Dear Dominik,

 I list below some sources for the study of colour semantics in premodern India. Besides these, there are sections in the kośa-s as well as texts of alaṅkāra that deal with the polysemy of colour terms. I have written about the semantics of several individual colour terms in (fairly exasperating) detail in my PhD thesis, which is (as yet) asūryaṃpaśyā. Apologies for the inconsistent format of citation. 

  May I add, I benefited much from the references in footnote 72 in the volume ‘Studies on Indian Medical History’ that you and the late Jan Meulenbeld edited, and your students may find them helpful as well.

Warm regards,

Naresh Keerthi

On olfaction

 Hara, Minoru. "A Note on Sanskrit Gandha." Studia Orientalia Electronica 108 (2010): 65-86.

 McHugh, James. Sandalwood and carrion: Smell in Indian religion and culture. Oxford University Press, 2012.

 

Colour semiotics in Tamil

Beck, Brenda EF. "Colour and heat in South Indian ritual." Man (1969): 553-572.

 Janert, Klaus L., and P. Rajagopal Subramanian. "Colours in Early Tamil, a Study Based on Cilappatikaram." International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics 2 (1973): 141-150.

 Suppiramaṇiaṉ. Ca.Vĕ,. and Nā Kaṭikācalam. 1983. Ilakkiyattil niṟam . Taramani, Chennai

Colour semiotics in Sanskrit sources

 Bedekar, V. M., 1968. “The Doctrine of the Colours of Souls in the Mahābhārata : Its Characteristics and Implications”. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 48/49, Golden Jubilee Volume 1917-1967 (1968). 329-338.

 Bhattacharya. Ashok.K., On the identification of the colour called śyāma. Journal of Oriental Institute. Baroda.  [I don’t have the details of which issue from my photocopy, but it can be found from the JOI index available online.]

 Elizarenkova, T., 1994. Notes on Names of Colours in the Ṛgveda. Bulletin of the Deccan College Research Institute, 54, pp.81-86.

 Filliozat, J., 1957. Classement des couleurs et des lumières en Sanskrit. Problèmes de la couleur, pp.303-311.

 Helmdach, Mathias. 1980. Farbbezeichnungen und Farbverständnis im alten Indien. Unpublished Dissertation. University München.

 Hopkins, E.W., 1883. Words for color in the Rig Veda.The American Journal of Philology,4(2), pp.166-191.

 Jha, S., 2016. From Sacred to Commodity and Beyond: Colour and Values in India. Journal of Human Values, 22(1), pp.1-13.

 Jha, S., 2014. Challenges in the history of colours: The case of saffron. The Indian Economic & Social History Review, 51(2), pp.199-229.

 Nardi, I., 2007. The Theory of Citrasutras in Indian Painting: A Critical Re-evaluation of Their Uses and Interpretations. Routledge.

 Okita, K., 2018. 4 Salvation through Colorful Emotions: Aesthetics, Colorimetry, and Theology in Early Modern South Asia. In Historicizing Emotions: Practices and Objects in India, China, and Japan (pp. 100-112). BRILL.

Samtani, N.H., 1993.  "A study of aspects of raga." in Ram Karan Sarma (ed.) Researches in Indian and Buddhist Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Professor Alex Wayman 61-67.

 Sudyka, Lydia., 2006. Passions of the Indigo colour. In Jaroslav Vacek (ed.) Pandanus 06: Nature in Literature and Ritual. Prague: Pandanus. 37-52.

 Wiley. Kristi. L., 2000. Colors of the Soul: By-Products of Activity or Passions?. Philosophy East and West, Vol. 50, No. 3. 348-366.

 

 History, theory and method of colour semantics

Biggam, Carole Patricia. 2012. The semantics of colour: A historical approach. Cambridge University Press.

 MacLaury, R.E., 1992. From brightness to hue: An explanatory model of color-category evolution.Current Anthropology,33(2), pp.137-186.

 Philip, G., 2011. Colouring meaning: Collocation and connotation in figurative language. John Benjamins Publishing.