History of Science in South Asia

Aims & Scope

HSSA publishes high-quality academic research in the history of science, with a focus on South Asia. We take “South Asia” as an inclusive, non-political, socio-geographic term referring to the area from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka, from Pakistan to Bangladesh, and of course India. Research on the influences of South Asian cultures beyond these borders is also welcome, for example Nepalese or Tibetan influences on China, Sri Lankan influences on the Maldives, or Indian influences in South-East Asia. We take “science” to be broadly conceived, and to include all forms of rigorous intellectual activity that adopt at least to some extent a quantitative and empirical approach, as in the German “Die Wissenschaft,” that covers most forms of academic scholarship. Theoretical discussions of the meaning of “science” in the South Asian context are welcome. They should presuppose some familiarity with topics such as those raised in sources like Chadha, G. and Thomas, R., eds. Mapping Scientific Method: Disciplinary Narrations (2022), Grant, A History of Natural Philosophy (2007), Latour & Woolgar, Laboratory Life (1979), Staal, " Concepts of Science in Europe and Asia " (1993), Shapin, “Science and the Modern World” (2007, PDF ), Netz, The Shaping of Deduction (2003, review by Latour ), Pollock, “ The Languages of Science in Early-Modern India ” (in Forms of Knowledge in Early Modern Asia , 2011), and similar reflective works that explore Global History, the interpretation of modernities, and the meaning of science in the pre-modern world such as Bronkhorst 2006 and Ganeri 2013 . Factual articles reporting discoveries, or interpretative revisions, are also welcome, as are editions and translations of science texts in the languages South Asia.

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Subject Classification