Ayurveda and Philology: Gangadhar Ray Kaviraj and His Legacy

Over the past decades, the practice of Ayurveda and other traditional medical systems of South Asia spread to such a degree that in 2014 the Government of India formed the Ministry of AYUSH (an acronym for Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) to ensure the optimal development and propagation of AYUSH systems of health care. It is the wide spreading and popularization of Ayurveda that makes it more urgent to gain a deeper understanding of the formative stages that led to the present configuration of this medical tradition. The project addresses a most significant stage in the history of Ayurveda by exploring the interplay between Ayurveda and the Sanskritic culture during the colonial period. Its main focus is the editorial and interpretative activity of Gangadhar Ray Kaviraj (17981885), who was editor and commentator of a foundational work of Ayurveda, the Carakasamhita, composed in Sanskrit around the beginning of the 1st millennium CE. The project will edit and study Sanskrit texts composed by or related to Gangadhar. Moreover, the project will explore the cultural background of Ayurveda in 19th century South As ia and Gangadhars legacy in the making of modern Ayurveda, with special regard to issues of canon formation and professional identity. The methodological assumption is that, even if historical documents are scarce (as it is typically the case in South Asia), nevertheless ideas, practices, and dynamics concerning or surrounding texts can in fact be reconstructed by analysing the texts themselves and the context of their production. The project will show challenges and possibilities offered by this kind of analysis also by carefully considering the interplay between different actors of the texts transmission and circulation. Its achievements will form a vantage point for the study of forms and uses of philology in 19th and early 20th century South Asia.

The project "Ayurveda and Philology" investigated the philological activity of Gangadhar Ray Kaviraj (1798-1885), editor and commentator of one of the foundational Sanskrit works of Ayurveda, the Carakasamhita, composed in Sanskrit around the beginning of the 1st millennium CE. The project explored the interplay between Ayurveda and the Sanskritic culture during the colonial period. The three most significant results of the project are (1) to have provided a philologically-based study of Gangadhar's scholarly activity regarding the Carakasamhita and the Manavadharmasastra, going beyond almost hagiographic, but little informative, accounts of his biography; (2) to have placed Gangadhar's work and personality in the broader scholarly landscape of specialists of Ayurveda from the first half of the 19th century, when Ayurvedic specialists began regular exchanges with the British, to the beginning of the 20th century; and (3) to have attracted attention towards Gangadhar's work in present-day India. The first two results correspond to publications that appeared in the course of the project and other publications that are under preparation. These achievements also form a vantage point for the study of forms and uses of philology in 19th and early 20th century South Asia. The third result corresponds to an initiative of the State of Bengal to transform Gangadhar's house into a museum-cum-library that will host manuscripts and printed books of his numerous works. It is the PI's conviction that this initiative was stimulated by the visits and reading sessions held by Pecchia and Munsi at the National Institute of Ayurveda in Jaipur as well as the visit and interviews made by Munsi in Murshidabad. Another significant result is the participation of Pecchia and Munsi in scientific meetings dedicated to the history of science and philosophy of science, as well as the appearance of Pecchia's work in publication venues specializing in those subjects. In this way, the study of texts and authors of the Sanskritic culture contributes to the history of medicine and science as well as to the intellectual history of modern South Asia, entering in a conversation with specialists of those fields, rather than being confined to classical South Asian studies. All these results are based on the methodological assumption that, even if historical documents are scarce (as it can often be the case in South Asia), nevertheless ideas, practices, and dynamics concerning or surrounding texts can in fact be reconstructed by analysing the texts themselves and the context of their production.