a celebratory fashion, and followers of Ravana spend the day in mourning by not stepping outside their houses. For the past four years now, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi has been holding a public meeting on this day, calling it Mahishasura Shahadat Diwas (Mahishasura Martyrdom Day) and inviting speakers to come and share their views. This year, on October 9, the students’ wing of the BJP, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidya Parishad (ABVP), disrupted the meeting and attacked those present, injuring students who had formed a human chain to ward off the goons. A girl, Sonam Goel, was kicked in the stomach by one in the attacking mob. The previous night, Ivan Kostka, the editor ofForward Press magazine, was arrested and his office raided within hours of a complaint being filed after midnight by an ABVP member at the local police station. The October issue of Forward Press was devoted to the “Bahujan-Shraman tradition” and carried research articles.

“The Bahujan rendition of the story of ‘Mahishasura’ and ‘Durga’ has been presented in words and through sketches and paintings. There is absolutely nothing in the issue that can be described as objectionable under the Indian Constitution. Our objective was not to humiliate or hurt the sentiments of any community or group. We are only trying to identify and rejuvenate the symbols of Bahujan culture and civilisation. Anyway, Bahujan renditions of popular texts have a long tradition, starting from Jyotiba Phule and going up to [B.R.] Ambedkar and Periyar [E.V. Ramasamy],” said Pramod Ranjan, consulting editor.

Although these are two separate incidents, the precision with which the attack in JNU was carried out and the quick police action against Forward Press make them appear coordinated and premeditated. The JNU administration was under pressure from the local police to disallow the holding of the Mahishasura event, according to a source who wishes to remain anonymous. Various students organisations—the All India Bahujan Students’ Parliament, the All India Students’ Association, the JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU), the All India Students Federation, Concerned Students, the Democratic Students’ Front, the Democratic Students’ Union, Janrang, the Krantikari Naujawan Sabha, the Students’ Federation of India, The New Materialists and the United Dalit Students Front—took part in a march on October 12 protesting against the administration’s clampdown on the meeting and the right-wing violence.

JNU is only one of the many places where Shahadat Diwas is celebrated. There are several communities and tribes (primarily Asura) who revere Ravana and mourn on the day he was killed. Protest marches against the incident in JNU were held in several places, including Patna, Nawada and Muzaffarpur in Bihar and Bangalore in the south. Pradeep from Siwan, Bihar, told Frontline over the telephone that close to 150 people gathered on October 5 in Gandhi Chowk, Patna, and around 400 people gathered in Nawada the day before. The event was presided over by former MPs and MLAs of the Rashtriya Janata Dal.

Mahishasura celebrations in different parts of the country were reported in the press. In Punjab, hundreds of people gathered in the cities of Jalandhar and Ludhiana to holdshok sabhas (condolence meetings). Raj Kumar Atikaye, the head of the Punjab Safai Karamchari Welfare Board, said: “We need to follow his [Ravana’s] ideals. Even his enemies recognised him as a scholar.... When women and minors are being raped in our society, Ravana did not touch the wife of his enemy who was in his custody.”

The Dashanan temple in the Shivala locality of Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, built in 1865 and opened once a year on Vijayadashami day, echoed with the chants of “Jai Lankesh” and “Lankapati Naresh ki Jai Ho”. There is a five-foot idol of Ravana at the Chhinnmastika temple, which is near the Dashanan temple. People believe the idol to be the chowkidar(guard) of Maa Chhinnmastika and worship it on Vijayadashami. Ravana is believed to be a devotee of Siva.

At a village called Ravan in Nateran in Vidisha district, Madhya Pradesh, Ravana is worshipped by Kanyakubja Brahmins, the sub-sect to which he is believed to have belonged. Effigies of him are never burnt in the village and his blessings are taken on every occasion as they are believed to ward off evil; people even have stickers on their vehicles with the words “Jai Lankesh”. The Mahishasura festival was also celebrated with great enthusiasm this year by people in Uttar Pradesh (Lucknow and Dewariya), Bihar (Buxar and Vaishali), West Bengal (Purulia) and Jharkhand (Giridih and Damodar Gop).

In Delhi’s Titarpur area, most villagers earn money by making Ravana effigies, no matter what their primary profession is, and consider him a blessing. Just as some people have their reasons for worshipping Rama or Jesus or the Buddha, some others worship Ravana for their own reasons. The Bharatiya Dalit Panther Party (BDPP) organised amela to protest against the burning of effigies of Ravana in Pukhrayan in Kanpur Dehat district, Uttar Pradesh. Pinku Prasad, the party’s district president, reportedly said: “We will not tolerate the practice of burning effigies of Lord Ravana anymore. The government should also ensure that the effigies of Ravana, Kumbhakarna and Meghnad are accorded due respect.” The ceremony was conducted in the spirit of Ambedkar, a Dalit and a follower of the Buddha, who fought against discrimination in society, he added.

