Early South Asians at Harvard: Dharmanand, Manik, and Damodar Kosambi, 1910-1932

South Asia's Freedom in Global Perspective Seminar

Speaker: Professor Ramakrishna Ramaswamy, IIT, Delhi; Associate, Harvard University Asia Center

Chair: Professor Sugata Bose, Harvard University

Abstract: Dharmanand Kosambi, the preeminent Pali Buddhist scholar who edited Visuddhimagga of Buddhaghosacharya, vol. 41 of the Harvard Oriental Series, was an Assistant in Indic Philology at Harvard from 1910-12 and 1918-1922. Working with Charles Lanman and James Woods of the Department of Sanskrit at Harvard, he produced the definitive edition of this classic text. His daughter, Manik, was the first South Asian woman to graduate from Radcliffe, in 1922 (Philosophy, cum laude), and his son, Damodar, graduated from Harvard in 1929, summa cum laude in Mathematics.

Dharmanand, a Marxist and a Buddhist, worked closely with Mahatma Gandhi for the cause of Indian freedom and was a major figure in the twentieth-century Buddhist revival in India. He was an advocate for the abolition of caste as well as women's emancipation. In addition to mathematics, Damodar went on to work in archaeology and history, using statistics to analyze ancient coin hoards. He fundamentally changed Indian historiography by introducing a scientific approach, Marxist analysis, and what he termed "combined methods." During their years in Cambridge, both Dharmanand and Damodar found their own ways of coping with the racism and discrimination they experienced, primarily through academic achievement and by finding a cohort of like-minded individuals. Lawrence Arguimbau, a housemate, became a member of the Communist Party and had to resign from MIT during the McCarthy era. Another contemporary, the Marxist economist Paul Marlor Sweezy, became a good friend in later years.

Many of Damodar Kosambi’s research interests were seeded in the educational environment of Harvard in the 1920s. He studied under mathematicians George Birkhoff, William Graustein, and Marshall Stone, and also Bliss Perry, who taught English. Additionally, he completed the distribution requirement by taking courses in Military Science, History, German, and Italian. He read voraciously in Widener, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and wrote for the Harvard Advocate. These experiences made him markedly different from others educated in England or Europe, and gave him the confidence to contribute to a wide array of academic disciplines. He was an early advocate for the use of solar energy and was deeply committed to world peace.

In this talk, the speaker will discuss the circumstances that brought the Kosambis, then citizens of Portuguese India, to Harvard, and the lasting influence they had on the university. The talk is based on a study of archival material from Harvard, the Prime Ministers Memorial Library in New Delhi, and the National Archives of India.

Co-sponsored by the Weatherhead Center, the Harvard University Asia Center, the Department of History, and the Department of South Asian Studies.