"kaumudii" (plant bibliographies)

[Dominik Wujastyk]

Jakub Cejka said:

>    To put it simply, any bibliography on plants in Skt liter. whether
> general intro or specific monografies is wanted.

Two important publications on Indian medicinal plants have recently
emerged from the milieu of practitioners, botanists and herbalists at
the renowned ayurvedic centre, the Arya Vaidya Shala at Kottakal,
Kerala (excuse the LaTeX codes):

  1/  Vaidyaratnam P. S. Varier's Arya Vaidya Sala, Kottakal.  1994-~.
  \emph{Indian medicinal plants: a compendium of 500 species} (Madras,
  etc.: Orient Longman).  Vols. 1--3.  To be completed in 5 vols. (500
  plants).

  2/ Sivarajan, V. V. and Indira Balachandran. 1994. \emph{Ayurvedic
  drugs and their plant sources} (New Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta: Oxford \&
  IBH Publishing).

Both books contain useful plant illustrations of most species by R.
Vasudevan Nair, former head of the department of Botany, Govt. Victoria
Colege, Palakkad, the former includes some colour illustrations.

There are, many, many older books on materia medica.  For a history of
early floristic and botanical activities in India see the beautiful
book:

  3/ Desmond, Ray. 1992.  \emph{The European discovery of the Indian
  flora} (Oxford, Delhi, etc.: Royal Botanic Gardens \& OUP).

Some of the classics are:

  4/  Kirtikar, K. R., B. D. Basu, and an I.C.S. 1933.  \emph{Indian
  Medicinal Plants}.  Ed.\ and rev.\ by E.  Blatter, J. F. Caius and K.
  S. Mhaskar (Allahabad: Lalit Mohan Basu). 4 vols. text, 4 vols.
  illustrations.
  Recently reprinted at Dehra Dun (ca. 1991/2) and available for ca.
  5000 Rs.

and

  5/  Nadkarni, A. K. 1954. \emph{Dr. K. M. Nadkarni's Indian materia
  medica, with ayurvedic, unani-tibbi, siddha, allopathic, homeopathic,
  naturopathic \& home remedies, appencices \& notes} (Bombay: Popular
  Prakashan). 2 vols.

Nadkarni is available everywhere in Indian bookshops, and despite its
flaws it often contains very useful information missing elsewhere.

Finally, a source one might overlook:  I recall that when Richard
Gombrich and Margaret Cone translated the Vessantarajataka ("The perfect
generosity of Prince Vessantara"), Margaret worked hard on an appendix
in which she identified a large number of the numerous plants and
flowers mentioned in the Pali text.

Dominik
 

Original-Sender: goodall at vax.ox.ac.uk
Date: Tue, 28 Feb 1995 22:19:02 +0000
From: goodall at vax.ox.ac.uk
To: indology at liverpool.ac.uk
Message-ID: <0098CAE1.C1A33A94.8 at vax.ox.ac.uk>
Subject: RE: Re[4]: "kaumudii"

Die Flora Altindiens has been published.  I am told that it is distributed
privately by Renate Syed from the institute in Munich.
Dominic Goodall.