Ravana is believed to be a Dravidian king of the Gond tribe who was well versed in the Vedas. Apart from holding a Ravana Mela, the BDPP has also been organising a “Baudh Dikhsha” ceremony every year so that future generations will remember Ravana’s sacrifice and continue the tradition.

In this context, in the article in Forward Press “Why this celebration of death?”, the writer Premkumar Mani asked: “If someone made a festival of the massacre in Gujarat or the massacres of Dalits in Bihar, or say, a celebration of the death of Bhumihars—how would that feel?”

Jitendra Yadav of the All India Backward Students’ Forum, the organiser of the event in JNU, told Frontline that children in backward class homes are told stories of Mahishasura’s valour. “Though the worship of Ravana is not in the form of an organised thought, it is there in our consciousness because of the culture dished out to us as kids. Stories of him are found in folk songs in the Yadav community in the form of Biraha.” Jitendra Yadav added that worshippers of Durga do not fret because the goddess is not the focus of the celebrations and is mentioned only in passing. The objective is to talk about the cultural heritage of the backward classes, which includes Ravana, Mahishasura, Ekalavya, Sambuka and Surpanakha, all of whom are humiliated or killed in the Savarna version of the myths.

Transformation on campus

Gaurav Jogi, a PhD student in JNU who is researching student politics, sees a transformation in campus cultures from debate to violence. He also points out that since 1991 there has been a culture among the Dalit communities on campuses of celebrating their own identity through programmes on Ambedkar and Phule. “While the Dalits were doing this, the ABVP did not have a problem as it was done in an academic fashion. But now that the OBCs [Other Backward Classes] are also celebrating their own identity and reaching out to the masses, the OBC vote bank that the BJP wants to consolidate is being threatened.” Last year, students under the banner of the EFLU Asura Community in the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, celebrated a Narakasura week during which they organised an academic seminar titled “Reinterpreting Indian History: Redefining Secularism in University Spaces”, an open forum titled “Resisting Dominance: Articulating Cultural Resistance” and a face-painting competition with the theme Ravana. Students and artists were extended an open invitation to participate in art installations and public canvas painting. Students, including women, from the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe/OBC communities were slapped with criminal charges at the behest of the ABVP. This raises the question, to what extent are educational campuses being Savarna-ised? But these instances point to the cultural transformations taking place on campuses that have to be welcomed. With reference to the clampdowns, students ask the valid question: “If Ganesh Chaturthi can be celebrated on campuses, then why not Asura festivals?”

Anant Prakash Narayan, vice-president of the JNUSU, calls the new government UPA (United Progressive Alliance) III: “Everything that the UPA did, this government is doing at thrice the speed. We do not believe in either Durga or Mahishasura. We believe one can’t destroy a myth by creating a parallel myth, but the right to freedom of expression and dissent has to be defended. It has been JNU’s culture to move forward through discussions, not through censorship. As far as hurt sentiments are concerned, the ABVP is the last group that should talk about it because in reality when they tell women what to wear or not to wear, they are hurting women’s sentiments the most.”

At a public meeting, Sunil Kumar Suman, a former JNU-ite, said: “We have to understand the politics of myth as our country is steeped in superstitions. There are encyclopaedias of gods and goddesses. Rama is not just a myth. Riots take place in his name; people are killed and raped in his name. These myths have to be countered, and myths have to be reinvented.” At the same meeting, Gautam Navlakha, an activist, pointed out that the present government is able to institutionalise communalism thanks to previous governments, which strengthened the state apparatus to an absurd level.

Kosambi festival from Febuary 4-8, 2014

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 15 Jan 2014 10:04:00 -0800

Kosambi festival from Febuary 4-8

TNN | Jan 15, 2014, 01.46 AM IST

Source: Times of India

READ MORE National University Of Singapore|Kala Academy|Diplomat|Kosambi Festival

PANAJI: The 7th D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas will be held from February 4 to February 8 at Kala Academy, featuring noted personalities from various fields including co-founder of Infosys N R Narayana Murthy and astrophysicist Jayant Narlikar.

