माधव द्रव्यगुण: Madhav Dravyaguna

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Paryayaratnamala is known as one of the works on Indian Materia Medica by Madhava, son of Indu Kara or Indra Kara. Scholars have identified him as the same person who composed the Rugviniscaya, commonly known as Madhava Nidana, a popular work on diagnosis of diseases. This was made a basis for description of diseases with their treatment is serial order by later writes on Medicine like Vrnda and his follower Cakrapanidatta. But apart from this, a work known as Dravyaguna of Madhava has been quoted in some commentaries which shows that there was another independent work on Indian Materia Medica by Madhava. This made this author inquisitive to find out the Manuscript. Inspite of having hunted various catalogues, I could not be able to locate any such manuscript. Aufrecht has given only the following information about this work:- “Madhava-son of Cakradatta, grandson of Srikanthadatta, father of Purusottama (DravyagunaMed.)”

This information is too meagre to enable any worker to proceed further. Fortunately when descriptive catalogue to Samskrit Mss. Located in different libraries of the Banaras Hindu University was brought out recently it opened a new door for this work. It has recorded a manuscript of Madhava’s Dravyaguna located in the Bharatendu collections of the Bharat Kala Bhavan of this University.