Mathematics and Medicine in Sanskrit.

Plofker, Kim

Mathematics and Medicine in Sanskrit. Edited by DOMINIK WUJASTYK. Papers of the 12th World Sanskrit Conference, vol. 7. Delhi: MOTILAL BANARSIDASS, 2009. pp. viii 208. rs. 600.

This volume contains versions of slightly more than half the papers presented at the panel on "Scientific Literature" at the 12th World Sanskrit Conference held in Helsinki in 2003. The published papers discuss aspects of two Sanskrit scientific disciplines (or Iiistras) in particular: section I is devoted to the of lastra of gapita (mathematical sciences) and section II to avurveda (medicine/healthcare). An editor's introduction and another general essay on the study of science in Sanskrit are also included. The consistent formatting of citations, bibliographies, and transliterations throughout the volume is a help to the reader, although the typographical accuracy fluctuates somewhat from one chapter to another.

Three common themes, two of which are highlighted in the editor's introduction, underlie these diverse articles: (1) the importance of investigating the vast and little-known corpus of Sanskrit technical manuscripts; (2) the need to combine Sanskrit and other Indological skills and methodologies with those of other disciplines as diverse as mathematics and statistics, anthropology, and botany; and (3) the recognition of chronological evolution in traditional Sanskrit disciplines that are too often regarded as timelessly canonical and consistent bodies of knowledge. The late K. V. Sarma's general essay "Science and Sanskrit" also stresses these themes in its perceptive survey of current work on Sanskrit technical literature, although it is perhaps a little unrealistic in emphasizing the direct contributions that ancient and medieval Indian sciences might make to the advancement of modern science. In keeping with their interdisciplinary approach, much of the content of the articles will he valuable for historians of mathematics, medicine, and science in general, although some of their details (including extended excerpts from original source texts) will be inaccessible to non-Sanskritists.

In section I, A. K. Bag summarizes the development of solution procedures for second-degree indeterminate equations in seventh-through twelfth-century Indian mathematics, with a useful analysis of the methods in terms of their later rediscovery and modern equivalents. The second article, by Jean-Michel Delire, analyzes evidence from manuscripts of second-millennium (c.E.) commentaries on the ancient ritual geometry texts called gulba-stiistras to infer conclusions about the dates of their composition. An appendix containing a detailed critical edition (with transcription and translation) of a crucial portion of one of these works forms a particularly useful contribution, somewhat diminished by the lack of a notation key for the critical apparatus and systematic identification of the manuscript sigla. Finally, Agathe Keller's study of geometrical diagrams in a manuscript of a seventh-century mathematical commentary astutely examines the roles of medieval Sanskrit geometric concepts in the work of author, commentator, and scribe: this work has been further elaborated in her two-volume translation and analysis of the same commentary, Expounding the Mathematical Seed (Basel, 2000), and other publications in the article's bibliography.

The essays in section II deal with an even wider chronological range in the development of ayurveda and related practices, from the establishment of canonical medical texts in the early first millennium C.E. to healing rites in contemporary West India. G. Jan Meulenbeld surveys the development of the ayurvedic theory of the dosas or "Indian humors" and the traces of its forerunners in the oldest medical texts. In the second article. Dagmar Benner investigates ayurvedic approaches to samsketras or stage-of-life rituals, and their implications for the synthesis of orthodox brahmanic ritual with an originally separate heterodox medical system. Dominik Wuyastyk discusses a trio of innovative ayurveda treatises dating from about 1600, from 1669, and from about 1580 respectively. The article's title justly calls these "contrasting examples of ayurvedic creativity," but rather bafflingly situates them "around 1700": a misprint for "1600"? Sanskrit-derived technical terms in present-day religious healing treatments used as alternatives or supplements to ayurveda and modern medicine in cases of mental illness ("spirit illness") are studied by Antti Pakaslahti on the basis of fieldwork conducted at a renowned pilgrimage site in Rajasthan over a ten-year period. Finally, Butomu Yamashita explores the textual history of the Bitedasamhita or Bhelasamhitii, one of the classical ayurveda treatises.

KIM PLOFK ER UNION COLLEGE