Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi

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DD Kosambi

Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi (born July 31, 1907 in Kosben , Goa , † June 29, 1966 in Pune , Maharashtra ) was an Indian mathematician and historian.

Life

He was the son of the scholar Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi (1876–1947), author of a biography of the Buddha. He went to school in Cambridge, Massachusetts when his father was doing research there at Harvard University . He began his studies at Harvard in 1924, interrupted by a stay in India, where his father had returned. He studied mathematics with George David Birkhoff , among others, and obtained his bachelor's degree in 1929. On his return he taught mathematics and German (he also spoke French and Italian well, in total he spoke more than a dozen languages) at the Banares Hindu University and, at the invitation of André Weil , was a lecturer in mathematics at the Aligarh Muslim University from 1931 . His specialty was differential geometry. In 1933 he became professor of mathematics at Fergusson College in Pune. There he published an essay on genetics in 1944, in which he introduced a mapping function named after him (Kosambi Map Function) and in 1943 on the development of stochastic processes according to orthogonal function systems (later called Karhunen-Loève development).

His change to historical studies was initiated by work on numismatics . He also studied Sanskrit literature and edited the work of the poet Bhartrihari . He also turned to the Communist Party of India in the 1940s. He supported the independence movement and admired the communist Chinese revolution. He visited China frequently in the 1950s. In the 1950s he was active in the peace movement and a member of the World Peace Council.

In 1945 he became professor of mathematics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research , which he had to leave in 1962 due to his critical political views. In 1948/49 he was at the University of Chicago , London and the Institute for Advanced Study .

As a historian, Kosambi brought social and economic aspects into the historiography of India, where he was influenced by Marxism and examined, among other things, the relationship between tribal and caste, Indian feudalism and the relationship of Buddhism to trade. His book Introduction to the study of Indian History was particularly influential in the 1950s for its new perspective on historiography. He also used statistical methods and a multidisciplinary approach to history in general, such as inferring the time of circulation of coins from the statistical distribution of coin weights, and traveled extensively in India for archaeological and other field studies.

He dealt in particular with early Indian history ( Maurya Empire ). He was friends with the doyen of Historians of Early Indian History AL Basham .

In 2008 the Indian Post honored him with the issue of a postage stamp.

Fonts

  • An introduction to the study of Indian history, Bombay, Popular Book Depot, 1956
  • Myth and Reality: Studies in the formation of Indian Culture, Popular Prakashail, Bombay 1962
  • The culture and civilization of ancient India in historical outline, Routledge and Kegan 1965
  • Combined methods in Indology and other writings, Oxford University Press, Delhi 2002 (collected essays, editor B. Chattopadhyaya)
  • The Oxford India Kosambi, Oxford University Press, Delhi 2009

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Kosambi, Damodar Dharmananda
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian mathematician and historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Kosben , Goa
DATE OF DEATH June 29, 1966
Place of death Pune , Maharashtra