Source: TW
A 19th Century Murder that Excavated a Second-Century Sanskrit Manuscript: Episode One How the brutal murder of a 19th century British trader led to the unlikely discovery of a valuable 2nd century Sanskrit Manuscript. A Murder that Unearthed a Second-Century Sanskrit Manuscript: Episode 1
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WHAT BEGAN AS AN ARGUMENT between two businessmen led to the murder of one of them and launched a manhunt against the murderer and culminated in the accidental discovery of a 2nd Century CE Sanskrit manuscript that rattled the world of Indology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The story begins with the British explorer, tea-planter and diplomat Robert Barkley Shaw who established the Central Asian Trading Company in 1873 to trade primarily in Indian tea.
In 1869, he had ventured into the badlands of Yarkand (now Yarkant County, China) scouting for business prospects. This hostile territory in the Pamir mountains was still unmapped. He, along with his business rival, George Hayward were the first Britons to land there.
Barkley Shaw had done his homework quite extensively. Yarkand fell under the dominion of Kashgar, the ancient and flourishing international trading post on the Silk Road. Both places were in the grip of the tyrannical Uzbek Muslim warlord named Yaqub Beg. Shaw knew that he had to appease him to obtain permission to trade. And so, he sent expensive gifts to Beg. The lure worked and Shaw found himself in Yaqub Beg’s palace and in his presence on January 11, 1869. After exchanging cordialities, Shaw made his offer: allow me to open a trading post in your territory and I can guarantee you a handsome revenue from Indian tea. There are sixty million potential customers in the Kashgar region alone. A delighted Yaqub Beg accepted it but put Barkley Shaw and George Hayward under house arrest.
What both Englishmen didn’t know was that they had been inadvertently drawn into the infamous Great Game fought between Russia and England for the control of Central Asia. After a few weeks, Yaqub Beg met them and told a flummoxed Shaw, “I declare you as my brother.” There was an existential reason for this. Behind the scenes, Yaqub had received confirmed intelligence that the Russians were plotting his assassination. He therefore needed support from the Queen of England and the “Lord Sahib,” — the Viceroy of India. The support was granted but Yaqub also wanted something in return as we shall see.
From 1873 onwards, the Central Asian Trading Company prospered on a vast scale, controlling trade in Indian tea and other products in the trans-Karakoram region. Ladakh and Leh were transformed into lucrative trading outposts.
— 2 — ANDREW DALGLEISH HAD TURNED TWENTY IN 1874. A Scot from humble origins, he had come to India at the behest and encouragement of his uncle, a bureaucrat named Thomas Russell.
That year, he found himself in a luxurious bungalow at Kashmiri Point, Murree, now in Pakistan. Murree, the birthplace of the genocidal maniac, General Dyer.
Andrew Dalgleish had just received a magnificent offer from Barkley Shaw: would he like to be a trader in the Central Asian Trading Company operating from Leh-Ladakh? Once more, his uncle’s encouragement sealed the boy’s decision. Thomas Russell was a pragmatic man. He said, “accept the offer. Men of of our station in life don’t often get opportunities like this.”
But the young Andrew proved even more pragmatic when he replied, “If the Central Asian Trading Company is as successful as the East India Company, then 1874 should be a prosperous year for us.”
His maiden assignment included transporting a sizeable cargo comprising several large iron trunks and other boxes to Chinese Turkistan — Yarmand and Kashgar, Yaqub Beg’s territory. The caravan included thirty men and twenty ponies. And fifteen sheep — to be slaughtered and eaten over the course of the month-long journey.
The finest quality of Manchester cotton was a big chunk of the freight. But the contents of the iron trunks were of immense diplomatic and political value: rifles. This was what Yaqub Beg had demanded from the British in return for permitting the Central Asian Trading Company to open their shop in his dominions.
