A pilot census of the medical sciences in Sanskrit

• Author(s) / Creator(s)

  • Dominik Wujastyk

• Sanskrit manuscripts exist in such prolific abundance. Attempts to bring out census of medical science related manuscripts is a formidable task. Using estimated figures, there may exist as many as 100,000 Ayurvedic manuscripts containing scribal statements about ownership, chronology, and other historical information. Earlier attempts at this domain include the work of David Pingree-CESS-Census of the Exact Sciences in Sanskrit. The Catalogus Catalogorum of Aufrecht and the New Catalogus Catalogorum of Raghavan, History of Indian Medical Literature (HIML-1999-2002) in five volumes by Meulenbeld's, etc. The information provided in this article is from the Census of Medical Sciences in Sanskrit, a pilot study done by the author of this article. The work is mainly based on the catalogue by Sharma (1939) of the "Vaidyaka" manuscripts in the library of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Pune, in an ad hoc manner, information based on manuscripts in the Wellcome Library in London and in one case from a manuscript in Jammu.

• Date created

  2008

• Subjects / Keywords

  • Manuscripts
  • Sanskrit

• Type of Item

  Article (Published)

• DOI

  https://doi.org/10.7939/R3H708F40

• License

  © 2008 Journal of the Indian institute of history of medicine. This version of this article is open access and can be downloaded and shared. The original author(s) and source must be cited.