A History of Sanskrit Literature c34.s3.1

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.