Barkley Shaw and Lieutenant Hopkirk would lead the expedition from the front. Both were heavily armed. Shaw safeguarded the keys to the rifle-laden trunks while Hopkirk manned the ammunition just in case they encountered the “Himalayan bandits who will murder for rifles.”
The expedition was not only successful but it proved to be a career-maker for Dalgleish.
— 3 — ANDREW DALGLEISH PRETTY MUCH SETTLED DOWN in the general region of Ladakh, Leh and the Karakoram Pass. He became somewhat of a local, mastering the Uyghur language and marrying a Yarkandi girl. He travelled nonstop and became a favourite companion of travellers and merchants and game hunters. Dalgleish knew the whole area like the back of his hand.
Business was booming and he was making caravan-loads of money. One of his business associates was a volatile Pathan named Daud Mohammed Khan, well-known for operating on the trade route between Yarkand and Ladakh. Their association turned to close friendship. What Dalgleish did not know was that Daud had a torrid reputation as a smuggler and a crook.
As was his wont, Dalgleish once took off on a long expedition to Tibet. Which was when Daud revealed his real colours. He neglected his business and indulged in all sorts of vices. His ponies perished and it wasn’t long before he became bankrupt. He began borrowing indiscriminately from Hindu moneylenders and when they finally landed on his doorstep, he threatened them. In turn, they complained to the British Commissioner at Leh. The Commissioner forbade Daud from trading on the Yarkand-Leh road until he had cleared his dues.
When Dalgleish returned and saw Daud’s fate, he took pity on him and decided to help his fallen friend. In May 1888, Dalgleish departed from Leh and travelled towards Yarkand along with some pilgrims and servants. En route, he wrote to Daud asking him to join his caravan. A few days later, Daud met Dalgleish at some distance after the Karakoram Pass where tents had been pitched to take rest.
There are slight variations regarding the episode that follows but the overall picture is clear.
Over tea, Dalgleish and Daud had a discussion over Daud’s debts. For a long time, Daud said nothing, and then he walked out of the tent, returned with a rifle and shot into the tent. The bullet wounded Dalgleish’s shoulder, and as he ran out to escape, Daud chased him with a deadly sword and butchered him.
Daud Mohammed Khan had become completely unhinged. Instead of escaping, he ordered the stunned and cowering servants to prepare a meal for him. After devouring it, he slept soundly in Dalgleish’s tent and left the place the next day.
When news of this ghastly murder reached the British community in Yarkand, a wave of outrage erupted. Dalgleish had to be avenged at all costs and the British Raj was only too glad to oblige. The entire Government machinery launched a massive manhunt for Daud Mohammed and announced a substantial bounty for his capture. Imperial Britain’s prestige was at stake. Messages and letters and other forms of correspondence flew thick and fast.
One such communiqué landed on the desk of a Lieutenant stationed in Kashgar. His name was Hamilton Bower.
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AT KASHGAR, LIEUTENANT HAMILTON BOWER received a serious communiqué from his imperial bosses at the British Government in India. It was a tersely-worded, urgent order: arrest Daud Mohammed Khan at all costs and bring him to India for trial; by murdering Andrew Dalgleish, Daud has directly challenged the might of the British Empire. Your mission has to be kept strictly confidential.
The British Government had chosen Hamilton Bower for a forthright reason. When we read between the lines, we can’t help but marvel at the intricacy and effectiveness of the well-oiled British intelligence network of that era. Hamilton Bower had been stationed at Kashgar but his bosses knew more intimately about the region and the developments therein than he did.
Sometime in the recent past, Daud had harassed a Hindu merchant who obviously nursed an abiding grudge for this vile Pathan. And now, Daud had become a fugitive, fleeing from place to place. His flight led him to Kashgar. But instead of choosing caution, he began to openly gloat about his “heroic” slaughter of Dalgleish. This news reached the Hindu merchant. Seething with vengeance, he reported the matter to the British authorities who acted swiftly, and Hamilton Bower found himself reading the aforementioned communiqué.
