MAX-PLANCK-INSTITUT FÜR WISSENSCHAFTSGESCHICHTE Max Planck Institute for the History of Science

Event

Mar 19, 2026
Turning Tables: Tracking Movement of Desire in Early Modern South Asia

Abstract

Several erotological manuals in early modern South Asia contained a chapter detailing how the movement of desire in the female body can be tracked by the corresponding movement of the moon. While the movement of the moon could not be controlled, through following the instructions laid out in these erotological texts such as Kokaśāstra and Laẕẕat al-nisā’, a discerning man could, in theory, control a woman’s pleasure. Through a critical analysis of erotological manuals produced in Persian and Braj Bhasha (early Hindi) in South Asia between 1640–1800, this paper will track two interconnected phenomena: one, the creation of astronomical tables that tabularized the movement of desire to various body parts with corresponding fortnightly movement of the waxing and waning of the moon. This change was probably due to an effort to create a simple, scannable diagram that efficiently conveyed information that would otherwise be covered over two to three pages in prose or poetry within the text. Two, by the eighteenth century these tables were further converted into concentric circles. What does the movement from the prose to tabular to circle signify? During this change of form, it is interesting to see what information is retained, discarded, and transformed.    

Biography

Sonia Wigh is a British Academy Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. Her current research project “Sex, Medicine, and Manuscripts in Early Colonial South Asia” explores the medicalisation of sex through Persian sexual-medical manuscripts produced between 1750 and 1857. She is currently working on her monograph A Body of Words: A History of Sex and the Body in Early Modern South Asia, which is based on her thesis which received the C.A. Bayly Best Dissertation Award (2022). Her research focuses on the history of sexuality, medicine, and material culture in early modern South Asia. She is also part of the editorial team in leading journals such as Osiris and Medical History.

Organizer(s)
Address
MPIWG Villa, Harnackstraße 5, 14195 Berlin, Germany
Room
Room V005/Seminar Room & Online
Contact and Registration

We welcome both internal and external guests. Registration is only required for in-person attendance. Please note, while this is an in-person talk, it will also be streamed via Zoom. For more information about the colloquium series, please contact Jean Arzoumanov

Zoom link: https://eu02web.zoom-x.de/j/63767435011?pwd=oFXYIniUuTLZb3fQ3eDLbczRmIBqx5.1

Feel free to distribute information and Zoom link widely.

About This Series

Over the last decade, a wave of new research has revitalized the study of Islamicate scientific traditions, particularly in the field of the so-called "occult sciences". This work has challenged the long-standing dichotomy between doctrines historically dismissed as non-rational or superstitious and the canonized sciences retrospectively framed as precursors to Western modernity.

Similarly, contrary to the perception of a stagnant precolonial scientific landscape, South Asian societies were permeated with sophisticated scientific doctrines and long-established methods of healing and prognostication. Scientific practices —including those that might be categorized as "occult" within an Islamicate framework— flourished in both elite and popular contexts. Cosmopolitan Hindu pandits and Muslim scholars practiced these sciences in royal courts, while vernacular traditions ensured their diffusion amongst broader populations. Alongside the crucial work of manuscript-based research, the persistence and vitality of non-Western scientific practices in contemporary South Asia has enabled comparative approaches combining rigorous textual philology with ethnographic insight.

This colloquium series seeks to highlight some of the most recent contributions to the field and to open critical perspectives on the intellectual and practical life of science in the subcontinent. Invited speakers will explore the concrete practice of South Asian sciences across the early modern and modern periods, examining their position within the Arabo-Persian and Sanskritic knowledge systems.

2026-03-19T13:30:00SAVE IN I-CAL 2026-03-19 13:30:00 2026-03-19 15:00:00 Turning Tables: Tracking Movement of Desire in Early Modern South Asia Abstract Several erotological manuals in early modern South Asia contained a chapter detailing how the movement of desire in the female body can be tracked by the corresponding movement of the moon. While the movement of the moon could not be controlled, through following the instructions laid out in these erotological texts such as Kokaśāstra and Laẕẕat al-nisā’, a discerning man could, in theory, control a woman’s pleasure. Through a critical analysis of erotological manuals produced in Persian and Braj Bhasha (early Hindi) in South Asia between 1640–1800, this paper will track two interconnected phenomena: one, the creation of astronomical tables that tabularized the movement of desire to various body parts with corresponding fortnightly movement of the waxing and waning of the moon. This change was probably due to an effort to create a simple, scannable diagram that efficiently conveyed information that would otherwise be covered over two to three pages in prose or poetry within the text. Two, by the eighteenth century these tables were further converted into concentric circles. What does the movement from the prose to tabular to circle signify? During this change of form, it is interesting to see what information is retained, discarded, and transformed.     Biography Sonia Wigh is a British Academy Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. Her current research project “Sex, Medicine, and Manuscripts in Early Colonial South Asia” explores the medicalisation of sex through Persian sexual-medical manuscripts produced between 1750 and 1857. She is currently working on her monograph A Body of Words: A History of Sex and the Body in Early Modern South Asia, which is based on her thesis which received the C.A. Bayly Best Dissertation Award (2022). Her research focuses on the history of sexuality, medicine, and material culture in early modern South Asia. She is also part of the editorial team in leading journals such as Osiris and Medical History. MPIWG Villa, Harnackstraße 5, 14195 Berlin, Germany Room V005/Seminar Room & Online Jean Arzoumanov Jean Arzoumanov Europe/Berlin public