Arun Asokan (also known as Arun Ashokan) received his PhD in Regional Studies from the University of Hyderabad in 2019. Subsequently, in 2023, he completed his postdoctoral research at the Chair of History and Philosophy of Mathematical Sciences, ETH Zurich. In this postdoctoral work, he contributed to the project titled “The History of Vernacular Mathematics in Medieval South India (Kerala and Tamil Nadu, ninth to sixteenth centuries).” His work focused on the late-medieval Malayalam mathematical treatise Kaṇakkatikāram.

Arun is the recipient of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Seal of Excellence Award from the European Commission in 2026. This award is a quality label for postdoctoral fellowships and recognizes a significant research contribution to the project on the history of premodern mathematics.

Starting in July 2026, Arun Asokan began his research at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. His research project is titled “Thingking: A History of Material-Related Mathematical Knowledge in India.” Arun’s research examines the historical formation of material-related calculations in premodern India (ninth to eighteenth centuries). The aim of the project is to examine and demonstrate the intricate networks of relationships between human actions (motions and affects) and nonhuman dynamics (forces, properties, and affordances) in the formation and transformation of mathematical knowledge—numbers, measures, procedures, and rules—related to the computation of paddy, rice, gold, wood, and land in Indian mathematical treatises. In the project, he will advance “Thingking,” a theoretical framework, by investigating the ontology of mathematical knowledge formation. To this project, Arun brings his specialization in the history of mathematics in premodern India.

At the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), Arun is a member of the Max Planck Research Group ASTRA. In collaboration with ASTRA’s working group on “Performative Philology: Crafting Knowledge in Action,” he strengthens scholarship on the performative formation of knowledge by examining human–nonhuman interactions in premodern Indian mathematical practices.

Arun’s research project at Max Planck Institute for History of Science ca be accessed at: https://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/research/projects/performative-formations-interactive-emergences-knowledge-premodern-indian