However, Daud had proven swifter. By the time Bower took action, Daud had already decamped from Kashgar. He assembled some emissaries and intelligence agents and drew up an elaborate plan to track and arrest the murderer. Two agents went to Afghanistan and reached Balkh. There, the Amir named Abdur Rahman told them that Daud had run off to Bokhara.
On his part, Hamilton Bower had travelled eastwards before landing in the densely-populated and thriving commercial city of Kuchar (its contemporary names include Kucha, Kuche, Qiūcí, now in Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China). It was January or February 1890. Almost two years had passed and the accursed Daud Mohammed was still elusive.
— 5 — KUCHAR WOULD PROVE TO BE UNFORESEEN STAGE on which the script of an influential drama was discovered. However, this needs to be placed in a broader political and historical context.
Ever since colonial European powers began rampaging across the globe on the strength of their technological and military prowess, a parallel development occurred its wake. This was the upsurge of interest in rediscovering and unearthing civilisational, cultural and archeological secrets of the Ancient World. From South America to (ancient) Egypt, from Arabia to India, freelance adventurers, explorers, historians, epigraphists and archeologists literally began to excavate the past. State-funded and private universities and academic and research institutions throughout Europe received fabulous financing to pursue inquiry in these subjects.
The purpose behind these research endeavours was multi-pronged and depended on who funded them.
Some endeavours were based purely on a disinterested quest for knowledge. Others were motivated by unquenchable greed — epic plunderers like Cecil Rhodes fall in this category.
But topping this list was the colonial-imperial arrogance which sought to rewrite the history of the Ancient World from the (European) conqueror’s perspective: the world is at our feet because our race is intrinsically superior. The clearest and the most abundant proof for this racist mindset is found in the discipline of Indology. In fact, the term “Indology” itself reeks of racism. Right at the outset, adding the ”-logy” suffix made it inert. “Indology” is defined as the study of India in an all-encompassing sense. However, in practice, it has always connoted the study of an entire civilisation and culture and philosophy and people as museum artefacts. Thus, even the Indian people — mostly Hindus — have been studied and examined as how a zoologist examines rats and frogs in a lab.
When we return to Hamilton Bower, we observe the fact that a parallel economy was flourishing at its peak for roughly about two centuries. This was the informal — and underground — global industry of trading in archeological artefacts, manuscripts, scrolls, and coins.
India (in the sense of Brihad-Bharata) was home to the world’s largest repository of these artefacts.
A complex kaleidoscope of actors populated this industry. Pitched battles were fought between tribes and bloody murders occurred to possess these artefacts. The sole goal of their possession: selling them to the White Man for lucrative prices. Almost every person in the societies conquered by the colonial European intuitively knew that the artefact he had accidentally discovered would fetch him a good sum or even a fortune. Uncountable numbers of impoverished nomads or villagers or artisans — mostly illiterate — were also armed with this intuitive knowledge. And they often sold the artefact for paltry sums. What is of mere academic or colonial interest for one is often the only means of survival for another. This is precisely what we notice in racist movies like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a thinly-veiled boast of the White Man’s Burden and Christian superiority.
— 6 — A TURKIC MUSLIM SOUGHT HAMILTON BOWER’s audience at Kuchar. He was a professional of the aforementioned underground artefact economy. But he primarily identified himself as a treasure-hunter. This is how Bower describes the meeting:
“While at Kuchar a man told me of the existence of an underground city, and said that he had gone there to dig for treasure a few days previously, but had only succeeded in finding what he called a book. I asked him to show it to me and he went away, and came back bringing the manuscript as it now is. He was anxious to sell it and I was very glad to pick up for a small sum what might prove of great value.
