D. D. Kosambi
Encyclopedia
Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi (July 31, 1907 – June 29, 1966) was an India
n mathematician
, statistician
, Marxist 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. His father, Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi
, had studied ancient Indian texts with a particular emphasis on Buddhism and its literature in the Pali language. Damodar Kosambi emulated him by developing a keen interest in his country's ancient history. Kosambi was also a Marxist historian specializing 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". Kosambi was critical of the policies of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
, which, according to him, promoted capitalism
in the guise of democratic socialism
. He was an enthusiast of the Chinese revolution and its ideals, and, in addition, a leading activist in the World Peace Movement. In the opinion of the historian
Irfan Habib
, "D. D. Kosambi and R.S. Sharma
, together with Daniel Thorner
, brought peasants into the study of Indian history for the first time."
, Massachusetts
with his father; the latter was tasked by Professor Charles Rockwell Lanman
of Harvard University
to complete compiling a critical edition of Visuddhimagga
, a book on Buddhist philosophy, which was originally started by Henry Clarke Warren. There he spent a year in the Grammar school and then was admitted to the Cambridge High and Latin School
in 1920. He became a member of the Cambridge branch of American Boy Scouts.
It was here in Cambridge that he befriended another prodigy of the time, Norbert Wiener
, whose father Leo Wiener
was the elder Kosambi's colleague at Harvard University.
Kosambi excelled in his final school examination and was one of the few candidates who was exempt on the basis of merit from necessarily passing an entrance examination essential at the time to gain admission to Harvard University. He enrolled in Harvard in 1924, but eventually postponed his studies, and returned to India. He stayed with his father who was now working in the Gujarat University, and was in the close circles of Mahatma Gandhi
.
In January 1926, Kosambi returned to the US with his father, who once again studied at Harvard University for a year and half. Kosambi studied mathematics under George David Birkhoff
, who wanted him to concentrate on mathematics, but the ambitious Kosambi instead took many diverse courses excelling in each of them. In 1929, Harvard awarded him the Bachelor of Arts degree with a summa cum laude. He was also granted membership to the esteemed Phi Beta Kappa Society
, the oldest undergraduate honours organization in the United States. He returned to India soon after. He was technical consultant to the Chinese government.
(BHU), teaching German alongside mathematics. He struggled to pursue his research on his own, and published his first research paper, "Precessions of an Elliptic Orbit" in the Indian Journal of Physics in 1930.
In 1931, Kosambi married Nalini, daughter of a very wealthy and distinguished member of the Madgaonkar family. It was in this year that he was hired by mathematician André Weil
, then Professor of Mathematics at Aligarh Muslim University
, to the post of lecturership in mathematics at Aligarh. His other colleagues at Aligarh included Vijayraghavan. During his two years stay in Aligarh, he produced eight research papers in the general area of Differential Geometry and Path Spaces. His fluency in several European languages allowed him to publish some of his early papers in French, Italian and German journals in their respective languages.
in Pune
, where he taught mathematics for the next 12 years. In 1935, his eldest daughter, Maya was born, while in 1939, the youngest, Meera
, a well-known sociologist and feminist was born.
In Pune, while teaching mathematics and conducting research in the field, he started his interdisciplinary pursuit. In 1944 he published a small article of 4 pages titled ‘The Estimation of Map Distance from Recombination Values’ in Annals of Eugenics, in which he introduced what later came to be known as Kosambi's map function.
One of the most important contributions of Kosambi to statistics is the widely known technique called proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). Although it was originally developed by Kosambi in 1943, it is now referred to as the Karhunen–Loève expansion. In the 1943 paper entitled 'Statistics in Function Space' presented in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society, Kosambi presented the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition some years before Karhunen (1945) and Loeve (1948). This tool has found application to such diverse fields as image processing, signal processing, data compression, oceanography, chemical engineering and fluid mechanics. Unfortunately this most important contribution of his is barely acknowledged in most papers that utilize the POD method. In recent years though, it is heartening to note that some authors have indeed referred to it as the Kosambi-Karhunen-Loeve decomposition.
It was his studies in numismatics that initiated him into the field of historical research. He made a thorough study of Sanskrit and ancient literature, and he started his classic work on the ancient poet Bhartṛhari. He published his critical editions of Bhartrihari's Shatakatrayee and Subhashitas during 1945-1948.
