Enumeration of various Ayurvedic formulations listed in an ancient palm-leaf manuscript of Rayalaseema region in Andhra Pradesh state, India.

Abstract

Ancient India relied on manuscripts written by scholars for storing, transferring and retrieving the information pertaining to culture, traditions, religion, geography and political issues. Similarly, Ayurveda, an ancient human health care management system in India and most of its information is available through palm-leaf manuscripts. Though each palm-leaf can persist for a fairly long time, it suffers gradual deterioration owing to physical, chemincal and biological factors, thus warranting digitiation. The palm-leaf manuscripts of Ayurveda are extensively studied for finding new drug or treatment methods to new-age diseases. The present study concerns an unpublished ancient Telugu palm-leaf manuscript containing Ayurvedic medicine information enscripted on 33 palm-leaves. Since the palm-leaf manuscript is very old, the manual documentation, translation, digitization and analysis of it may shed light on hidden ayurvedic information that may be useful to the modern society. The palm-leaf manuscript with 33 folios were manually documented and digitized into a Telugu book followed by translation into English. The scientific names of historical diseases, plants, animals, metals and minerals were identified based on published sources. A critical scrutiny of the palm-leaf manuscript revealed 120 formulations with 164 plants for 29 different kinds of diseases such as meha and prameha (urinary problems), eye diseases, skin diseases, respiratory diseases, fevers, digestive disorders, jaundice, tuberculosis, cancer and so on. Plant and animal products, metals and minerals mentioned in the said formulations were identified and listed. Basing on our study, it is concluded that the said manuscript contains mono-or poly-herbo-mineral formulations for the treatment of various ailments.This information can be incorporated into and compared with available data bases to find out the effectiveness of the drug or formulation for any given diseases. Further validation of the formulations can be done by phytochemical and in vivo pharmacological assays.