Oliver Frey, Ph.D.
- Postdoc SNF-Project "The Nyayasutravivarana—Text-Critical Studies and Translation"
- Phone
- +41 44 63 42455
- Room number
- RAA H-26
Table of contents
Academic biography
Oliver Philipp Frey, Ph.D. (2020) is an SNSF Postdoctoral Fellow in Classical South Asian Studies (Sanskrit). His research focuses on the intellectual history of ancient India, particularly the Nyāya–Vaiśeṣika traditions, with a broader interest in epistemology, theories of liberation, textual criticism, manuscriptology, and paleography.
Dr. Frey received his PhD from the University of Vienna in 2020. From 2023 to 2026 he conducted extended research in India, collaborating with scholars at Savitribai Phule Pune University, the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, and Deccan College in Pune, among other institutions.
His monograph A South Indian Digest of Commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra: Gambhīravaṃśaja’s Nyāyasūtravivaraṇa—First Adhyāya (Brill, 2022) presents a critical edition and study of an important medieval introduction to classical Nyāya philosophy, based on all known manuscript sources. The work combines traditional philological methods with computational approaches to textual criticism.
His current project aims to produce a full critical edition and English translation of the Nyāyasūtravivaraṇa.
Research interests
Classical South Asian Studies; Sanskrit; Nyāya; Vaiśeṣika; Yoga; early Buddhism; epistemology; doctrines of liberation; textual criticism; computational analysis of textual data; manuscriptology; paleography.
Selected publications
Frey, O. P. (2022). A South Indian Digest of Commentaries on the Nyāyasūtra: Gambhīravaṃśaja’s Nyāyasūtravivaraṇa—First Adhyāya. Brill. Open Access. [https://brill.com/display/title/62014]