It was during this period that he started his political activism, coming close to the radical streams in the ongoing Independence movement, especially the Communist Party of India
. He became an outspoken Marxist
and wrote some political articles.
invited Kosambi to join the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
(TIFR) as Professor of Mathematics, which he accepted. After independence, in 1948-49 he was sent to England and the US as a UNESCO Fellow to study the theoretical and technical aspects of the computer. During this time, he was a visiting professor of geometry at the University of Chicago
. He spent some time at the Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton, New Jersey
. In London, he started his long-lasting friendship with indologist and historian A.L. Basham.
After his return to India, in the Cold War
circumstances, he was increasingly drawn into the World Peace Movement and served as a Member of the World Peace Council
. He became a tireless crusader for peace, campaigning against the nuclearisation of the world. Kosambi's solution to India's energy needs was in sharp conflict with the ambitions of the Indian ruling class. He proposed alternative energy sources, like solar power. His activism in the peace movement took him to Beijing
, Helsinki
and Moscow
. However, during this period he relentlessly pursued his diverse research interests, too. Most importantly, he worked on his Marxist rewriting of ancient Indian history, which culminated in his book, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (1956).
He visited China many times during 1952-62 and was able to watch the Chinese revolution very closely, making him critical of the way modernisation and development were envisaged and pursued by the Indian ruling classes. All these contributed to straining his relationship with the Indian government and Bhabha, eventually leading to Kosambi's exit from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1962.
.
Due to the efforts of his friends and colleagues, in June 1964, Kosambi was appointed as a Scientist Emeritus of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) affiliated with the Maharashtra Vidnyanvardhini in Pune. He pursued many historical, scientific and archaeological projects (even writing stories for children). But most works he produced in this period could not be published during his lifetime. On June 29, 1966, he died in Pune. He was posthumously decorated with the Hari Om Ashram Award by the government of India's University Grant Commission in 1980.
His friend A.L. Basham, a well-known indologist, wrote in his obituary:
According to A. L. Basham, "An Introduction to the Study of Indian History is in many respects an epoch making work, containing brilliantly original ideas on almost every page; if it contains errors and misrepresentations, if now and then its author attempts to force his data into a rather doctrinaire pattern, this does not appreciably lessen the significance of this very exciting book, which has stimulated the thought of thousands of students throughout the world."
Professor Sumit Sarkar
says: "Indian Historiography, starting with D.D. Kosambi in the 1950s, is acknowledged the world over — wherever South Asian history is taught or studied - as quite on a par with or even superior to all that is produced abroad. And that is why Irfan Habib
or Romila Thapar
or R.S. Sharma are figures respected even in the most diehard anti-Communist American universities. They cannot be ignored if you are studying South Asian history."
In his obituary to Kosambi published in the Nature, J. D. Bernal had summed up Kosambi's talent as follows: "Kosambi introduced a new method into historical scholarship, essentially by application of modern mathematics. 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 and so set them in order to give some idea of their respective ages."
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n mathematician
Mathematician
A mathematician is a person whose primary area of study is the field of mathematics. Mathematicians are concerned with quantity, structure, space, and change....
, statistician
Statistics
Statistics is the study of the collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It deals with all aspects of this, including the planning of data collection in terms of the design of surveys and experiments....
, Marxist historian
Marxist historiography
Marxist or historical materialist historiography is a school of historiography influenced by Marxism. The chief tenets of Marxist historiography are the centrality of social class and economic constraints in determining historical outcomes....
, and polymath
Polymath
A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
who contributed to genetics by introducing Kosambi's map function. He is well-known for his work in numismatics
Numismatics
Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, and related objects. While numismatists are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, the discipline also includes the broader study of money and other payment media used to resolve debts and the...
and for compiling critical editions of ancient Sanskrit texts. His father, Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi
Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi
Acharya Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi was a prominent Buddhist scholar and a Pāli language expert. He was the father of the illustrious mathematician and prominent Marxist historian, Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi....
, had studied ancient Indian texts with a particular emphasis on Buddhism and its literature in the Pali language. Damodar Kosambi emulated him by developing a keen interest in his country's ancient history. Kosambi was also a Marxist historian specializing in ancient India who employed the historical materialist
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
approach in his work. He is described as "the patriarch of the Marxist school of Indian historiography". Kosambi was critical of the policies of then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru
Jawaharlal Nehru , often referred to with the epithet of Panditji, was an Indian statesman who became the first Prime Minister of independent India and became noted for his “neutralist” policies in foreign affairs. He was also one of the principal leaders of India’s independence movement in the...
