A critical study of the Ayurveda Medical manuscript ‘Chikitsasara’

Abstract

Ayurveda being a practical science is codified through centuries in written documents called Manuscripts. A manuscript is any document written by hand or typewritten as opposed to being mechanically printed or reproduced in some automated way. A very few of these manuscripts have been published during the past decades. As such, several treatment methods contained in these texts are being lost by decaying. As part of a humble step towards this, Chikitsasara authored by Gopaladasa, a paper manuscript in the Sanskrit language documented in Devanagari script preserved at Unmesha Research Institute of Indology, Mysore was taken. The objectives of the study are critical edition of the manuscript and its English translation which is not available. It is a unique book belonging to the kayachikitsa parampara. The time period of the text by considering the internal and external evidence, influence of the text on other medieval texts can be placed as the late seventeenth century.The text was translated to Telugu and Marathi languages in 1877 and 1881 respectively, which are not widely available today. Chikitsasara is a treatise arranged in three sections. Some rare diseases like sparsavata, seethavata, takraprameha, and ghrtaprameha have found a place in this text. Prognosis of disease based on astrology is a unique feature of this text. After the critical edition, a maximum number of accepted readings was obtained from the manuscript from Oriental research institute & manuscript library, Kariavattom. The content of the text is also very much similar to the seventeenth century work Yogaratnakara.