Ancient Science of Life,

Vol No. XI No.1 & 2, July & October 1991, Pages 40 - 42

SRI LANKAN MEDICAL MANUSCRIPTS AN UNTAPPED SOURCE OF AYURVEDIC RESEARCH JINADASA LIYANARATNE 31 rue de Sequigny, 91700 Ste. Genevieve des Bois, France Received: 21 May, 1991 Accepted: 28 May, 1991

ABSTRACT: Sri Lankan Medical manuscripts offer a wealth of information on the practice of Ayurveda. The significant of these manuscripts in the various speheres of medical research in presented in this communication. Sri Lankan palm leaf manuscripts, in general gradually fell into oblivion since the introduction of printing to the island by the Dutch in the 18th century and they completely ceded their place to the printed books in the early 20th century. Since then, only editors of texts and a few research scholars, especially in the field of history of literature, became interested in palm-leaf manuscripts, which constitute, however, a storehouse of source material. Although the printed book replaced the palm-leaf manuscript, all ancient texts have not appeared in print, and regrettably, no systematic census has still been made of the thousands of palm-leaf manuscripts dispersed all over the island as well as abroad. Neglect and wanton sale are causing irreparable damage to this literary heritage which was built up during several centuries1. As for the medical manuscripts, fortunately, some families of traditional physicians are jealously guarding their private collections, purposed to be containing secret remedies. For the same reason, these collections remain inaccessible to the public.

The medical manuscripts that are available in certain public libraries, in Sri Lanka as well as aborad, serve many useful purposes. They help in textual criticism even with regard to medical texts of Indian origin; shed light on the history of traditional medicine, the lineage of certain eminent physicians, and the anthropological and cultural background of the practice of medicine; contribute to the identification of medicinal plants and drugs; last but not least, they give some effective remedies, qualified as tested and proven, for several common diseases such as diabetes, urinary calculi, haemorrhoids, etc2. The purpose of the present note is to focus attention on the value of this last aspect. The tested and proven remedies given in Sinhala medical manuscripts seem to be the fruits of empirical experience of ancient societies, where the laboratory was Nature itself at large3. In fact, most of these remedies are found mostly, not in learned treatises of medicine, but in what seem to be practical manuals for domestic use. I have given two examples of such remedies for urinary calculi, in my article on the

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Sinhalese medical manuscripts in Paris, quoted above. Another fresh example is the following remedy for diabetes, found in a Sri Lankan medical manuscript preserved in the Cambridge University Library: Hear borax (puskara) in fire, crush it; take about 60 grains (one anda half kalandas) of buffalo ghee (dun tel); take a cucumber (kakiri, Cucumis melo var. agrestis Naud.), cut off its top and remove the seeds; put into it the above mentioned drugs and close the top; then, cook it under hot ashes, press out the juice (svarasa) and give it (to the patient) in the evening. For the morning, take equal quantities of nutmeg fruit (jatiphala), cloves (karabu), mace (vasavasi), Saussurea lappa C. B. Clarke (Kottam), Elephantopus scaber Linn. (atadiya), leaves of Cassia auriculata Linn. (ranavara); grind them in cow milk and give .(word not clear) and pills, also with cow milk, three mornings, (Results) certain (Or 1163, 57 v 6 11)4. In a communications, Effect of herbal compound on maturity onset diabetes5, Doctors A. K. Jain and B. P. Shaw (Research Department, Shree Visudanand Saraswati Marwari Hospital, Calcutta) remark that insulin is only a replacement therapy for diabetes, that the action of new oral hypoglycaemic compounds is still to be understood beyond doubt, and therefore, a search to find out better oral hypogycaemic agent is continued. The above Sri Lankan formulary seems to bring grist to their mill. REFERENCES

Such remedies which have stood the test of time deserve to be exploited by modern pharmacological laboratories in a wider scale than done at present. The formularies contained in them could be tested as they are, for the particular diseases for which they are recommended, or the different plants and drugs in such formularies could be analyzed separately to determine their active principle6. Both these methods may prove fruitful, leading to the alleviation of human suffering caused by illness. Simple, inexpensive and free from side effects, such remedies should be adaptable to modern usage, especially in view of the progress made by contemporary ayurvedic laboratories. New techniques should be able to replace the rudimentary methods recommended in ancient medical prescriptions such as those quoted above (basna in the prescription on urinary calculi, cooking under hot ashes in the prescription on diabetes) to bring about the chemical transformation of drugs. The excellent research work carried cut in several countries on the medicinal plants in Asia from the botanical, phytochemical and pharmacological points of view bears eloquent testimony to the immense potentiality in the field7. It is hoped that the Sri Lankan medical manuscripts be profitably used for the advancement of this research.

1. See my paper, The literary heritage of Sri Lanka a case for the preservation of palm leaf manuscripts, in Studies zur Indologic and Iranistik 1989, pp 119 127. 2. See my following papers: i) Indian medicine in Srilanka, Bulletin de l;Ecole Francaise dExtreme-Orient, Paris 1987, Vol. LXXVI, pp. 201 216. ii) Sinhalese medical manuscripts in Paris, Panels of the VIIth World Sanskrit Conference, Medical Literature

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from India, Sri Lanka and Tibet, Leiden 1991, Vol. VIII, pp. 73 90. iii) Raviguptas Siddhasara: new light from the Sinhala version, Journal of the European Ayurvedic Society, No.1, 1990, pp. 69 84. iv) Sri Lankan medical manuscripts in the Bodelian Library, Journal of European Ayurvedic Society, No. 2, (in print). 3. Cf. the famous story of Jivaka, who, in response to a final test to which he was put by his teacher at the end of his studies, failed to find in the forest any plant devoid of therapeutical value. 4. Botanical names of plants given here are from: W. M. Bandaranayake et al. A Glossary of Sinhala and Tamil names of the plants of Sri Lanka. The Sri Lanka Forester, Colombo, Jan Dec. 1974, Vol. XI, Nos. 3 & 4, new series. 5. Ancient Sci. Life, 1987, Vol. VII (1), pp. 12 16. 6. In Europe such research is being done by Prof. Dr. R. P. Labadie (State University of Utrecht, The Netherlands). 7. See, e.g., Proceedings of the following symbosia: International Symposium on Plant Resources of the Middle East and Rauwolfia for the pharmaceutical industry, Peshawar, Pakistan 1960. (Pakistan Journal of Scientific and Industrial Research, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1961) International Symposium on Medicinal Plants, Kandy, Sri Lanka 1964. (Proceedings, ed. S. R. Kottegoda, Colombo 1966) The Third Asian Symposium on Medicinal Plants and Spices, Colombo 1977. (Proceedings, Colombo 1979).

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