, which, according to him, promoted capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
in the guise of democratic socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. He was an enthusiast of the Chinese revolution and its ideals, and, in addition, a leading activist in the World Peace Movement. In the opinion of the historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
Irfan Habib
Irfan Habib
Irfan Habib is an Indian Marxist historian, a former Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research and a Padma Bhushan awardee. He is a Professor Emeritus at Aligarh Muslim University. He has served in the Indian History Congress for many years. Irfan Habib and R.S...
, "D. D. Kosambi and R.S. Sharma
Ram Sharan Sharma
Ram Sharan Sharma was an eminent historian of Ancient and early Medieval India. He had taught at Patna University, Delhi University and the University of Toronto and was a senior fellow at School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; University Grants Commission National Fellow...
, together with Daniel Thorner
Daniel Thorner
Daniel Thorner was an American-born economist known for his work on agricultural economics and Indian economic history. He is known for the application of historical and contemporary economic analysis on policy and influenced agricultural policy in India in the 1950s through his association with...
, brought peasants into the study of Indian history for the first time."
Early life
After a few years of schooling in India, in 1918 D.D. Kosambi and his elder sister, Manik Kosambi, traveled to CambridgeCambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
with his father; the latter was tasked by Professor Charles Rockwell Lanman
Charles Rockwell Lanman
Charles Rockwell Lanman was an American scholar of the Sanskrit language.-Early Life and Education:Charles Rockwell Lanman was born in Norwich, Connecticut, the eighth of the nine children of Peter Lanman III and Catherine Lanman on July 8, 1850...
of Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
to complete compiling a critical edition of Visuddhimagga
Visuddhimagga
The Visuddhimagga , is the 'great treatise' on Theravada Buddhist doctrine written by Buddhaghosa approximately in 430 CE in Sri Lanka. A comprehensive manual condensing the theoretical and practical teaching of the Buddha, it is considered the most important Theravada text outside of the Tipitaka...
, a book on Buddhist philosophy, which was originally started by Henry Clarke Warren. There he spent a year in the Grammar school and then was admitted to the Cambridge High and Latin School
Cambridge Rindge and Latin School
The Cambridge Rindge and Latin School is a public high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States.The school, serving grades 9 through 12, is a part of the Cambridge Public Schools....
in 1920. He became a member of the Cambridge branch of American Boy Scouts.
It was here in Cambridge that he befriended another prodigy of the time, Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener
Norbert Wiener was an American mathematician.A famous child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher in stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems.Wiener is regarded as the originator of cybernetics, a...
, whose father Leo Wiener
Leo Wiener
Leo Wiener was an Americanhistorian, linguist, author and translator of Polish-Jewish origin. Wiener was born in Russia and spent the early part of his childhood there, before coming to the United States alone, with the purpose of creating a vegetarian commune in Belize...
was the elder Kosambi's colleague at Harvard University.
Kosambi excelled in his final school examination and was one of the few candidates who was exempt on the basis of merit from necessarily passing an entrance examination essential at the time to gain admission to Harvard University. He enrolled in Harvard in 1924, but eventually postponed his studies, and returned to India. He stayed with his father who was now working in the Gujarat University, and was in the close circles of Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...
.
In January 1926, Kosambi returned to the US with his father, who once again studied at Harvard University for a year and half. Kosambi studied mathematics under George David Birkhoff
George David Birkhoff
-External links:* − from National Academies Press, by Oswald Veblen....
, who wanted him to concentrate on mathematics, but the ambitious Kosambi instead took many diverse courses excelling in each of them. In 1929, Harvard awarded him the Bachelor of Arts degree with a summa cum laude. He was also granted membership to the esteemed Phi Beta Kappa Society
Phi Beta Kappa Society
The Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic honor society. Its mission is to "celebrate and advocate excellence in the liberal arts and sciences"; and induct "the most outstanding students of arts and sciences at America’s leading colleges and universities." Founded at The College of William and...
, the oldest undergraduate honours organization in the United States. He returned to India soon after. He was technical consultant to the Chinese government.
Banaras and Aligarh
He obtained the post of professor at the Banaras Hindu UniversityBanaras Hindu University
Banaras Hindu University is a public university located in Varanasi, India and is one of the Central Universities of India. It is the largest residential university in Asia, with over 24,000 students in its campus. BHU was founded in 1916 by Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya under the Parliamentary...
