[INDOLOGY] next talk in the CHSTM online group "History of Science in Early South Asia", Monday, Dec 15, 10:30 EST

[Dagmar Wujastyk]

Dear colleagues,
May I bring your attention to our next online talk in the Consortium for
the History of Science, Technology and Medicine's "History of Science in
Early South Asia
<https://www.chstm.org/group/history-science-early-south-asia>" group:

Monday, December 15, 2025, 10:30 am - 12:00 pm EST

*Sonia Wigh (University of Cambridge)*

*The Lone Pregnant Body: Illustrating Feminine Forms in Manṣūr’s Anatomy*

The *Tašrīḥ-i Manṣūrī* [Manṣūr’s Anatomy] is the first known medical text
in the Persianate world containing full-body anatomical images. It was
composed in 1386 CE by Manṣūr bin Muḥammad bin Ilyās Shīrāzī of Shiraz
(Iran). A standard copy of Manṣūr’s Anatomy contained six illustrations of
a skeleton, nerves, muscles, veins and arteries, digestive tract and other
vital organs, and a female form with gravid uterus. This paper tracks the
visual evolution of the female form in various manuscript copies of the
*Tašrīḥ*, culminating in its lithographic print in Delhi in the 1840’s. By
highlighting key moments of transformations, I demonstrate that while there
were limited changes in the five illustrations of human (male) anatomy,
there was a stark difference in the way the female form was perceived in
the manuscript version, from schematic drawings to full-figured female
bodies with geographical, nationalistic markings in eighteenth-century
India and Qajari Iran.

Initially, the six full-length anatomical drawings in the *Tašrīḥ*-
*i Manṣūrī* consist of schematic outline of the human body in a squatting
position, with their hand on their knees. Some even argue that the sixth
image (purportedly added by Ibn Ilyās himself) was actually a gravid uterus
superimposed on the pre-existing illustration of the arterial networks.
Over the course of two centuries, from feminine markers like hair, the
sixth image assumed a more naturalistic, aesthetic human female bodily
form. Although one cannot assume a transposition of identical
knowledge-making practices across time and space, this paper attempts to
follow the evolution in visual language of one image and map onto changing
consumption patterns caused by socio-cultural and economic transformations
over a course of two centuries in India and Iran.

*****

Please be aware that some people have had trouble joining the online group.
You need to be registered with CHSTM, and then also signed up specifically
to our working group before you can see the zoom link on our page. So it's
a two-part registration. But once you have done that, you should be good to
go! Please note that it can take a few days for your registration to be
accepted.


We hope you can register successfully and join us for this year's last talk!

Dagmar (and Lisa)
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