Proceedings of the First International Symposium for the History of Arabic Science, University of Aleppo, Institute for the History of Arabic Science, April 5-12, 1976, volume II, papers in European languages

VAIDYA BHAGWAN DASH, Tibetan medicine with special reference to Yoga Sataka, Dharamsala, Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1976, 8vo, pp. xvi, 390, £6.00. Reviewed by Marianne Winder, M. A., A. LA., Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 183 Euston Road. London NW! 2BP. Here is a book by a man who is a physician, a scholar, and active in public life, three qualities not often combined in one person. The work under review is a reconstruction of a Sanskrit ayurvedic text by means of an extant Tibetan translation of it, aided by comparison with a similar Sanskrit text on the same subject and with a Sinhalese version. Much is also known from commentaries about the original Sanskrit text which was called Yoga Sataka, Tibetan sbyor. ba brgya.pa "Collection of a hundred prescriptions". It was composed by one of the great men called Nagarjuna, who could have lived between 225 B.C. when a Nagarjuna was mentioned on the Asoka pillars, and A.D. 401 when Kumarajiva mentions Nagarjuna. The colophon gives the full name of Tharpa who translated it into Tibetan, and we are on firmer ground with the editor and annotator ofthe Tibetan text: the historian Bu-ston who lived A.D. 1299-1364. The second Sanskrit text was written by Vararuci. As all Sanskrit and Tibetan paragraphs have been also translated into English, they are accessible to any interested reader. There is an informative introduction as well as useful comments and observations at the end, with bibliographical notes and glossaries. The word-for-word interlinear version is made particularly valuable by the passages where translation and transmission mistakes between the Sanskrit and the Tibetan version are traced. For instance, on p. 135, in verse no. 27, Vararuci's Sanskrit mentions iimalaki (Emblica officinalis Linn.). The Tibetan text translates what presumably Nagarjuna had as well by ta ma. la. ki which would be a loanword from Sanskrit t&malaki (Phyllanthus niruri Linn.). Apparently no special harm came to the patients as the result of such mistakes. Most remedies are herbal but some are quite strong poisons made innocuous by processing with other ingredients.