(BHU), teaching German alongside mathematics. He struggled to pursue his research on his own, and published his first research paper, "Precessions of an Elliptic Orbit" in the Indian Journal of Physics in 1930.
In 1931, Kosambi married Nalini, daughter of a very wealthy and distinguished member of the Madgaonkar family. It was in this year that he was hired by mathematician André Weil
André Weil
André Weil was an influential mathematician of the 20th century, renowned for the breadth and quality of his research output, its influence on future work, and the elegance of his exposition. He is especially known for his foundational work in number theory and algebraic geometry...
, then Professor of Mathematics at Aligarh Muslim University
Aligarh Muslim University
Aligarh Muslim University ,is a residential academic university, established in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan as Mohammedan Angelo-Oriental College and later granted the status of Central University by an Act of the Indian Parliament in 1920...
, to the post of lecturership in mathematics at Aligarh. His other colleagues at Aligarh included Vijayraghavan. During his two years stay in Aligarh, he produced eight research papers in the general area of Differential Geometry and Path Spaces. His fluency in several European languages allowed him to publish some of his early papers in French, Italian and German journals in their respective languages.
Fergusson College, Pune
In 1933, he joined the Deccan Education Society’s Fergusson CollegeFergusson College
Fergusson College is a degree college in western India, situated in the city of Pune. It was founded in 1885 by the Deccan Education Society and at that time was the first privately governed college in India. It is named after Sir James Fergusson, the Governor of Bombay, who donated a then...
in Pune
Pune
Pune , is the eighth largest metropolis in India, the second largest in the state of Maharashtra after Mumbai, and the largest city in the Western Ghats. Once the centre of power of the Maratha Empire, it is situated 560 metres above sea level on the Deccan plateau at the confluence of the Mula ...
, where he taught mathematics for the next 12 years. In 1935, his eldest daughter, Maya was born, while in 1939, the youngest, Meera
Meera Kosambi
Meera Kosambi is a prominent Indian sociologist. She is the youngest daughter of a prominent Marxist historian and mathematician, D.D. Kosambi, and grand-daughter of Acharya Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi, prominent Buddhist Schloar and a Pāli language expert. She has a Ph.D...
, a well-known sociologist and feminist was born.
In Pune, while teaching mathematics and conducting research in the field, he started his interdisciplinary pursuit. In 1944 he published a small article of 4 pages titled ‘The Estimation of Map Distance from Recombination Values’ in Annals of Eugenics, in which he introduced what later came to be known as Kosambi's map function.
One of the most important contributions of Kosambi to statistics is the widely known technique called proper orthogonal decomposition (POD). Although it was originally developed by Kosambi in 1943, it is now referred to as the Karhunen–Loève expansion. In the 1943 paper entitled 'Statistics in Function Space' presented in the Journal of the Indian Mathematical Society, Kosambi presented the Proper Orthogonal Decomposition some years before Karhunen (1945) and Loeve (1948). This tool has found application to such diverse fields as image processing, signal processing, data compression, oceanography, chemical engineering and fluid mechanics. Unfortunately this most important contribution of his is barely acknowledged in most papers that utilize the POD method. In recent years though, it is heartening to note that some authors have indeed referred to it as the Kosambi-Karhunen-Loeve decomposition.
It was his studies in numismatics that initiated him into the field of historical research. He made a thorough study of Sanskrit and ancient literature, and he started his classic work on the ancient poet Bhartṛhari. He published his critical editions of Bhartrihari's Shatakatrayee and Subhashitas during 1945-1948.
It was during this period that he started his political activism, coming close to the radical streams in the ongoing Independence movement, especially the Communist Party of India
Communist Party of India
The Communist Party of India is a national political party in India. In the Indian communist movement, there are different views on exactly when the Indian communist party was founded. The date maintained as the foundation day by CPI is 26 December 1925...
. He became an outspoken Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
and wrote some political articles.
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
In 1945, Homi J. BhabhaHomi J. Bhabha
Homi Jehangir Bhabha, FRS was an Indian nuclear physicist and the chief architect of the Indian atomic energy program...
invited Kosambi to join the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research is a research institution in India dedicated to basic research in mathematics and the sciences. It is a Deemed University and works under the umbrella of the Department of Atomic Energy of the Government of India. It is located at Navy Nagar, Colaba, Mumbai...
