A History of Indian Medical Literature v1.c26.s17.113

v1.c26.s17.113

One of the characteristic features of Indu’s commentaries consists of the frequent occurrence of strings of synonyms of medicinal plants, obviously taken from some nighaṇṭu. 296 P.V. Sharma is convinced that Indu was acquainted with the Aṣṭāṅganighaṇṭu and quotes from it, because some of the verses he cites are found exclusively in that work.297 The evidence he collected is not conclusive in my view, since the majority of Indu’s quotations are definitely not from the Aṣṭāṅganighaṇṭu.298 A considerable percentage of them forms part of the Dhanvantarīnighaṇṭu,298 which, however, does not solve the problem of Indu’s source, as some plants have different names or are not mentioned at all in that work.299 Some correspondences between Indu’s citations and verses occurring in Candranandana’s Madanādinighaṇṭu are neither persuasive.300 For these reasons it remains obscure which nighaṇṭu was put to use by Indu, unless he borrowed from more than one.301