Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi

Who was Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi?

Acharya Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi was a prominent Buddhist scholar and a Pāli language expert. He was the father of the illustrious mathematician and prominent Marxist historian, Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi.

Kosambi was born in the Sankhval village of Goa in 1876. He was married at the age of sixteen. He was passionately interested in knowledge and felt that married life would not allow him to pursure this goal. He thus attempted to leave home several times, but lacked the courage to do so and he returned to his family. However, after the birth of his first daughter, Manik, he did leave his family not returning for nearly four years. Needless to say, his wife, Balabai, suffered during these years, as it was uncommon at the time for a married man to leave his wife and family. Later, Kosambi traveled to Varanasi and Nepal, as he wanted to study Buddhism in its original language, Pāli. However, he was rather disappointed in what he learned there and insteady travelled to Calcutta and then on to Ceylon, where he was admitted to Vidyodaya University. He studied there for three years and was ordained as a Buddhist monk in 1902. Later, he went to Burma and undertook comparative study of Buddhist texts in Burmese language. After spending seven years abroad, Kosambi returned to India.