Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi

Born: 31 July 1907

Died: 29 June 1966

• He was an Indian mathematician, statistician, philologist, historian, and polymath who contributed to genetics by introducing Kosambi map function.
• He is well known for his work in numismatics and for compiling critical editions of ancient Sanskrit texts.
• His father, Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi, had studied ancient Indian texts with a particular emphasis on Buddhism and its literature in the Pali language.
• He emulated him by developing a keen interest in his country’s ancient history.
• He was also a Marxist historian specializing in ancient India who employed the historical materialist approach in his work.
• He has particularly known for his classic work An Introduction to the Study of Indian History.
• He is described as “the patriarch of the Marxist school of Indian historiography”.
• He was critical of the policies of then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, which, according to him, promoted capitalism in the guise of democratic socialism.
• He was an enthusiast of the Chinese revolution and its ideals, and, in addition, a leading activist in the World Peace Movement.

Click here for more details