Ayurveda, philology and print. On the first printed edition of the Carakasaṃhitā and its context

Abstract

ABSTRACT The transition from manuscripts to the print production of books involved not only publishers, printers and readers, but importantly also editors of texts. This essay combines insights from the history of Ayurveda, history of philology and history of the book to examine the role of different actors in the transmission of the Ayurvedic textual tradition in nineteenth century South Asia. In particular, it focuses on the first printed edition of the Carakasa ṃ hitā (the oldest treatise of Ayurveda), its editor Gangadhar Ray Kaviraj (1798–1885), and the publisher Bhuvana Chandra Vasaka. It outlines the very beginnings of the ‘print moment’ in the history of Sanskritic Ayurveda: the Ayurvedic milieu of nineteenth century Bengal, that region’s fast-growing commercial print industry and the context of the first print publication of another foundational work of Ayurveda, the Suśrutasaṃhitā, more than thirty years earlier than the Carakasa ṃ hitā. This essay argues that the use of the printed book, as a technology-based object, was part of a process of modernization and caste-identity formation. It argues further that indigenous philological practices had a crucial role in transmitting Ayurvedic knowledge, and that their interplay with publishing activities contributed to establishing a coherent body of textual sources within the Ayurvedic community and among the students of Sanskritic culture at large.