“The same man offered to show me a subterranean town, provided I would go there in the middle of the night, as he was frightened of getting into trouble with the Chinese, if it was known that he had taken a European there. I readily agreed and we started off about midnight. The man produced me a packet of an old manuscript written on birch bark. They had been dug out of the curious old erections of which several are to be found in Kuchar District.” (Emphasis added)
Clearly, both the Turkic Muslim treasure-hunter and Hamilton Bower knew that they had something of value and concluded the trade on amicable terms. The former was happy with the sum, which he considered was substantial. For Bower, the sum was a trifling. He had enough knowledge and experience to understand that books and manuscripts cannot be valued with money.
Oh, and before we proceed, there’s the unfinished business of Daud Mohammed Khan.
Lieutenant Hamilton Bower was a patient man. He kept his eyes and ears open and was finally rewarded after a few months. One day, he received the good news. Daud had been imprisoned in Samarkhand. The news-bearers also narrated the full story. The characteristic recklessness of the mercurial Pathan had ultimately overwhelmed him. He was sitting on a large wooden box in the bazaar street in Samarkhand, once again, boasting about how he had murdered Dalgleish. Two emissaries whom Bower had dispatched, spotted Daud. One of them quietly rushed off to General Kuropatkin, the Governor of Samarkhand. Within minutes, a small unit of Cossacks descended on the bazaar and shackled Daud Mohammed and threw him in prison.
It appeared that the imperial British had had the last laugh. The Pathan scoundrel had been caught and now it was only a matter of formality to bring him back to India and hang him to death. However, two or three days later, Bower received another piece of news: Daud Mohammed Khan had hung himself in his cell.
Reading the full story of how the British doggedly hunted down Daud and finally captured him is a study in the temperament of a nation that takes itself seriously.
HAMILTON BOWER RETURNED TO INDIA in late 1890. He took the manuscript to Shimla and handed it over to J. Waterhouse, the then president of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. On November 5, 1890, Waterhouse placed it before the Society’s monthly meeting and read out Bower’s note explaining the circumstances of its discovery. The board members agreed that the manuscript was of immense value but there was a problem: at the moment, there was no scholar who could decipher it.
The manuscript was named eponymously: The Bower Manuscript. Indeed, the nomenclature was characteristic of the colonial attitudes towards India. But its real name not only reveals its antiquity but is yet another proof of the extent and influence of the Sanatana civilisation in Brihad-Bharata: Navanītakaṁ.
Its brief contents and and its inestimable value to the study of ancient India will be narrated in the next episode.
— 7 — THE GERMAN INDOLOGIST, AUGUSTUS FREDERIC RUDOLF HOERNLÉ returned to India early in 1891 after finishing his annual leave. Hailing from a zealous Protestant missionary lineage, Hoernlé had learnt Sanskrit under Theodor Goldstucker’s tutelage. Over the years, he had earned acclaim as a scholar of the so-called Indo-Aryan languages and as an expert archeologist and numismatist. He had recently stepped down as the former editor of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
And now, Hoernlé requested for and got the so-called Bower Manuscript from J. Waterhouse. In the April 1891 Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Hoernlé published the first cut of his decipherment of the Manuscript.
It immediately overturned all the overconfident consensuses prevailing in the domain of Indology so far. Its sensational impact was comparable to or even greater than the discovery that William Jones had made more than a century ago: that Sanskrit was indeed the Mother of all languages.
In one stroke, the so-called Bower Manuscript had opened several floodgates. The most significant outcome was the launch of a whole new field of study: archeological explorations in Eastern Turkistan. The colonial British Government splurged enormous money on this endeavour. Some scholars of that era even characterised this as a “whole modern movement.” Indeed, there was no limit to what they could potentially unearth in the region. But on a subterranean plane, the cultural verdict was unambiguous: the primitive and uncivilised and superstitious race of the Hindus had a truly glorious past, and the more the British dug and studied, the farther the frontiers of this glory extended.
The so-called Bower Manuscript was the first of hundreds of future conclusive proofs demonstrating the spread and impact of Sanatana and Bauddha Dharma in China and Central Asia. Bharatavarsha was clearly the selfless donor and Guru of exalted philosophy, spirituality and profound cultural values which sculpted and refined the civilisations and societies in this vast region.
