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Through four case studies of technological systems - optical tracking of satellites, sounding rockets, instructional television through a geosynchronous satellite, and a launch vehicle--I explore the origins and development of the Indian space program from 1955 through 1976, a period critical in shaping the program's identity and its relationship to the state. Institutionalized, and constructed in different geographic regions of India, these systems were embedded in the broader political, economic, and social life of the country and served as nodes around which existing and new scientific and technological communities were formed. These organic, highly networked communities in turn negotiated and developed a space program to meet the social and strategic demands of a new modernizing nation state. That modernizing program was, in turn, embedded in a broader set of scientific, technological and political relationships with industrialized countries, above all the United States. The United States' cooperation with India began with the establishment of tracking stations for plotting the orbits of artificial satellites. Cognizant of the contributions made by Indian scientists in the field of astronomy and meteorology, a scientific tradition that stretched back several decades, the officials and the scientific community at NASA, along with their Indian counterparts outlined a cooperative program that focused on the mutual exploration of the tropical space for scientific data. This initial collaboration gradually expanded and more advanced space application projects brought the two democratic countries, in spite of some misgivings, closer together in the common cause of using space sciences and technologies for developing India. In the process India and the United States ended up coproducing a space program that responded to the ambitions of the postcolonial scientific and political elite of India. The global Cold War and the ambiguities, desires and tensions of a postcolonial nation-state vying for leadership among the newly decolonized states in the Afro-Asian region are critical for understanding the origins and the trajectory of India's space program. Without this political context and the construction of a transnational web of relationships, it is highly unlikely that the Indian scientific and technological elite, along with their industrial and political partners, would have succeeded in putting India on the space map of the world.

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This thesis examines the revival of the sphoṭa doctrine in early modern Benares and Śeṣakṛṣṇa's Sphoṭattvanirūpaṇa as an influential work in that revival. The sphoṭa doctrine is the richest contribution of the grammarians to the philosophy of language, but its semantic significance was not highlighted until late, because its theological implication was stronger. Śeṣakṛṣṇa was a renowned Sanskrit grammarian who flourished in sixteenth-century Benares. He also wrote poetry and Dharmasastric works, and played an important role as a juridical authority. Despite his illustrious career, Śeṣakṛṣṇa encountered criticism for his works from contemporary critics. The only work he wrote solely on the philosophy of language was the Sphoṭattvanirūpaṇa. As the first discrete work on sphoṭa by a grammarian, the Sphoṭattvanirūpaṇa represented an important landmark in the later expositions of the doctrine of sphoṭa particularly because it renewed the later grammarians' interest in sphoṭa, which then resulted in a series of individual works of a similar sort. The revival of the sphoṭa doctrine in early modern Benares coincided with that of the philosophy of language, which was caused by a number of social and intellectual factors in different proportions and phases. Śeṣakṛṣṇa's Sphoṭattvanirūpaṇa emerged on the eve of that revival, and can be recognized as a pioneer work in terms of its revitalization of the grammarians' interpretation of sphoṭa after a period of dormancy, and its influence on later works on sphoṭa.

In 2010, my wife and I were harmed in a bombing while traveling in India. Over a thousand people were attending the outdoor Hindu ceremony along the Ganges in Varanasi but when I woke up in the rubble no one was there. I searched for my wife amidst the concrete debris, found her unconscious, roused her, and we fled. This thesis is an examination of that gap in my experience, that unlived and unknown lapse of time-- between the moment I was blown off my feet by the blast wind until I stood up again-- and how it has reshaped my life. Circling that gap, a gap now filled with surrogate memories (e.g. others' accounts of the stampede after the explosion, photos of the destruction that we never saw first-hand), this thesis looks at the history that my wife and I unwittingly stumbled into, of the Babri Mosque and the Hindu-Muslim cycle of violence surrounding its existence, its destruction and the destruction's aftermath. Mainly, however it is about the marriage of two bombing victims, two bombing victims who have nearly the same physical injuries and thus for years have fooled themselves into believing they understand what the other is going through. It circles not only the unlived bombing "experience" but also the unspoken differences between how they've both been affected by the trauma. Blast wind physics, ear anatomy and physiology (the main site of their injuries), trauma research, and Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist history and comsology are all used in service of this investigation.

