Kosambi and the Numerical Analysis of Mahabharta

I recall sitting in the lecture hall where he used to teach, when I was reading his statistical analysis of the mahAbhArata. It was a pioneering work for its time, using distribution of upa-parvan length and syllable statistics to study the concordance between the critical edition initiated by Sukthankar and the parvasaMgraha section. The implications of this study, and a more modern overview, need to be narrated at some point. In several ways Damodar Kosambi was like Rahul Sankrityayan another Marxist historian-- both were genuine scholars whose intellectual breadth should be appreciated. Both were however deluded simultaneously by the bauddha heresy and the red-book of the bearded German.

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