Sanskrit Ayurvedic Manuscripts in the British Isles

[By Dominik Wujastyk ]

It has been said that 'of the whole collating project, the hardest part to carry out with complete success is probably the business of finding out what manuscripts there are."¹ This remark, originally intended to apply to classical Latin and Greek works, is even more true for Sanskrit manuscripts, which exist in such relative abundance. There are more Sanskrit manuscripts in Britain than in any other country outside India. A rough estimate puts the number at about 30,000, only half of which have been catalogued. Clearly there are great resources in that country for the study of all aspects of Sanskrit culture, and Ayurveda is no exception. It may be of value, therefore, to give a survey of the Sanskrit collections in Britain, with reference to Ayurveda, and to give some indication of the Ayurvedic works in the uncatalogued collections. The five most important collections in Britain, from the point of view of size, are those of the India Office Library and Records in London, the Bodleian Library in Oxford, the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London, the Cambridge University Library, and the British Library in London. The catalogues of these collections, where they exist, are listed by Janert² as numbers 164, 166, 238, 240, 244, 157 and 159, and most of them have sections describing ayurvedic manuscripts. Each of these repositories also has the following uncatalogued collections. The India Office Library and Records, London There are two collections not described in the catalogues referred to above: the Stein Collection and the Hoernle Collection. The former consists of those manuscripts in the Brahmi script brought back from Stein's three archaeological expeditions to Central Asia in 1900-1, 1906-8 and 1913-16. Many of these are listed and described in Stein's scientific accounts of his expeditions, especially in the description of the finds of the Khadalik site during the second expedition.³ These manuscripts consist largely, but not exclusively, of Mahayana Buddhist items.4 The Hoernle Collection consists of the Central Asian manuscripts sent to Hoernle, as government palaeographer, between 1895 and about 1900. A description of them was M.L. West, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973), p.64. Klaus Ludwig Janert, An Annotated Bibliography of the Catalogues of Indian Manuscripts, Part 1 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1965). Not in Janert are the handlists of Losty and Wujastyk (see notes 12 and 17), that by Gambier-Parry and Johnston, and that of V. Raghavan. 3 Mark Aurel Stein, Serindia: a Detailed Report of Explorations on Central Asia ... (Oxford: Clarendon press, 1921). See also the scientific reports of Stein's first and third journeys: Ancient Khotan: a Detailed Report on Archaeological Explorations in Chinese Turkestan... (Oxford: Clarendon press, 1907) and Innermost Asia: Detailed Report of Explorations in Central Asia ... (Oxford: Clarendon press, 1928). 4 Prof. D. Pingree informs me that there are also a few Sanskrit MSS in the I.O. acquired after Keith by gift, and that there is a handwritten list of these.

.86 Journal of the European Ayurvedic Society 1 (1990) published by Hoernle in 1901.5 The Sanskrit manuscripts in this collection are all fragmentary; several were edited and published by Hoernle in 1916.6 These manuscripts are primarily Buddhist in subject matter. A general survey of the collections of the India Office, catalogued and uncatalogued, was given by Sutton in 1952. A new guide to the combined collections of the India office and the British Library is in the course of preparation. A few Sanskrit manuscripts are to be found amongst the items left behind in the India Office by Sir George Grierson. These are described by Randle, but apparently include no ayurvedic manuscripts. The Bodleian Library, Oxford In spite of the fact that Oxford's early Sanskrit and Prakrit collections received the expert attentions of Aufrecht, Keith and Gambier-Parry, the largest single uncatalogued collection in Britain is probably the Chandra Shum Shere collection in the Bodleian Library, (although this situation is being remedied). This collection of over six and a half thousand manuscripts was purchased from an anonymous Benares pandit, and donated to the British Government in 1909 by Sir Chandra Shum Shere, the then Prime Minister of Nepal. A project has started to catalogue this large collection, and the first volume, by David Pingree, describing jyotisa works, appeared in 1984. Full details of the provenance and character of this collection are given in the preface and introduction to this catalogue. There are about one hundred and sixty ayurvedic manuscripts in the Chandra Shum Shere collection and a list of them is given in appendix I below. The University Library, Cambridge In 1883 Cecil Bendall published a catalogue of the 248 Buddhist Sanskrit manuscripts in the Cambridge University library. However, just under one thousand manuscripts on other subjects remain uncatalogued at the time of writing. These are chiefly palm leaf manuscripts from Nepal, acquired between 1873 and 1876 by Dr. Daniel Wright, who was surgeon to the British residency in Kathmandu. Many are very old indeed, and contain unusual and important recensions of works. A list of the medical works from this collection is given in appendix II below. A list of about 500 Nagari manuscripts acquired A.F. Rudolf Hoernle, A Report on the British Collection of Antiquities from Central Asia, published as an extra number to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1901, section III, part II. 6 Ibid., Manuscript Remains of Buddhist Literature Found in Eastern Turkestan ... (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1916). 7 S.C. Sutton, A Guide to the India Office Library (London: H.M.S.O., 1952). 8 H.N. Randle, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 10 (1940-42), p.1066. 9 David Pingree, Jyotihsastra, part I of A Descriptive Catalogue of the Sanskrit and Other Indian Manuscripts of the Chandra Shum Shere Collection in the Bodleian Library edited by Jonathan Katz (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984).

