Brief history and efficacy of Unani Tibb:
Greco-Arab Medicine and Islamic Medicine as practiced in the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent is known as Tibb Unani. Unani is the Arabic word for lonian, or Greek. Tibb in Arabic means medicine. It is the integrity of great Arab Muslim physicians that they acknowledged the influence of early Greek medicine on Greco-Arab and Islamic Medicine by giving the name of Unani Medicine. Therefore Unani is a formal medicine that has been practiced for six thousand years and popular in different parts of the world with different names, such as: Greco-Arab Medicine, Arab Medicine, Traditional Medicine, Oriental Medicine, Western herbal medicine, and Islamic Medicine. It is also known in some parts with local names.
Origin: Unani Medicine is reported to owe its origination to Hermes (Idris A. S.), Aesculapius, Pythagoras etc. Hermes (Idris A.S.) was a Prophet of God, obtained divine knowledge of medicine, is considered the teacher of Aesculapius (Asclepius). Aesculapius (Asclepius) was worshiped by Greeks as God of Health, he had two daughters namely Hygeia (Hygiene is named after her for prevention) and Panacea (means Cure). Pythagoras, (489 B.С.), a philosopher during the period of Solomon, was involved with the study of body structure and functions and he authored many books.
History: When great civilization of Babylonia and Egypt declined, the knowledge percolated to the land of philosophers, the Greeks, who built up the system and came up with a scientific interpretation of health and disease. Unani system of Medicine derived its basics from the great Greek physicians of yore like Hippocrates (462-370 B.C.), Dioscorides (50-100 AD) and Galen (131-210AD) etc, who stabilized its foundation.
Hippocrates, A philosopher-physician also called Father of Medicine, freed medicine from the realm of superstition and magic and gave it the status of science. The theoretical frame work of Unani medicine is based on the teachings of Hippocrates.
Our ancient manuscripts, both in paper and in palm leaves play an important and vital role in protecting and preserving the Indian Culture and Heritage. Our ancestors had made selfless efforts to propogate and preserve our ancient Indian Culture to later generations. Today we find a large volune of manuscripts pertaining to poetry, drama, medicine, astrology, astronomy etc., found in these ancient leaves wherein our forefathers had put all their efforts to preserve the knowledge known either from master-disciple tradition or family tradition. It is not an exaggeration to say that they succeeded in their continuous efforts and bequeathed knowledge to us. To pay our homage to our forefathers, we should also have to make our own efforts for protecting, preserving and digitalizing the manuscripts in scientific ways and also to pass on this treasure of knowledge to coming generations. Today we see, the state and central governments are making all efforts to collect and protect the manuscripts. Several scholars of abroad are also eager to know the valuable treasure of literature, grammar, medicine, astrology, astronomy etc., from our manuscripts.
It is the need of hour to protect all our ancient manuscripts. The Andhra Pradesh State Government had established this Oriental Manuscripts Library and Research Institute as an independent directorate in the year 1975 with a view to collect and preserve valuable manuscripts and to make them available to scholars. It is one of the richest repositories of India containing nearly 24,000 manuscripts in 16 languages i.e., Telugu, Sanskrit, Urdu, Arabic, Persian etc. Several of these are rare and important manuscripts which are not found or known any where else. We have rich collection of above 17,000 manuscripts of Urdu, Arabic and Persian languages in our institute in 47 subjects i.e., Usail I-Fiqa, Tarikah, Tassuaf, Geography, Hadeeth, Tib-I-Unani, Fatawa, Falsafa, Narainjath etc. This institute had under taken programmes, surveying and collecting the manuscripts from the nook and corner of Andhra Pradesh, preserving them on modern scientific ways, publishing them in a phased manner, keeping them available for research scholars, conducting national seminars and workshops on manuscripts, conducting manuscripts awareness campaigns in all districts of Andhra Pradesh etc. The National Mission for Manuscripts (NMM) working under Department of Culture, Government of India, is also putting its efforts in this great and pious task.
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