Others who will be delivering lectures include author Vandana Shiva (Indian); Kishore Mahbubani (Singapore), an academician and former Singaporean diplomat, currently professor in the Practice of Public Policy and Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore; and Baroness Patricia Scotland (UK), a British barrister who served in many ministerial positions within the UK government.

The Directorate of Art and Culture had initiated the D D Kosambi Festival of Ideas to commemorate the birth centenary of the legendary Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi, who contributed to genetics by introducing Kosambi's map function. He is well-known for his work in numismatics and for compiling critical editions of ancient Sanskrit texts.

D D Kosambi was also a historian specializing in ancient India who employed the approach in his work.

He is described as 'the patriarch of the Marxist school of Indian historiography'. This festival is the only one of its kind in the country.

Monk, Mathematician, Marxist

noreply@blogger.com (readerswords) — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 15:15:00 -0800

Dharmanand Kosambi may be described as
a scholar and proselytiser of Buddhism and
practicing Buddhist, a Gandhian, and a feminist

By ANANYA VAJPEYI | February 1, 2012

Source?: Caravan Magazine

INDIA HAS REMADE ITSELF at least twice in the past 100 years. The economic and political character of the country, which was of a colonial-nationalist nature in the early 20th century, became Nehruvian-socialist after Independence and then shifted again toward globalising neoliberalism in the last decade of the century. An effective way to track the cultural effects of these very large shifts is to compare the trajectories of successive generations of Indians. The lives of the extraordinary father-son duo of Dharmanand Kosambi (1876-1947) and Damodar Dharmanand or DD Kosambi (1907-1966), both brilliant scholars and pioneers of entire fields of study, vividly illustrate the first great transformation of modern India, effected over the course of the 1950s and early 1960s, during three administrations under Jawaharlal Nehru.

The recent translation of several of Dharmanand’s Marathi writings, including his partial autobiography Nivedan (A Narrative): 1912-1924 (Permanent Black, 2011), and a broad retrospective exercise by a number of contemporary historians occasioned by Damodar’s birth centenary in 2007, allow us to follow Kosambi père and fils in some detail, and through them to view the changing historical contexts in which they were embedded. Dharmanand’s granddaughter and DD Kosambi’s daughter, Meera Kosambi, herself a sociologist specialising in urban studies and women’s studies, and an accomplished translator between Marathi and English, has in the past two years helped bring both her eminent forbears back into focus for students of modern India.

Father and son were polymaths, and in this regard they remind us of other talented public figures in South Asia prior to Independence, like the poet Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) and the art historian Ananda K Coomaraswamy (1877-1947). Together and individually, the Kosambis also exemplify a confluence of intellectual streams that coloured the biographies of a large number of prominent Indians, men and women, in the first three quarters of the 20th century: Buddhism, Marxism, Gandhianism and Socialism. For reasons that remain culturally and sociologically under-studied and have as yet to get any sort of systematic treatment in the intellectual history of modern India, some blend of these ideological currents impacted a range of thinkers and leaders, from BR Ambedkar to Ram Manohar Lohia, Narendra Dev to Rahul Sankrityayana, Jai Prakash Narayan to Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Vinoba Bhave to JB Kripalani.

In fact, if we take widespread influence of Gautama Buddha, Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi on intellectual elites in the founding generations seriously, as we ought, then it becomes very difficult to figure out how, against their inclinations, we arrived at the second great transformation of India into a globalised free-market economy with powerful rightwing political forces active in it. It is as though all of the genuinely egalitarian and emancipatory tendencies within politics, that had an organic relationship with Indian political thought on the one hand and that could have made possible a properly Indian social revolution on the other, somehow foundered before they could flourish. As late capitalism makes its relentless advance into India and the left is driven further and further into the political wilderness, it does us good to remember the nuance and the promise of a more complex time, scarcely half a century ago, when unusual men like the Kosambis were included in the intellectual leadership of this country.

If we aim for brevity, Dharmanand Kosambi may be described as a scholar and proselytiser of Buddhism and a practicing Buddhist, a Gandhian, and a feminist; DD Kosambi may be described as a mathematician, a historian and a Marxist. Both men, born Brahmins, had pronounced linguistic abilities, and especially loved Sanskrit. Both moved around within India and South Asia, and also travelled the world, but must be seen as rooted primarily in the cultural ground of greater Maharashtra (including Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, Hindi and Konkani-speaking areas, and the former princely states of Indore, Gwalior and Baroda). Both had intellectually significant, if not definitive experiences at Harvard University—the father as a philologist of Buddhist texts, the son as a student of mathematics. It doesn’t seem as though they had a very warm or expressive bond with one another as parent and child; nevertheless, they were profoundly similar to and connected with one another in terms of their intellectual personalities. Between them they shaped the disciplines of Buddhist studies, Indology, history, archeology, numismatics and mathematics in India; the imprint of Marxism—whether as class analysis, dialectical method, or a critique of caste—is all over their work.