When we study history from this perspective as well, we arrive at the same inescapable conclusion: the incalculable damage that Islamic ravages have caused to a substantial part of Asia. For centuries before Islam, commercial and cultural intercourse between India and the Far East was marked by amicability and affection. The sword and fire of Islam transformed major portions of this geography into hellholes of Abrahamic barbarism and its people into semi-savages.
— 8 — AS EXCAVATIONS PROCEEDED APACE, Mother Earth revealed ancient historical truths anew.
Kuchar or Kucha, the site where Hamilton Bower had bought the manuscript, was a flourishing city of great antiquity. In the 7th century CE, it was home to scores of temples and hundreds of Buddhist stupas. There were Chinese kings with beautiful Sanskrit names such as Suvarna-deva and Suvarna-Pushpa who adhered to the Hinayana sect of the Sarvāstivāda School of Bauddha Dharma. Xuanzang who gives us this picture of Kucha also says how “the doctrine and the rules of discipline of the Sarvāstivādas are like those of India, and those who read them use the same originals.”
The most eminent Kuchan was a Buddhist scholar, monk and prolific translator named Kumarajiva. Sometime in the third or early fourth century CE, his father, Kumārāyana had migrated from Kashmir to spread Bauddha Dharma. He had landed in Kucha and had married Jivaka, the sister of the King of Kucha. Showing great promise since boyhood, Kumarajiva mastered the Bauddha Agamas and Sarvastivada. He later journeyed to the selfsame Kashgar, then a great centre of Mahayana learning and mastered Nagarjuna’s Mādhyamaka philosophy.
Arguably, the whole of the Buddhist tradition in China was singlehandedly shaped by Kumarajiva. Even Communist China has gratefully preserved his memory in the form of a sculpture that greets the entrance of the Kizil Caves in Kuqa County in Xinjiang, China. But even more touchingly, in 384 CE, Kumarajiva built the artistic White Horse Pagoda to honour Tianliu, his devoted horse which carried Buddhist scriptures from Kucha to Dunhuang.
(Left) Statue of Kumara Jiva | (Right) White Horse Pagoda (Left) Statue of Kumara Jiva | (Right) White Horse Pagoda WHICH BRINGS US BACK TO KUCHA. The archeological digs which began after the discovery of the so-called Bower Manuscript eventually took an independent life. Japanese and European explorers and archaeologists entered the scene and uncovered thousands of valuable artefacts and sites.
Of these, the Kizil and the Kumtura Caves are the most significant for historical, cultural, civilisational and artistic reasons. The Kizil Caves — also known as Caves of the Thousand Buddhas — are the most numerous: 236. These are the indisputable, physical proofs of how Sanatana and Bauddha Dharma shaped the ancient Chinese religion, culture and society in a profound fashion. Numerous Sanskrit inscriptions in some of these caves list the names of the rulers who patronised Buddhist monks and offer other historical information. Monastic cells in the caves were known by their original Sanskrit name: Kuti. Several wall paintings and murals in these caves exhibit distinctive influences of the Mathura, Gandhara and Kashmir Schools of art.
But a most astounding discovery was something called the Kizil Library. The scholar of history, Emmanuelle Lesbre writes that this library had some of the “the oldest copies of the Indian theatre known today" written in Sanskrit. Scripts of full-length Sanskrit plays were discovered, and they were explicitly titled, Nataka. They strictly adhered to the rules of Sanskrit drama, comprising prose, verse, music and pantomime. They provide what is known as stage-direction or scenic indications so that “a single performer can enact a complete play by changing attitudes and voices.” (Single-performer plays are typically known as Eka-vyakti Nataka).
