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A History of Sanskrit Literature c34.s3: 3. The Medical Tracts in the Bower Manuscript

A History of Sanskrit Literature c34.s3

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English

3. The Medical Tracts in the Bower Manuscript

c34.s3.1

We attain a certain measure of certainty as regards date in regard to the tracts on medicine which form part of the contents of the manuscript from Kashgar known by the name of its discoverer in 1890.¹ Palaeographically it can be referred with fair certainty to the fourth century A. D., and in the first of its seven² treatises one tract³ deals with garlic (*laçuna*) and its valuable qualities for prolonging life; a second gives also a recipe for an elixir to secure a thousand years of life, and discusses eye-washes and eye-salves with many other topics. Another text (iii) gives fourteen recipes for external and internal application, while great importance attaches to the *Nāvanītaka* (ii), which by its title proclaims itself the cream of former treatises. Divided into sixteen sections it gives information regarding powders, decoctions, oils, elixirs, aphrodisiacs, and other recipes, including a treatise on children's diseases which often is cited and preserved in manuscript in varied forms. The treatises are written in verse, not seldom the more elaborate metres being used, and this peculiarity is preserved not rarely in later recipes. The advantage, it may be surmised, of this proceeding was that, as the syllables were fixed in number and length, it was possible to ensure in some measure the correctness of important recipes.

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¹ Hoernle, *The Bower Manuscript* (1914).

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² Parts I–III are medical, IV and V on *Pāçakakevalī*, cubomancy, VI and VII *Mahāmāyurī Vidyārājñī*, a charm against snake-bite.

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³ Forty-three verses with eighteen or nineteen metres, including Aupacchandasika, Çārdūlavikrīḍita, Suvadanā, Pṛthvī, Vaṅçasthavila, Mandākrāntā, Pramāṇikā, Pramitākṣarā, Toṭaka, Sragdharā, Sudhā, Mālinī, Çālinī, Mattamayūra, Kusumitalatāvellitā. The other parts use few metres save the Çloka, Āryā, and Triṣṭubh forms.

c34.s3.5

Among the authors cited are Ātreya, Kṣārapāṇi, Jātūkarṇa, Parāçara, Bheḍa, and Hārīta, all sons of Punarvasu Ātreya, but Caraka is not mentioned, though Suçruta's name occurs. This, however, is no evidence against use of the *Caraka Saṃhitā*, which may be regarded as certain, for Ātreya ranked as the teacher of Caraka, and the pupil, therefore, was covered by the teacher's name. The *Bhela Saṃhitā* is also used.

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The language of the Bower Manuscript⁴ is of a peculiar character, being popular Sanskrit heavily affected by Prākritisms, suggesting comparison with the mixed dialect of Buddhist Sanskrit, which it may resemble in being an effort to write Sanskrit by persons used to writing in Prākrit. A barbarous Sanskrit is found also in medical formulae discovered in Eastern Turkestan, accompanied by a version in an Iranian dialect.¹ It must, of course, be remembered that doctors were often men of a restricted culture who could not be expected to be familiar with the niceties of Sanskrit, a phenomenon seen far more strongly in the works on architecture.

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⁴ Prākritisms are rare in Parts I and III, very common in IV–VII.

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¹ Hoernle, *Bhandarkar Comm. Vol.*, pp. 416 ff.; cf. JRAS. 1925, pp. 110 f., 623 ff.

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