Studies on Indian Medical History: Papers Presented at the International Workshop on the Study of Indian Medicine Held at the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 2-4 September, 1985.

• Author: Zimmermann, Francis

This collection of scholarly studies covers a wide variety of approaches, from Sanskrit philology through medical history to Tibetan studies, pharmacognosy, and psychiatry. The historical sources used range from ancient Sanskrit manuscripts and Tibetan blockprints, through nineteenth-century Indian newspapers and government reports, to conversations held in the consulting rooms of contemporary Ayurvedic doctors. Following a suggestion made by Dr. Arion Rosu, this excellent publication has been most appropriately dedicated to the memory of Ashtavaidyan Vayaskara N. S. Mooss (1912-86), whose books in Sanskrit, Malayalam, and English, published from Kottayam (Kerala) for half a century, greatly enriched our knowledge of classical Ayurveda.

The book is divided into three parts. Part I, "The Classical Tradition," is comprised of seven philological studies. Some of the most respected scholars of Indian medicine, like Meulenbeld (Groningen), Emmerick (Hamburg) and Rosu (Pads), contributed to this part of the book. Meulenbeld's knowledge of Sanskrit medical texts is unparalleled in the West. His "Reflections on the basic concepts of Indian pharmacology" is an authoritative analysis of rasa (taste), vipaka (post-digestive taste), virya (potency) and prabhava (specific action) in the classical compendia and their medieval commentaries. I shall come back to it in the latter part of this review. Rahul Peter Das (Hamburg) is a versatile young scholar. His paper, "On the identification of a Vedic plant," is a very clever and philologically impeccable study of the Vedic plant-name patha and its possible connections with Cannabis. The Vedic texts adduced are given in full, with excellent translations and discussions introducing related realia, such as French truffles, and issues such as the non-differentiation between red and golden on the Sanskrit color spectrum. Antonella Comba (Turin) is a philosopher who reads medical texts. Her contribution, "Carakasamhita, Sarirasthana I and Vaisesika philosophy," is again extremely useful because of its precise and exhaustive apparatus of references. She traces a number of well-delimited Vaisesika quotations in Caraka, and she provides us with detailed discussions of some fundamental concepts, like upadha (allurement, enticement, deceit), showing that philosophers and physicians shared the same theory of passion as maladies. I shall elaborate on this particular point below. Ronald E. Emmerick's contribution, "Epilepsy according to the Rgyudbzi," consists of the Tibetan text of Rgyudbzi (iii. 79) on epilepsy, edited and...