Sri Sathvik Rayala

Research Interests: Medieval and early modern history, South Asia, premodern sciences and technology, Āyurveda, transregional circulation of knowledge, and Indic intellectual traditions and texts (śāstras).

Sri Sathvik Rayala is a Ph.D. student in the Department of the History of Science at Harvard University. Attuned to global and connected histories, his research geographically centers medieval and early modern South Asia, particularly southern India. He is interested in the study of early Indian medicine (Āyurveda), premodern sciences and technology, the entanglements between early sciences and religion, and Indic intellectual traditions and textual cultures (śāstras). His existing scholarship has dealt with intellectual history, histories of state and court, transregional circulation, Sanskrit, Tĕlugu, and Tamiḻ literatures, and the scriptural corpora of Hinduism.

Publications:

“The Gift of Health: Medicine as Śiva’s Dharma in Premodern India.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Forthcoming.

“Divulging a Secret: Rāmānuja’s Revelation in Precolonial Śrīvaiṣṇava Hagiology.” In Marion Rastelli, ed. Saints and Sacred Places in Peninsular Medieval India. Forthcoming.

“Continuity and Controversy in Citation: Quoting an Anti-Caste Mantra in the Śaiva Oeuvre of Southern India.” The Journal of Hindu Studies 18, no. 3, (2025), pp. 286–312, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhs/hiaf012.

"Code-Switching of Regal Identity in the Early Modern Deccan." Journal of the American Society for Premodern Asia (formerly Journal of the American Oriental Society) 145, no. 2 (2025), pp. 229-52.https://doi.org/10.7817/jaos.145.2.2025.ar010.

“A Vaiṣṇava Pontiff’s Conquest: Monastic Politics and Patronage in a Vijayanagara War.” Journal of Vaishnava Studies (JVS), 33 , no. 2, (2025), pp. 197-213.

Previous Degrees:

M.T.S., Harvard Divinity School
A.B., Dartmouth College