D. Wujastyk, Sanskrit Ayurvedic Manuscripts... 87 by Bendall in Benares, Bombay and Rajasthan is printed in his account of his tour in 1884-1885, but it contains few medical texts.10 The British Library, London 11 In 1902, 19 years after publishing his Cambridge catalogue, Cecil Bendall published a catalogue of the Sanskrit manuscripts in the British Library, describing the manuscripts acquired up to 1898, but omitting Jaina materials. No further catalogues have been published since. However, in 1971 Mr. Jeremiah Losty, Assistant Keeper in the Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books in the British Library, produced a typescript list of the uncatalogued manuscripts in the collection.12 There are 55 manuscripts on medicine in this list, all but two coming from the Neville collection of manuscripts from Ceylon. The Neville collection, which was acquired by the British Museum in 1904, consists mostly of Sinhalese and Pali works, but also contains 138 Sanskrit and Sinhalese works (sanna: Sinhalese translations of Sanskrit works). The two manuscripts not from the Neville collection are Or.8150 and Or.8152, which are both from Western India. A title-list of these medical works, taken directly from Mr. Losty's list, is given below in appendix III.13 The present author is not a specialist in Sinhalese, and it is to be hoped that this list will be corrected and supplemented by a more knowledgeable scholar. It is to be noted that some years ago the India Office Library became administratively part of the British Library. The British Library's Department of Oriental Manuscripts and Printed Books has recently moved into the India Office building, Orbit House. This provides convenient access to both collections at a single site. In the future, the two collections may move to the new British Library site in Euston Road, London. The Wellcome Institute is also in Euston Road, and the combined Sanskrit manuscript collections of these institutions will be unparalleled outside India. 10 Cecil Bendall, A Journey of Literary and Archaeological Research in Nepal and Northern India During the Winter of 1884-5, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1886. 11 A useful survey of the library's catalogues is F.C. Francis, The Catalogues of the Oriental Printed Books and Manuscripts (London: Trustees of the British Museum, 1959), a revised and enlarged edition of the article offprinted from The Journal of Documentation 7.3 (1951). Several lists of MS acquisitions are published in the British Museum Quarterly and the British Library Journal. 12 J.P. Losty (compiler), A Catalogue of Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts in the British Museum, vol. II ([London, 1971]). 13 My thanks to Jinadasa Liyanaratne for several corrections to this list (he also informs me that there are further Sri Lankan medical manuscripts in the British Library collection that do not appear in J. Losty's list); any remaining errors are mine alone. Other (non-medical) items of importance in Mr. Losty's list include several early illustrated palm leaf manuscripts from Nepal, two 18 th century palm leaf manuscripts in Malayalam script of Bhasa's Pratimanataka and Abhisekanataka, some Gilgit manuscripts, and the Stein fragments from central Asia. The British Library acquires new Sanskrit manuscripts regularly.

The Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London The Wellcome collection of Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts received special mention in the Government of India's Report of the Sanskrit Commission 1956-195714 as an important collection for the study of Ayurveda. The collection was largely made between 1911 and 1921 by Dr. Paira Mall who was employed by Sir Henry Wellcome. Sir Henry was a self-made millionaire and founder of an international pharmaceutical company." He hired Mall in 1911 to collect Sanskrit and other manuscripts of relevance to the history of medicine in South Asia. Further acquisitions continued to be made, on a smaller scale, for another twenty years. During Sir Henry's lifetime the collection was effectively private, but today the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine is an international centre for the history of medicine, and actively seeks to promote the use of its oriental collections for historical research. A booklet by the present author describes the Institute's South Asian collections in a general way and those interested are referred to this for more details.16 The Sanskrit and Prakrit collections are only partly catalogued. They comprise approximately 6000 or more manuscripts, about three quarters of which have been listed. The collection covers all branches of Sanskrit literature. A handlist of the collection has commenced publication, and volume one describes 1003 manuscripts, of which 249 are medical works.17 There are also works in the related fields of the astral sciences, tantra, yoga, etc. Other libraries A small number of uncatalogued Sanskrit manuscripts is to be found scattered in various libraries around Great Britain and Ireland. The largest groups are in the School of Oriental and African Studies, London (97 Sanskrit, 158 Pali, 1 Prakrit), 18 the John Rylands University of Manchester Library (29 Sanskrit, 83 Pali)," Edinburgh University Library (31 Sanskrit, 11 Pali) and Queen's University of Belfast (59 Sanskrit). These and other smaller collections remain to be examined. More details are given in J. D. 19 14 Government of India, Report of the Sanskrit Commission 1956-57 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1958), p.216. 15 See Helen Turner, Henry Wellcome: the Man, His Collection and His Legacy (London: Wellcome Trust and Heinemann, 1980). 16 Dominik Wujastyk, The South Asian Collections of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (London: The Wellcome Institute, 1984, 1988). See also Nigel Allan, The Oriental Collections of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine (London: The Wellcome Institute, 1984). 17 Dominik Wujastyk, A Handlist of the Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts in the Library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine: Volume 1 (London: The Wellcome Institute, 1985). 18 R.C. Dogra, A Handlist of the Manuscripts in North Indian Languages in the Library (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1978). 19 F. Taylor, 'The Oriental Manuscript Collections in the John Rylands Library', Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 54 (1971-72), pp.449-478.

20 D. Wujastyk, Sanskrit Ayurvedic Manuscripts ... 89 Pearson's surveys. To be added to Pearson's observations is the collection of seven Indic manuscripts (subject matter unknown) in the Horniman Museum and Library, London, and some Sanskrit manuscripts seen by Prof. V. Raghavan at Darlington, Aberystwyth, and elsewhere during his tour of 1954.21 There are certainly many more in private hands. Introduction to the lists of manuscripts The three lists of manuscripts attached, together with the published handlist of the Wellcome collection, cover the most important and largest collections of previously uncatalogued medical manuscripts in the British Isles. It will readily be seen that the amount of detail it has been possible to give varies considerably. Fairly extensive extracts are given from the Cambridge manuscripts, since no fuller cataloguing of this collection is envisaged in the foreseeable future. Less detail is given in the Wellcome handlist because of the sheer bulk of the collection as a whole, and the necessarily rapid pace which must be maintained in order to make any significant impression upon it. The collection may seem strong in modern copies from Nepal and Thanjavur, and in alchemy: this is just a reflection of the interests of the present author, and this emphasis will no doubt be modified when the whole collection has been listed. Following this, descriptive catalogues are planned. The Oxford manuscripts will be the subject of a future volume of the descriptive catalogue of the Chandra Shum Shere collection, and are therefore only noticed briefly here. Finally, the British Library manuscripts are simply listed by title, following the list of Mr. Losty. A descriptive catalogue of the British Library collection is a most important desideratum. The conventions used are standard. Passages which were barely legible are italicized. I have strictly transcribed what the manuscripts say in all cases, including the many errors. Aksaras within braces are marginal insertions by the scribe. Bibliographical references are mainly to Aufrecht's Catalogus Catalogorum (CC), Raghavan's New Catalogus Catalogorum (NCC) and G.J. Meulenbeld, The Madhavanidana and its Chief Commentary ... (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974) (Meulenbeld, MN). As regards other references, a placename stands for the corresponding catalogue of the collection held there (note also self-explanatory abbreviations such as e.g. IO for the India Office); other abbreviations are, apart from those for well-known journals (e.g. ZDMG), the same as those listed on pp.x-xiii of op. cit. in note 16. Titles of works described are in Roman alphabetical order. Future investigations These British manuscripts suggest several lines of research. The Cambridge Vangasena, which calls itself the Vaidyavallabhasangraha, opens an important line of 20 J.D. Pearson, Oriental Manuscripts in Europe and North America: a Survey (Zug: Inter Documentation Company, 1971), pp.374-382, and the addendum 'Oriental manuscripts', in South Asian Bibliography: a Handbook and Guide, compiled by the South Asia Library Group (Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester, 1979), pp.3- 5. 21 A soru of Raghavan's notes on these MSS is in the hands of Prof. D. Pingree, at Brown University.