(TIFR) as Professor of Mathematics, which he accepted. After independence, in 1948-49 he was sent to England and the US as a UNESCO Fellow to study the theoretical and technical aspects of the computer. During this time, he was a visiting professor of geometry at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
. He spent some time at the Institute for Advanced Study
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study, located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States, is an independent postgraduate center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It was founded in 1930 by Abraham Flexner...
in Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...
. In London, he started his long-lasting friendship with indologist and historian A.L. Basham.
After his return to India, in the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
circumstances, he was increasingly drawn into the World Peace Movement and served as a Member of the World Peace Council
World Peace Council
The World Peace Council is an international organization that advocates universal disarmament, sovereignty and independence and peaceful co-existence, and campaigns against imperialism, weapons of mass destruction and all forms of discrimination...
. He became a tireless crusader for peace, campaigning against the nuclearisation of the world. Kosambi's solution to India's energy needs was in sharp conflict with the ambitions of the Indian ruling class. He proposed alternative energy sources, like solar power. His activism in the peace movement took him to Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
and Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. However, during this period he relentlessly pursued his diverse research interests, too. Most importantly, he worked on his Marxist rewriting of ancient Indian history, which culminated in his book, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (1956).
He visited China many times during 1952-62 and was able to watch the Chinese revolution very closely, making him critical of the way modernisation and development were envisaged and pursued by the Indian ruling classes. All these contributed to straining his relationship with the Indian government and Bhabha, eventually leading to Kosambi's exit from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in 1962.
Post-TIFR days
His exit from the TIFR gave Kosambi the opportunity to concentrate on his research in ancient Indian history culminating into his book, The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India, which was published in 1965 by Routledge, Kegan & Paul. The book was translated into German, French and Japanese and was widely acclaimed. He also utilised his time in archaeological studies, and contributed in the field of statistics and number theory. His article on numismatics was published in February 1965 in Scientific AmericanScientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
.
Due to the efforts of his friends and colleagues, in June 1964, Kosambi was appointed as a Scientist Emeritus of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) affiliated with the Maharashtra Vidnyanvardhini in Pune. He pursued many historical, scientific and archaeological projects (even writing stories for children). But most works he produced in this period could not be published during his lifetime. On June 29, 1966, he died in Pune. He was posthumously decorated with the Hari Om Ashram Award by the government of India's University Grant Commission in 1980.
His friend A.L. Basham, a well-known indologist, wrote in his obituary:
- At first it seemed that he had only three interests, which filled his life to the exclusion of all others — ancient India, in all its aspects, mathematics and the preservation of peace. For the last, as well as for his two intellectual interests, he worked hard and with devotion, according to his deep convictions. Yet as one grew to know him better one realized that the range of his heart and mind was very wide...In the later years of his life, when his attention turned increasingly to anthropology as a means of reconstructing the past, it became more than ever clear that he had a very deep feeling for the lives of the simple people of Maharashtra.
Kosambi's historiography
As an historian, Kosambi revolutionised Indian historiography with his Marxist approach, crucially diverting from the mainstream nationalist and imperialist schools. He understood history in terms of the dynamics of socio-economic formations rather than just a chronological narration of "episodes" or the feats of a few great men - kings, warriors or saints. In the very first paragraph of his classic work, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History, he gives an insight into his methodology as a prelude to his life work on ancient Indian history:- "THE light-hearted sneer “India has had some episodes, but no history“ is used to justify lack of study, grasp, intelligence on the part of foreign writers about India’s past. The considerations that follow will prove that it is precisely the episodes — lists of dynasties and kings, tales of war and battle spiced with anecdote, which fill school texts — that are missing from Indian records. Here, for the first time, we have to reconstruct a history without episodes, which means that it cannot be the same type of history as in the European tradition."
According to A. L. Basham, "An Introduction to the Study of Indian History is in many respects an epoch making work, containing brilliantly original ideas on almost every page; if it contains errors and misrepresentations, if now and then its author attempts to force his data into a rather doctrinaire pattern, this does not appreciably lessen the significance of this very exciting book, which has stimulated the thought of thousands of students throughout the world."