But despite commonalities and continuities between Dharmanand and Damodar Kosambi, what emerges from the former’s autobiography, Nivedan, translated and edited by Meera Kosambi, and from the volume The Many Careers of DD Kosambi: Critical Essays, edited by noted historian DN Jha (Left Word, 2011), is that there had been a sea change in India between the time when the father was a young man and the time when his son came of age. Dharmanand wandered in a country where Buddhism as discourse or as practice was all but extinct; where almost all his personal contacts and professional networks consisted of fellow Brahmins who housed, clothed and fed him as he went from city to city in search of Buddhism; where Hindumathas and Buddhist viharas dotted the landscape through which he travelled—from Goa in the west to Burma in the east, from Nepal in the north to Sri Lanka in the south. The scholastic terrain of India was still largely unchanged from precolonial times.

By contrast Damodar navigated a very different academic territory, one dotted with prestigious colonial establishments such as the Fergusson College in Pune, institutions that were a product of the nationalist movement such as the Aligarh Muslim University and the Banaras Hindu University, as well as emerging Nehruvian institutions such as the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai.

Traditional learned classes—Brahmins, Kayasthas and residual Buddhists had given way, within the space of scarce two or three decades, to a modern knowledge elite of physical and social scientists, as well as technocrats charged with building a range of institutions for the new nation-state. Ancient Buddhism, long vanished, had reappeared in a variety of postcolonial guises, from the Navayana (‘New Way’) of Babasaheb Ambedkar, to other sects flowing back into India from Tibet, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Japan as well as the Anglo-American West. With the demise of the British Empire, colonialism, together with its Orientalist and Indological apparatuses, had packed up and gone home, leaving independent India in charge of its own cultural pasts as much as it was now responsible for its own political futures.

AS A GRADUATE STUDENT SOME YEARS AGO, I would spend months on end in Pune, reading Sanskrit and Marathi texts, and travelling around in Maharashtra, as well as in neighbouring Karnataka and Goa, in search of archives, individuals and institutions connected with my research. Between 1998 and 2003 I journeyed up and down the Deccan landscape and the Western Ghats, mostly by road or rail. The spirit of DD Kosambi was often with me on my forays into this—to me—unfamiliar part of the country. On one of my earliest trips to Pune, a friend introduced me to Meera Kosambi, who invited me to see her father’s house off Law College Road, where I would go almost every day to the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute.

The Kosambi residence was built in a coastal Goan style, its sloping roof covered with rounded red tiles of baked clay, a central courtyard open to the elements, and a covered verandah running around all four sides of the house. The large front room was set up as the late Damodar Kosambi’s study, with a number of books, papers, pens, paperweights, inkstands and other things lying on his large desk as though he had just left the room and gone into a different part of the house. But behind his chair hung a very large photographic portrait of him, reminding us that he had—already, at that time—been dead for well over 30 years. Perhaps there were photos of Dharmanand too, though I have no recollection of seeing them, nor would I have known, then, who I was looking at. Later I learned that the house had been sold to builders, who demolished it and replaced it with a block of apartments; I could not bring myself to go and see the place in its new avatar.

Pune is one of the many smaller cities in India that has found its historic architecture under severe stress over the past two decades. Just in the 12 or 15 years that I have been going there for my scholarly work, its graceful edifices and sleepy neighbourhoods, and with them their ways of life, have been vanishing before one’s eyes. But that Pune city, Maharashtra state or indeed the Indian government let the Kosambi home, built circa 1931, go the way of other old buildings is a sad commentary on our inability to recognise and respect the landmarks of our intellectual life and cultural history. A recent trip to Simla, where I saw an incredibly decrepit house called ‘Wood Field’ that Rabindranath Tagore had vacationed in, in 1893-94, together with other members of his illustrious family, and where he wrote a number of the poems in his collection Shonaar Taari(The Golden Boat), filled me with the same despair that I invariably feel in Pune: as a culture, we fail to honour and commemorate our greatest minds.

