Ayurved sutram

Author(s): Yoganandnatha, R Shama Shastry
Publisher: Government of Mysore

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The discovery of an Ayurvedasutra among the palm-leaf manuscripts with a Jaina physician in Mysore and che acquisition of a copy of it at first and of the pulan-leaf manuscript itself later for this Library may not in these circumstances be considered as a pain of no value. On examination the work is found to coniain Ayurveda Sutras in live Prasnas and a commentary on the sanie by some scholar called Yoganandanatha, who, judged by the name, seems to have been a follower of Tantric cult and a logician as indicated by the style of his commentary. The Oriental manuscript Libraries in Tanjore and Madras have on inquiry been found to contain nianuscripts of the Sutra text having sixteen Prasnas. Copies of these two manuscripts together with a copy of the Sutra text in the Library of the late native physician, D. V. Gopalachar in Madras were obtained for purposes of collation and edition. Clerical errors were however so numerous both in the text and the incomplete commentary that for sometime the edition of the work seemed to be an almost hopeless task. Constant perseverance in the restoration of the text and commentary resulted in bringing the work to the form in which it is now presented in priut. There i: however cvilence in the text itself to prove that the present edition is far from Satisfactory and that until the discovery of some niore manuscripts there can be no complete and satisfactory restoration of the text.
At the close of both the first and the second Prasnas there is recited as an aid to memorising the sutras a sort of mnemonic called Chittha string of words consisting of the words of cach of the decades of divisions into which ihe sutras of the Prasna are divided. The present order of the reading of the sutras liowever, is not in accorlance with the Chittha. The first two words of the third decade of the sutras in the first Prisgal appear in line twenty ninth install of the thirticti Sutra, indicating thereby the omissioni