It is our great pleasure and privilege to present this volume to the scholarly community on the occasion of the 70th birthday of Kenneth G. Zysk, Professor Emeritus of Indology at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Ken, as we are wont to call him, has had a long and esteemed career spanning five decades and several continents. It began under the auspices of Gerald Larson at the University of California, Santa Barbara, continued under A.L. Basham at the Australian National University, Canberra, and found its way via various positions in Europe and the US to the University of Copenhagen, from which Ken retired as Professor and Head of Indology on 1 March, 2020.

Ken’s work has always been driven by a great love for India and a great interest in its early scientific traditions. He started out in the field of medicine (Āyurveda), and gradually expanded into the fields of sexology (Kāmaśāstra) and the astral sciences (Jyotiḥśāstra). His focus is not restricted to the sciences themselves, but also takes into account the contexts in which they appear, and the intercultural transmissions which helped support and develop them. In later years he has been particularly interested in exploring possible relations between ancient Mesopotamian, Greek, and Indian traditions of physiognomy and omenology.

His willingness to engage with ever-new fields of study has never compromised his strict adherence to the use of primary sources. As Dominik Wujastyk remarks in his contribution to the present volume, Ken has always been fond of philology, and anyone who has ever worked with him will know this to be true. Over the years, he has built up a sizable collection of Indic manuscripts, which he has now generously donated to the Section of Indology at the University of Copenhagen.¹ The collection consists of around 3,000 manuscripts dating from the 16th to the 19th centuries and covering a wide array of subjects and genres. Steps have been taken to begin cataloguing and digitizing the manuscripts in an effort to make them available to the scholarly community at large.

Another and equally important aspect of his work has been his frequent trips to India and his openness toward cultural and intellectual traditions outside his own. He has been able to form lasting personal and professional bonds with numerous Indian scholars, and, as lovingly told by Kamal Sheel in the present volume, has come to be adopted into the family of the late Indian historian A.K. Narain (1925–2013). Ken has never forgotten his position as an outsider in relation to the region and the people whose intellectual traditions he has tirelessly devoted himself and his work to. His approach has always been one of respect and humility, and, as he himself once said, he has never gone to India without learning something new that he could never have learned from afar.

We have tried to capture all of the above, and a lot more besides, in grouping together the present collection of articles celebrating Ken’s life and work under the title Body and Cosmos. The body has always stood at the center of Ken’s work, but its homology with the cosmos, as laid out, for example, in the early medical treatise Carakasaṃhitā,² has never been forgotten. This is clearly borne out by two of Ken’s best-known publications issued nearly a quarter century apart. The first, Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India (New York, 1991), deals with the body as the locus of health and disease, while the second, The Indian System of Human Marks (Leiden, 2015), deals with the body as the locus of inscription and prediction.

The volume begins with an introductory section with contributions from friends and colleagues about Ken’s qualities as a person and as a scholar. It continues with three sections pertaining to the main focus areas of Ken’s work: history of medicine, astral sciences, and interactions across culture and time. Each section contains a number of articles written by Ken’s peers, all of whom are among the finest and foremost scholars within their respective fields. The volume also contains a (hopefully) comprehensive list of Ken’s publications to date and an index of authors, titles, and keywords referenced throughout.

We, as editors, would like to say a heartfelt thank you to all of the contributors who made this volume possible. The final editorial work was done during the height of the worldwide corona crisis in the spring of 2020, and yet you managed to keep up communications and deliver your articles in due time. For that we remain truly and deeply grateful.

Finally, as friends, students, and colleagues of Ken during his time at the University of Copenhagen, each of us would like to write a few words about our own experiences at the feet of our gracious and capable mentor.

Toke Lindegaard Knudsen: I first met Ken more than 20 years ago when I was a master’s student in Mathematics. Ever since our initial meeting, Ken has been a mentor to me, always nurturing my interests and encouraging me to be ambitious and take risks to pursue them. His help has been invaluable to me throughout my career. Ken was the one to introduce me to Indic manuscripts. It was Ken who helped me build the connections to do a PhD, later serving on my PhD committee. He was my supervisor for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship at the University of Copenhagen. Ken’s energy and passion for Indology has always, and is still, propelling me forward. For that I will always be thankful.

Jacob Schmidt-Madsen: Ken was there for me when I first learned the Sanskrit alphabet, and he was still there for me when I defended my PhD dissertation many years later. That about says it all. His positive attitude and encouraging remarks have always carried me forward, and his support has never wavered, not even when I embarked on dubious adventures, such as traveling in the footsteps of the cloud from Kālidāsa’s Meghadūta or choosing to specialize in the history of Indian board games. If there is one thing that Ken has taught me above all else, it is that there really is a place in this world for those who persevere, no matter how obscure their pursuits.

Sara Speyer: Ken has time for any student who shows genuine interest and is willing to do the work, regardless of who they are. Studying Indology at a relatively high age, with a very alternative background, turned out to be completely unproblematic for me with Ken as teacher and supervisor. His extensive knowledge and open mind make him a brilliant mentor, always pointing in the right direction, but still leaving room for one’s own process of discovery.