Indian history as a discipline was dominated by Marxism for so long—from the 1960s through the 1990s—that most leading historians over two generations, at universities such as the Jawaharlal Nehru University and Aligarh Muslim University, as well as a number of campuses in West Bengal, have studied DD Kosambi thoroughly, and had the opportunity to both learn from him as well as critique his methods and findings. A July 2008 special issue of the Indian social science journal, Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), brought together a symposium on DD Kosambi’s work as a historian. Historiography within Maharashtra and of Maharashtra and the Deccan, as an important subset of Indian history, has benefited especially from his insights and innovations—those who read Marathi can access the rich debates there. It is good that at last he is also being assessed seriously from the perspective of other disciplines to which he contributed so much: Sanskrit philology, archaeology, numismatics, anthropology, religion and—unusually—mathematics and statistics.

Particularly interesting, in both the EPW (2008) issue as well as the recent DN Jha edited volume, are the essays by CK Raju, which walk us through some of the more technical aspects of Damodar’s mathematical gifts even while recounting his misadventures in the Indian science academy. In Raju’s telling, DD Kosambi must be seen as an early figure of dissent in Indian mathematics and science. He had significant mathematical abilities, which might have been encouraged in another country, but were only thwarted in India. It did not help that Damodar was a serious pacifist and spoke out publicly against the dangers of nuclear power (including its potentially harmful side effects on the genetic structure of human and other life forms—a prescient warning that no one heeded at the time or is likely to heed now, for that matter). His would-be patrons, the physicist Homi Bhabha, the father of India’s atomic energy programme, and the industrial family of the Tatas, eventually denied him tenure at TIFR, alleging that he had failed to solve a particular mathematical problem, and adding on the snide caveat that relieved of his scientific job, he would be better able to devote his time to his other interest, history—an insult to him both as a mathematician and as an historian that is infuriating to read about even today. This after Damodar had won the Raman Prize in 1934 and the Bhabha Prize in 1947 for his mathematical work!

In fact, two things stand out consistently about the man: first, his undoubted genius, the gifted and multi-faceted quality of his imagination; and second, his inability to function within institutional contexts populated by lesser minds and their propensity to play petty politics. Clearly, as a scholar, Damodar was brilliant, eccentric, prolific and even playful; but as an academic he was also condemned to a rather solitary existence, unable to find colleagues, interlocutors or students who might have kept up with his astonishing inventiveness. With the passage of time, DD Kosambi’s polymathic intellect stands vindicated; but it has to be said that the condition of Indian academia, especially of prestigious institutions meant for specialised research, has only deteriorated in the half century since his death. If extraordinarily talented individuals like him were undervalued, isolated or actively persecuted by the academic establishment in the 1950s and 1960s, they are likely to be even worse off today. Interdisciplinary abilities have never been nurtured or rewarded in our postcolonial systems of higher education.

Dharmanand, however, presents a rather different sort of an enigma. In him we see a thirst for Buddhism that propels him into arduous journeys—away from his native caste background and ethnic, regional identity as a rural Goan; often outside of India to neighbouring countries in South Asia; into languages that for him, a high-school dropout, have to be diligently learnt: Marathi, Sanskrit, Pali and English (for starters); and last but not least, away from his family, including his wife and children, for long periods of time. He seems to grapple with a genuine struggle between the responsibilities of bourgeois domesticity and the rigors of a monastic life. His health is in ruins from extreme poverty, his innate asceticism, the physically grueling nature of his travels and his exercises in bodily self-discipline. Some inner fire compels him to both try to master Buddhism and spread its message among his indifferent countrymen.

Surely a comparative study of the Buddhist zeal of the Brahmin Dharmanand and the Untouchable Ambedkar, both active in Maharashtra in the first half of the 20th century, is crying out for the attentions of a PhD candidate somewhere. Now that more and more of Dharmanand’s writings are becoming available to us in translation, we may begin a systematic analysis of the biography and work of this strange, tortured, questing individual who finally gave up his life in an act of voluntary starvation (following the Jain practice known as sallekhana) in Gandhiji’s ashram at Wardha in early June 1947. Meera Kosambi’s ‘Introduction’ to her grandfather’s Essential Writings (Permanent Black, 2010), as well as to his autobiography in its new freestanding and paperback edition, both open the door onto a potentially rich area of research and scholarship in modern Indian intellectual history.