<p>The present dissertation is a translation and analysis of the chapter on <i>anumāna</i> in Vallabha’s <i>Nyāyalīlāvatī,</i> based on certain theoretical considerations on cross-cultural translation and the understanding of tradition. Adopting a non-essentialized and non-historicist conceptualization of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika/Navya-nyāya tradition, the work focuses on a reading of the <i>anumāna</i> chapter that is particularized and individualized. It further argues for a plurality of interpretative stances within the academic field of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika/Navya-nyāya studies, on the grounds that the dominant stance has narrowed the scope of research. With reference to post-colonial theory, this dominant stance is understood in terms of a certain strategy called “mimetic translation”.</p><p>The study of the <i>anumāna</i> chapter consists of three main interpretational sections: translation, comments, and analysis. The translation and comments focus on understanding issues internal to the <i>Nyāyalīlāvatī. </i>The analysis focuses on a contextual interpretation insofar as the text is understood through reading other texts within the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika/Navya-nyāya discourse. The analysis is further grounded in a concept of intertextuality in that it identifies themes, examples, and arguments appearing in other texts within the discourse. The analysis also identifies and discusses Cārvāka and Mīmāṁsaka arguments within the <i>anumāna</i> chapter.</p><p>Two important themes are discerned in the interpretation of the <i>anumāna</i> chapter: first, a differentiation between the apprehension of <i>vyāpti</i> and the warranting of this relation so as to make the apprehension suitable for a process of knowledge; second, that the sequential arrangement of the subject matter of the sections within the chapter, <i>vyāptigraha</i>, <i>upādhi</i>, <i>tarka</i>, and <i>parāmar</i>śa, reflects the process of coming to inferential knowledge.</p><p>The present work is a contribution to the understanding of the post-Udayana and pre-Gaṅgeśa Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika/Navya-nyāya discourse on inferential knowledge and it is written in the hope of provoking more research on that particular period and discourse in the history of Indian philosophies.</p>

The present dissertation is a translation and analysis of the chapter on anumāna in Vallabha’s Nyāyalīlāvatī, based on certain theoretical considerations on cross-cultural translation and the understanding of tradition. Adopting a non-essentialized and non-historicist conceptualization of the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika/Navya-nyāya tradition, the work focuses on a reading of the anumāna chapter that is particularized and individualized. It further argues for a plurality of interpretative stances within the academic field of Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika/Navya-nyāya studies, on the grounds that the dominant stance has narrowed the scope of research. With reference to post-colonial theory, this dominant stance is understood in terms of a certain strategy called “mimetic translation”. The study of the anumāna chapter consists of three main interpretational sections: translation, comments, and analysis. The translation and comments focus on understanding issues internal to the Nyāyalīlāvatī. The analysis focuses on a contextual interpretation insofar as the text is understood through reading other texts within the Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika/Navya-nyāya discourse. The analysis is further grounded in a concept of intertextuality in that it identifies themes, examples, and arguments appearing in other texts within the discourse. The analysis also identifies and discusses Cārvāka and Mīmāṁsaka arguments within the anumāna chapter. Two important themes are discerned in the interpretation of the anumāna chapter: first, a differentiation between the apprehension of vyāpti and the warranting of this relation so as to make the apprehension suitable for a process of knowledge; second, that the sequential arrangement of the subject matter of the sections within the chapter, vyāptigraha, upādhi, tarka, and parāmarśa, reflects the process of coming to inferential knowledge. The present work is a contribution to the understanding of the post-Udayana and pre-Gaṅgeśa Nyāya-Vaiśeṣika/Navya-nyāya discourse on inferential knowledge and it is written in the hope of provoking more research on that particular period and discourse in the history of Indian philosophies.