A History of Indian Medical Literature v1.c6.39

v1.c6.39

One of my aims, however, made in an early stage and adhered to until the very end has been to adopt, as far as possible (mainly in volume II), one and the same basic scheme in my description of texts: contents first, special features next, and information on author and date at the end. The majority of the chapters have an alphabetical arrangement based on the names of authors. This principle has been given up in the chapters on nineteenth- and twentieth-century works, ordered according to their titles, on account of the difficulties presented by the names of Indian authors. It has also been abandoned in the chapters on nāḍīśāstra (pulse-lore), pākaśāstra (cookery and the preparation of pākas) and rasaśāstra, where holding on to it appeared to have more disadvantages than merits. The successive order of the chapters is chronological whenever possible.