Professor Sumit Sarkar
Sumit Sarkar
-Background:He belongs to one of Bengal's most enlightened and progressive Brahmo families. His father was Professor Susobhan Chandra Sarkar, a Head of Department of History at Presidency College, Calcutta and the founder Head of Department of the Department of History, []...
says: "Indian Historiography, starting with D.D. Kosambi in the 1950s, is acknowledged the world over — wherever South Asian history is taught or studied - as quite on a par with or even superior to all that is produced abroad. And that is why Irfan Habib
Irfan Habib
Irfan Habib is an Indian Marxist historian, a former Chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research and a Padma Bhushan awardee. He is a Professor Emeritus at Aligarh Muslim University. He has served in the Indian History Congress for many years. Irfan Habib and R.S...
or Romila Thapar
Romila Thapar
Romila Thapar is an Indian historian whose principal area of study is ancient India.-Work:After graduating from Panjab University, Thapar earned her doctorate under A. L. Basham at the School of Oriental and African Studies, the University of London in 1958...
or R.S. Sharma are figures respected even in the most diehard anti-Communist American universities. They cannot be ignored if you are studying South Asian history."
In his obituary to Kosambi published in the Nature, J. D. Bernal had summed up Kosambi's talent as follows: "Kosambi introduced a new method into historical scholarship, essentially by application of modern mathematics. 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 and so set them in order to give some idea of their respective ages."
Works on history and society
- 1956 An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (Popular Book Depot, Bombay)
- 1957 Exasperating Essays: Exercise in the Dialectical Method (People's Book House, Poona)
- 1962 Myth and Reality: Studies in the Formation of Indian Culture (Popular Prakashail, Bombay)
- 1965 The Culture and Civilisation of Ancient India in Historical Outline (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London)
- 2002 D.D. Kosambi: Combined Methods in Indology and Other Writings - Compiled, edited and introduced by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (Oxford University Press, New Delhi)
- 2009 The Oxford India Kosambi - Compiled, edited and introduced by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya (Oxford University Press, New Delhi)
Edited works
- 1945 The Satakatrayam of Bhartrhari with the Comm. of Ramarsi, edited in collaboration with Pt. K. V. Krishnamoorthi Sharma (Anandasrama Sanskrit Series, No.127, Poona)
- 1946 The Southern Archetype of Epigrams Ascribed to Bhartrhari (Bharatiya Vidya Series 9, Bombay) (First critical edition of a Bhartrhari recension.)
- 1948 The Epigrams Attributed to Bhartrhari (Singhi Jain Series 23, Bombay) (Comprehensive edition of the poet's work remarkable for rigorous standards of text criticism.)
- 1952 The Cintamani-saranika of Dasabala; Supplement to Journal of Oriental Research, xix, pt, II (Madras) (A Sanskrit astronomical work which shows that King Bhoja of Dhara died in 1055-56.)
- 1957 The Subhasitaratnakosa of Vidyakara, edited in collaboration with V.V. Gokhale (Harvard Oriental Series 42)
Mathematical publications by D. D. Kosambi
- 1930 Precessions of an elliptical orbit, Indian J. Phys., 5(3), 359-364.
- 1931 On a generalization of the second theorem of Bourbaki, Proc. Acad. Sciences UP, 1
- 1932 Modern differential geometries, Indian J. Phys., 7(2), 159-164.
- 1932 On the existence of a metric and the inverse variational problem, Proc. Acad. Sciences UP, 2, 17-28.
- 1932 Geometric differentiale et calcul des variations, Rendiconti della Reale Accademia Nazionale dei Linceit, 16(6), 410-415.
- 1932 On differential equations with the group property, J. Indian Math. Soc., 19(1), 215-219.
- 1932 Affin-geometrische grundlagen der einheitlichen feld-theorie, Sitzungsberichten der Preuss B. Akademic der Wissenschaften, Physikalisch-mathematische klasse, 28, 342-345.
- 1933 The classification of integers, J. Univ. Bombay, 2(2), 18-20.
- 1933 The problem of differential invariants, J. Indian Math. Soc., 20, 185-188.
- 1933 Parallelism and path-spaces, Mathematische Zeitschrift, 37, 608-622.
- 1934 Collineations in path-space, J. Indian Math. Soc., 1(2), 68-72.
- 1934 Continuous groups and two theorems of Euler, Math. Student, 2(3), 94-100.
- 1934 The maximum modulus theorem, J. Univ. Bombay, 3(2), 11-12.
- 1935 Systems of differential equations of the second order, Quarterly J. Math. (Oxford Series), 6(21), 1-12.
- 1935 Homogeneous metrics, Proc. Indian Acad. Sciences, 1(A:12), 952-954.
- 1935 An affine calculus of variations, Proc. Indian Acad. Sciences, 2, 333-335.