TO GRASP THE ASTONISHING DIVERSITY of DD Kosambi’s interests and talents requires nothing more than a glance at the table of contents of his Exasperating Essays: Exercises in the Dialectical Method (People’s Publishing House, 1957). This slim little volume contains pieces on, among other topics, the trial of Socrates, the Cultural Revolution in China, the quality of renunciation in the work of the Sanskrit poet Bhartihari (whom he compares and contrasts with Dante and Goethe), the relationship between scientific knowledge and class society, the reasons for the decline of Buddhism in ancient India, imperialism and peace in a post-war world, and a critique of Nehru’s The Discovery of India (1946) from a Marxist perspective. The breadth of Damodar’s interests is breathtaking, as also the ease with which he writes about both contemporary issues as well as scholarly matters. Few intellectuals exhibit this kind of supple, capacious curiosity about past and present, India and the world, science and literature today—Ashis Nandy comes to mind as a rare exception, and certainly it is hard to think of anyone in the younger generation who will confidently take on this range of subjects. As India’s economy opens itself to global markets, what accounts for the closing of the Indian mind?

Dharmanand’s writings, as evidenced in the selection made by his granddaughter, hew closer to his principal areas of commitment and concern: Buddhist texts and history, nonviolence both Ashokan and Gandhian, and the incipient labour movement in India during the final decades of the British Raj. The father has an implacable seriousness; the son can take more liberties because in a sense his father’s struggles and privations have created a space in which he may pursue whatever topic engages or excites him with a degree of ease. The father was born in a small village in Goa and never even made it through secondary school; the son went to college at Harvard and spent most of his life as a middle-class professor in Mumbai and Pune. While Damodar’s brilliance is undeniable, perhaps it would be fair to say that the greater distance covered, the bigger achievement, was really that of Dharmanand.

Given the welter of areas of intellectual endeavour in which the Kosambis participated, Dharmanand’s greatest contribution was to the revival and spread of the message of Buddhism in Maharashtra; Damodar’s was to the opening of Indian history to class analysis and dialectical materialism. Both these are truly significant interventions, although for different reasons and in different ways. Arguably Dharmanand’s Marathi writings on Buddhism, including his primer Buddha, Dharma ani Sangha (1910) and his play Bodhisattva, published posthumously in 1949, prepared the ground for the eventual popularisation of Ambedkar’s Neo-Buddhism in Maharashtra in the late 1950s, after Ambedkar’s formal conversion of himself and of about 400,000 Untouchable followers in October 1956, just prior to his death in December that year. Dharmanand helped create a climate of ideas, in which once again after a hiatus of centuries it became possible for ordinary people to reimagine and identify with the life and words of Siddhartha Gautama, and for them to aspire to creating a more equitable society based on the Buddha’s teachings about freedom, community and what it means to be human. The story of Buddhism’s modern rebirth in the land of its original birth, India, has a special chapter that unfolds in Maharashtra, and surely this owes as much to Dharmanand Kosambi as it does to BR Ambedkar.

DD Kosambi, as is relatively better known, transformed Indian history as a discipline by advocating for the integration of the study of material artifacts with the study of texts; by taking the category of ‘tribe’ as seriously as others had previously taken the category of ‘caste’; by introducing the ‘class’ into our understanding of Indian social structure; by finding innovative ways to read literary, religious and mythical textual materials as part of the historical record without getting bogged down in imponderable questions about their own historicity; and by continually placing India in a broad comparative perspective along with other ancient and modern societies. Even a casual student of history in this country has the two celebrated snapshots of Damodar’s scholarly life imprinted on his or her memory: his walks in and around Pune, carrying a walking stick with which he probed the ground, turning up all kinds of objects and fragments, literally feeling his way through the layers of historical time upon which we stand; and his regular train rides between Pune and Mumbai on the Deccan Queen, which allowed him a physical view of Maharashtra’s landscape that over the years yielded a subtle and complex historical vision. DD Kosambi showed that history has to be rooted in the earth on which it unfolds—a valuable, indeed indispensable corrective to a scholarly culture otherwise driven and shaped by the Brahminical preference for abstraction over materiality and text over lived experience.

The first half of the 20th century, an exciting and as yet mostly uncharted period in India’s intellectual history, produced many families that were active in political and intellectual life—the Nehrus, the Tagores and the Bhandarkars come immediately to mind. To this list we must add the Kosambis, over not just two but now three generations. After almost 65 years of political independence and a good two decades into globalisation, it is hard to imaginatively reconstruct, today, a time when a young man could wander the length and breadth of South Asia and be genuinely surprised, discombobulated and inspired by the cultural diversity he encountered along the way; a time when the seeds of history still lay scattered and expectant underneath the surface of our collective consciousness, awaiting the ministrations of a perceptive and careful farmer to flower into a vivid picture of our past, and a warrant for our future flourishing.