enquiry, for which a sound knowledge of the Nepalese script is required. The Cambridge manuscript of Gayadasa's commentary on Susruta covers the unpublished portion of the commentary on the sarirasthana. The vrddha Yogasataka text in the two Oxford manuscripts must be examined and compared with the better known shorter recension, and with the Yogasataka by Amitaprabha in the same collection. The Sannipatacandrika (or kalika, or -arnava) and its relationship to the Asvinikumarasamhita and the place of the author Manikya in all this, requires clarification, and the manuscripts in Oxford and the Wellcome collection will facilitate this. Other little known works include the Sarasangraha by Ganesa Bhisak (Oxford), the Vaidyavilasa by Gopaladasa (Oxford), the Vaidyahitopadesa by Srikanthasambhu (Oxford and Wellcome), and the Siddhantadipa by Paramananda Misra. The Wellcome manuscript of this last work is fragmentary, but the missing parts have been traced to the library of Bombay University. This sort of join is rare in codicological studies, and very satisfying when it does happen. The scribe and author Ramacandra Sarman, whose name occurs prominently amongst the Wellcome manuscripts, seems to have been an assistant to Dr. Paira Mall. His large compilation the Cikitsaprabandhasamuccaya is probably not very original in content, but nevertheless needs to be placed in its context as a 20 th century medical nibandha, together with the rest of his work as a scholar of ayurveda. Dr. Mall himself is an interesting figure, and deserves attention as the collector of a major Sanskrit library.2 22 Some may be surprised to find copies of both the Bhelasamhita and Ravigupta's Siddhasarasamhita (the 'Paris Siddhasara') in the Wellcome collection. These are both 20 th century copies of the originals in Thanjavur and Madras respectively. There is a new commentary on the Vaidyajivana by Bhagiratha in the Wellcome collection, and a new commentary on the Rugviniscaya by Jnanameru, previously only known as a Gujarati author, in Oxford. Other works will no doubt strike the reader as he or she peruses these lists. Manuscript studies are often difficult, always time-consuming, and usually unfashionable. Added to this is the serious problem that the production of a critical edition of a text, or a descriptive catalogue of a manuscript collection, does not (at least in England) qualify as a suitable project for a doctoral dissertation. With these barriers in place, progress in this field is always going to be slow. Yet it is at least arguable that the entire edifice of Indological studies is founded upon the manuscript record. It still seems worthwhile, then, to draw attention to the valuable medical manuscript collections in Britain, and maybe students of Ayurveda will be encouraged to take up the fascinating challenge which these manuscripts present to the historian of science. 23 22 His correspondence relating to the period of his collecting activities is in the Wellcome Institute's archives. 23 Some selected works relating to codicology in this area: Stillman Drake, 'Editing unpublished notes, such as Galileo's on motion', in Editing Texts in the History of Science and Medicine edited by Trevor H. Levere (New York and London, 1982); S.M. Katre, Introduction to Indian Textual Criticism (Poona, 1954); V. Raghavan, Manuscripts, Catalogues, Editions, (Bangalore, [1963]); L. D. Reynolds and N. G. Wilson, Scribes and Scholars: a Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature (Oxford, 1978); M.L. West, Textual Criticism and Editorial Technique (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973). These works also contain bibliographies for further reading. Also of interest might be the study of the transmission of medieval Western vernacular poetry and other medieval and Byzantine literatures, which share problems with the Indian case. However, as West sagely observes, after the basic principles are known, textual criticism is learned by doing, not by reading about it.