Wall Painting of Cowherd Nanda Painting of Cowherd Nanda — 9 — THE SUBSTANTIAL WEALTH OF LITERATURE about the Kizil Caves also reaffirms a common refrain at The Dharma Dispatch: the criminal squandering of Bharatavarsha’s inexhaustible cultural repository and the appalling neglect of our deep, civilisational imprint across the world. That these infractions have occurred at a frenzied speed after “independence” in a purposeful and sinister fashion makes the crime more grotesque and unforgivable. What is our foreign policy worth if it doesn’t recognise these indomitable strengths of our past? These are strengths we independently built through a complex amalgam of life-affirming philosophy, refined spirituality, a robust and prosperous economic system, a stable and harmonious social order and an undying spirit of Kshatra which sustained all this. For the last 75 years, we have been unable to straighten our spine — the surest indicator of playing to our strengths — which has been bent out of shape thanks to a defaced history, which has bred four generations imbued with incurable inferiority complex.
In fact, the legendary DVG had condemned Indira Gandhi more than 40 years ago precisely on this point:
Thanks to the great winner of independence and his daughter, India stands tied to the apron-strings of the mother of Communism even though the bulk of India’s population is not communist… what gives poignancy to the reflection that we are so miserably incapable of going at least to the moral support of Cambodia is the recollection of the historical fact of our ancient kinship. Once upon a time perhaps about the time of the beginning of the Christian era – Cambodia was part of the cultural empire of Hinduism.
What applies to Cambodia also applies to China in varying degrees. If we had actually played to our strengths, our foreign policy doctrine would have been perpetually reminding China of the incalculable debt it owes to the Santana civilisation. The debt among other things, visible to the eye, in the Kizil Caves and other ancient sites.
And it was the so-called Bower Manuscript that cut open this road. We will briefly examine its contents in the next episode.
— 10 — APART FROM PRECIOUS ANTIQUARIAN SITES, the discovery of the so-called Bower Manuscript also led to the revelation of hundreds of Sanskrit and the so-called “Mixed Sanskrit” manuscripts in East Turkistan. In general, a majority of these manuscripts were treatises or commentaries on various aspects of Bauddha Dharma. Researchers and scholars are nearly unanimous in their conclusion that the authors of these manuscripts were Buddhist monks who had typically migrated from Kashmir starting from the early part of the first century of the Common Era (CE).
The authors of the so-called Bower Manuscript too, were Buddhist monks from Kashmir. Its correct name is Navanītakaṁ, literally meaning “clarified butter.” Written on the bhūrja-patra or birch-bark, Navanītakaṁ is a compendium of Ayurveda compiled by four different authors belonging to the second century CE. The names of the first three authors remain unknown. All four originally hailed from Udyāna or Kashmir and migrated to Kucha and settled in the Buddhist monastery there.
Yashomitra, the fourth author was perhaps the most eminent of the four. At Kucha, he quickly became renowned for his learning, saintliness and piety. He was the cynosure of the monastery and when he died, a Stupa was built in his honour. Known today as the Kumtura (caves), the Stupa had a Relic Chamber in which the Navanītakaṁ manuscript was deposited. Yashomitra compiled and added fresh material to the Navanītakaṁ manuscript that his predecessors had left behind.
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THE NAVANĪTAKAṀ IS NOT an original text of Ayurveda but a collection of extracts from various Ayurvedic texts extant at the time of its composition. It quotes heavily from the Caraka and the Sushruta Samhitas and to a lesser extent, from the Bhela Samhita. A fragment of the Bhela Samhita is available even today in the famous Saraswati Mahal Library, Thanjavur. These apart, the authors of the Navanītakaṁ also give original Ayurvedic formulations not found in any preceding texts.
Like all ancient Indian medical treatises, the Navanītakaṁ too, is in verse. According to scholars, the language of the treatise is a combination of Sanskrit, “mixed Sanskrit,” Prakitised Sanskrit, and what is known as “Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit.” It primarily employs three well-known Metres in Sanskrit: Anushtubh, Trishtubh and Arya. Including these, the total number of metres in the treatise is twenty-three, spread over 1323 verses, written on 51 birch-bark leaves.
