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Indo-Tibetan medicine enshrined in Rgvud bzi which was originally composed in Sanskrit and still available in Tibetan is a veritable treasure of centuries of accumulated experience with rational fundamentals and scientifically analysable therapeutic measures meant for the preservation and promotion of Positive health, and prevention and cure of obstinate and otherwise incurable diseases.
The present effort is to give the Sanskrit equivalents on the basis of Ayurvedic texts like Vagbhta's Astanga-hrdaya of which both the original Sanskrit and Tibetan translation are available. On the basis of this equivalent terminology, the text of Rgyud bzi is rendered into English in a narrative form. In future, this will also help in restoring the original Sanskrit text, which, as the opening sentence of this translated text shows, was known as Amrta-hrdaya-astanga-guhyopa-desa-tantra.
This present encyclopaedia will be published in 15 volumes. The present second volume contains twelve chapters from Bsad Pa'i rgyud (Skt.: Akhyata tantra).
The Tibetan text, after collation and edition from different recensions (editions) of this work, has been Romanised and below each of these technical terms (excluding case endings), Sanskrit equivalents (without case-endings) are provided. This follows the English translation of the text and notese there on after comparison with the extant Ayurvedic classics in Sanskrit. References of these Ayurvedic texts having the same and similar matter are also provided at the end of these paragraph. Each topic has been appropriately captioned (though such captions are not available in the Tibetan text), to facilitate further research work.
Encyclopaedia of Tibetan Medicine Vol 2, Vaidya Bhagwan Dash, Sri Satguru Publications, Hardcover, 190 pp, $45.00
CONTENTS: Encyclopaedia of Tibetan Medicine Vol. 2
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Ch. I is in the form of a dialogue between the incarnate preceptor called Rig-pa'i Ye-ses (Skt.: Vidya-jnana) who emanated from the Body of Lord Buddha and the Sage Yid -las-skyes (Skt.: Manasija). The contents of the Bsad-pa'i Rgud or Akhyata-tantra (Explanatory text) are described in brief in this chapter.
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Ch. II describes the embryology and maternity including anatomical details of the body. In this chapter, details of the development and growth of fetus in each and every week are furnished.
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In Ch. III different parts including organs of the body are described with similes and metaphoric illustrations.
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Ch. IV describes details of the anatomy of the body including bones, muscles, veins, arteries, joints, tendons, hair, solid visceras, hollow visceras, channels (srotas) and vital spots (marmas).
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Ch. V elaborates functions of different types of dosas, dhatus (tissue elements), malas (waste products) and agnis (enzymes responsible for digestion and metabolism).
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Ch. VI is on classification and categoriszation of an individual on the basis of age, sex, prakrti (physical constitution and psychic temperament).
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Ch. VII elaborates signs and symptoms of bad prognosis (arista laksanas).
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Ch. VIII is on different categories of etiological factors.
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Ch. IX systematically describes causative pathogenesis of diseases with special reference to etiology for accumulation (sancaya), aggravation (prakopa) and migration as well as location (sthana-samsaya) of various dosas to cause different types of diseases in the body.
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Ch. X describes modes of spreading of dosas before their location in different parts of the body cause diseases (prasara).
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Ch. XI elaborates signs and symptoms of the aggravation and diminution of different categories of dosas, dhatus (tissue elements) and malas.
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Ch. XII presents a systematic classification of diseases into 1616 categories. It is also mentioned in this chapter that taking into consideration the permutations and combinations of various factors, the diseases can be classified into innumerable categories. In addition various diagnostic measures like nidana (etiology), purva-rupa (premonitory signs and symptoms), rupa (actual signs and symptoms) and samprapti (pathogenic processes are described in this chapter.
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