- 1936 Differential geometry of the Laplace equation, J. Indian Math. Soc., 2, 141-143.
- 1936 Path-spaces of higher order, Quarterly J. Math. (Oxford Series), 7(26), 97-104.
- 1936 Path-geometry and cosmogony, Quarterly J. Math. (Oxford Series), 7(28), 290-293.
- 1938 Les metriques homogenes dans les espaces cosmogoniques, Comptes rendus, 206, 1086-1088.
- 1938 Les espaces des paths generalises qu'on peut associer avec un espace de Finsler, Comptes rendus, 206, 1538-1541.
- 1939 The tensor analysis of partial differential equations, J. Indian Math. Soc., 3, 249-253.
- 1940 Path-equations admitting the Lorenz group, J. London Math. Soc., 15(2:58), 86-91.
- 1940 The concept of isotropy in generalized path-spaces, J. Indian Math. Soc., 4, 80-88.
- 1940 A note on frequency distribution in series, Math. Student, 8, 151-155.
- 1941 A bivariate extension of Fisher's Z test, Current Science, 10, 191-192.
- 1941 Correlation and time series,Current Science, 10, 372-774.
- 1941 Path-equations admitting the Lorenz group - II, J. Indian Math. Soc., 5(2), 62-72.
- 1942 On the zeros and closure of orthogonal functions, J. Indian Math. Soc., 6(1), 16-24.
- 1943 Statistics in function space, J. Indian Math. Soc., 7, 76-88.
- 1944 The estimation of map distance from recombination values, Annals of Eugenics, 12(3), 172-175.
- 1944 Direct derivation of series spectra, Current Science, 13, 71.
- 1944 The geometric method in mathematical statistics, Amer. Math. Monthly, 51(7), 382-389.
- 1945 Parallelism in the tensor analysis of partial differential equations, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc., 51, 293-296.
- 1946 The law of large numbers, Mathematics Student, 14, 14-19.
- 1946 Sur la differentiation covariante, Comptes rendus, 222, 211-213.
- 1947 An extension of the least-squares method for statistical estimation, Annals of Eugenics, 18, 257-261.
- 1947 Les invariants differentials d'un tenseur covariant a deux indices, Comptes rendus, 225, 790-792.
- 1948 Systems of partial differential equations of the second order, Quarterly J. Math. (Oxford Series), 19(76), 204-219.
- 1949 Characteristic properties of series distributions, Proc. Nat. Inst. Science of India, 15(3), 109-113.
- 1949 The differential invariants of a two-index tensor, Bull. Amer. Math. Soc., 55(1:2), 90-94.
- 1951 Seasonal variation in the Indian birth rate, (co-authored with S. Raghavachari), Annals of Eugenics, 16(2), 165-192.
- 1951 Series expansions of continuous groups, Quarterly J. Math. (Oxford Series 2), 2(8), 244-257.
- 1952 Path-spaces admitting collineations, Quarterly J. Math. (Oxford Series 2), 3(9), 1-11.
- 1952 Path-geometry and continuous groups, Quarterly J. Math. (Oxford Series 2), 3(19), 307-320.
- 1954 The metric in path-space, Tensor (New Series), 3, 67-74.
- 1954 Seasonal variation in the Indian death rate, (co-authored with S. Raghavachari), Annals of Human Genetics, 19(2), 100-119.
- 1958 Classical Tauberian theorems, J. Indian Soc. Agricultural Statistics, 10, 141-149.
- 1958 The efficiency of randomization by card shuffling (co-authored with U.V. Ramamohana Rao), J. Royal Stat. Soc., Series A (General), 121(2), 223-233.
- 1959 The method of least squares, J. Indian Soc. Agricultural Statistics, 12, 49-57.
- 1959 An application of stochastic convergence, J. Indian Soc. Agricultural Statistics, 12, 58-72.
- 1963 The sampling distribution of primes, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sciences U.S.A., 49, 20-23.
- 1966 Scientific numismatics, Scientific American, February, 102-111.
External links
- The making of an Indologist (Review article in Frontline magazine)
- The Hindu online 22 April 2003
- Oxford University Press
- This site includes pdf copies of Kosambi's historical works
- Contains works on and of D.D. Kosambi
- A new site on D.D.Kosambi
- Biography of Kosambi by C.D. Deshmukh
- Blog on DD Kosambi
- Biography of Kosambi by Jyotsna Kamat