Indian Medicine (Medicin), translated by C. G. Kashikar c8.7

c8.7

16TH CENTURY :— The most prominent production of this century is the universally esteemed Bhavaprakāśa of Bhāvamiśra who was evidently a famous physician of Banaras*. The edition of Jīvānanda Vidyāsāgara† is used here which, after a cursory collation with the good old Tübingen MS of 1558-9‡, can be considered as authentic in general in spite of many printing mistakes. Bhavaprakāśa cannot be much older than this MS, since it mentions syphilis ( Phiranga ) introduced by the Portugese and its remedy Cobacīnī which must have been imported about 1535. Pūrvakhaṇḍa of this extensive work treats in two Bhāgas and six Prakaraṇas the origin of medicine, cosmology, anatomy, embryology, Kaumārabhṛtya, dietetics, pharmacology (with many popular and foreign names) etc.; the still more extensive Madhyakhaṇḍa treats in four Bhāgas special pathology and therapy; the Uttarakhaṇḍa of only eleven pages deals with aphrodisiacs (*Vājīkaraṇa*) and elixirs. Particularly valuable are the numerous citations⁹ that deviate much from the printed texts of Caraka, Suśruta etc. The small pharmacological work *Guṇaratnamālā* of Bhavamiśra¹⁰ is still not printed. Comparable with *Bhāvaprakāśa* in its extensive character, size and contents is the medical text-book *Āyurvedasaukhya*¹¹ which forms a part of *Toḍarānanda*, inspired by Toḍar Mall (1589) the famous Hindu minister of emperor Akbar. The oldest MSS of the other parts of this great encyclopaedia denoted in the Catalogues belong to the last three decades of the 16th century. The *Yogacintāmaṇivaidyakasārasaṃgraha*¹²—a collection of recipes composed by the Jain Harṣakīrtisūri must have originated between 1668 or 1666¹³, the dates of the two oldest MSS. and circa 1535, since Phiraṅga and Copacīnī (Cobacīnī) are mentioned in it, as they are mentioned in *Bhāvaprakāśa*. Opium (*aphīma, ahiphena*) and quicksilver (*pārada*) are also often mentioned in it.