While the colonial and modern history of epidemics in South Asia is well researched, the earlier developments of this subject area have hardly been studied. The project Epidemics and Crisis Management in Pre-modern South Asia aims to fill part of this gap by exploring the intellectual history of epidemics and similar disasters in South Asia and their medical, religious, social, political, and philosophical aspects through a comprehensive study of the relevant Sanskrit literature from this period.
The presentation given in this workshop will focus on theories and speculations about the causes of epidemics and similar events as found in the early pre-modern ayurvedic sources.