[INDOLOGY] Flora and Fauna of India (Biodiversity of India)

[Eric Gurevitch]

Dear Mārcis,


It is hard to know where to begin, since - as the opening of the
Dhanvantarinighaṇṭu puts it, "there is no limit to the names of medical
substances" and there is much scholarship from different traditions on
this topic. But in addition to the sources already mentioned, quite useful
reference works (especially when used in conjunction with each other)
are: Chatterjee
& Pakrashi, *Treatise on Indian Medicinal Plants*; *Chopra's* *Indigenous
Drugs of India*; Kirtikar & Basu, *Indian Medical Plants*; Nadkarni, *Indian
Materia Medica*; Sharma, *Fruits and Vegetables in Ancient India*. (PV
Sharma has a number of other books that might interest you.) There are also
excellent English translations of al-Bīrūnī's pharmacological text as well
as Book 2 of Ibn Sīnā's *Canon* that might enjoy looking through. I am
happy to share PDFs off list.


In addition to the excellent Pandanus Database of Indian Plants already
mentioned, the following databases might also be useful for your project:


e-Nighantu, developed by the National Institute of Indian Medical Heritage:
https://niimh.nic.in/ebooks/e-Nighantu/


and


IMPPAT: Indian Medicinal Plants, Phytochemistry And Therapeutics database,
hosted by the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMSc), Chennai:
https://cb.imsc.res.in/imppat/


Take care,

Eric

On Thu, May 6, 2021 at 1:54 PM Anna Aurelia Esposito <
anna.esposito at uni-wuerzburg.de> wrote:

> Dear Mārcis,
> there is also Meulenbeld's "Sanskrit Names of Plants and their
> Botanical Equivalents":
>
> https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/scans/SNPScan/2020/web/index.php
>
> Best wishes,
> Anna
>
>
> Zitat von Dániel Balogh via INDOLOGY <indology at list.indology.info>:
>
> > Hello,
> > as far as flora is concerned, the Pandanus database
> > http://iu.ff.cuni.cz/pandanus/database/ is still around. For finding the
> > current standard taxonomic names corresponding to the often dated ones in
> > Sanskrit dictionaries, The Plant List http://www.theplantlist.org/ is a
> > useful resource. I hope others will add more.
> > Best wishes,
> > Daniel
> >
> > On Thu, 6 May 2021 at 18:52, Mārcis Gasūns via INDOLOGY <
> > indology at list.indology.info> wrote:
> >
> >> Greetings,
> >>
> >>  There is an excellent book in English on Ornitology and an impressive,
> >> but not so huge list of Flora in India in German. About Fauna in India
> >> there is only a book I'm aware about dogs. Advice wanted.
> >>   You better do not trust most of the dictionaries, because they say,
> that
> >> पुष्कर «blue lotus», क्रौञ्च «the curlew or snipe» и एणी «female
> antelope»
> >> - and that is not really so. For that reason I would love to hear some
> >> stories around some mistakes in the dictionaries regarding the taxonomy
> and
> >> some stories how to get around them with trustable sources:
> >>
> >> 1) Flora
> >> Renate Syed: Die Flora Altindiens in Literatur und Kunst, Dissertation,
> >> Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München 1990
> >> https://yadi.sk/i/I1VrWAOO2vPXdg
> >>
> >> 2.1) Ornitology
> >> Birds-in-Sanskrit-Literature.pdf
> >> https://yadi.sk/i/n0_UxdyO3PDTKk
> >>
> >> 2.2) Fauna
> >> Bollée_Gone to the dogs
> >> https://yadi.sk/i/rSWR_NnclCTXFQ
> >>
> >> I've have found https://www.biodiversityofindia.org/, but it does not
> >> contain far too many of the 1750 Latin plant names I was able to extract
> >> from Monier-Williams (https://www.sanskrit-lexicon.uni-koeln.de/simple/
> ).
> >> What other good reference works online or scanned books would you
> >> recommend, please. Some major (not only Indian related DB would be of
> >> interest as well).
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >> Dr. Mārcis Gasūns
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> >> https://list.indology.info/mailman/listinfo/indology
> >>
>
>
>
> **********
> PD Dr. Anna Aurelia Esposito
> **********
> Universität Würzburg
> Lehrstuhl für Indologie
> Philosophiegebäude, Zi. 8U6
> Am Hubland
> 97074 Würzburg
> Germany
> Tel: ++49-(0)931-3185512
> **********
> http://www.indologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/mitarbeiter/esposito
> **********
>
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-- 

Eric Gurevitch

PhD Candidate, South Asian Languages and Civilizations and

Committee on Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science

University of Chicago

gurevitch at uchicago.edu
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