Unfortunately, the complete manuscript is unavailable, and that which has survived is divided into seven distinct treatises. This in turn is divided into two major sections:
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The “Larger” section comprising Treatises 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7.
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The “Smaller” section comprising Treatise 6.
The most noteworthy element in the Navanītakaṁ is the earnestness and the spirit of service of its compilers. In the opening verse of the “Smaller” section, the authors says that “this is a compilation of extracts from the standard medical works, and the floating medical tradition of” his time. Clearly, the authors were eager to preserve the ancient medical tradition for posterity.
A glimpse into the brief contents of Navanītakaṁ is sufficient to give a delightful flavour of the work. The first three treatises deal with medicine proper. The next two deals with divination and the last two with magical incantations (mantra). Various treatises of the work invoke Buddhist deities and Hindu deities such as Shiva, Vishnu and Devi.
We can look at some snippets from the contents of Navanītakaṁ here.
Preparation of various pastes (Lepa) for the head and hair.
A big list related to the preparation of various powders (Churna) and tablets (Gudika or Gulika). Some of these are in active use in our own age.
Medicated ghee of various types. The total number is 28.
Medicated oils. The total number is 17.
Various types of elixirs, aphrodisiacs, decoctions, dyes and ointments.
A whole treatise is devoted to the art of fortune-telling by the means of throwing dice. Different types of dice are mentioned. This eventually became a ritualistic practice in Tibetan texts.
Another section is dedicated for magical incantations (Mantra) for curing many diseases and snake-bites, a highly ancient practice that was prevalent in India until recently.
The final treatise of Navanītakaṁ extensively deals with methods for protecting a person from various types of evils.
— 12 — THE SPECIAL FEATURE OF Navanītakaṁ is its elaborate treatise on Lasuna or garlic. In fact, Navanītakaṁ opens with a chapter titled Lasunakalpa, meaning, “pharmacology of garlic.” Spread over forty-three verses, it is a magnificent and masterly exposition of garlic as both an item of diet and medicine. The exposition is also a marvellous piece of storytelling which traces the origin of garlic to the Puranic episode of Amrita-Manthana. A future piece in The Dharma Dispatch will narrate this story.
Writing in 1923-24, Balwant Mohan, an eminent scholar and authority on the Navanītakaṁ gives us this revealing piece of insight:
“The actions and uses of garlic as a remedial substance are more fully discussed in Navanītakaṁ, than in any other medical book yet published in the Western medical Literature.
“Its use as described in most recent western medical publications, seems to have been adopted after the publication of the first edition of the Bower Manuscript.” (Emphasis added)
This resembles another historical phenomenon of Westerners: of stealing and appropriating scientific, medical and other knowledge from countries and claiming it as their own.
And so, Western medicine was another field in which Navanītakaṁ or the so-called Bower Manuscript left its lasting impact. As we remarked in the earlier episodes of this essay series, we are yet to fully explore the kind of durable influence that the ancient and classical Hindu civilisation left on cultures and societies and nations across the world. Our earlierseries on how Indian pepper made or broke European countries is another case in point.
Epilogue THE SO-CALLED BOWER MANUSCRIPT that Rudolf Hoernle deciphered was finally published in 1912 in three thick volumes of gigantic size. He had spent twenty-one years on the work. It was an impressive feat. However, it was also a disservice because it remained inaccessible to the very audience which would benefit from it: Ayurvedic Vaidyas. A majority of these Vaidyas could scarcely afford the prohibitive cost of Navanītakaṁ.
Sri Balwant Mohan, an academic and scholar, stepped in to help them. He initiated a correspondence with the Bengal Asiatic Society and after battling with the colonial bureaucracy, got the full manuscript and began working on it. After two years of sustained effort, he published a slim and affordable volume of the complete Navanītakaṁ in the original Sanskrit. He wrote a learned introduction and a preface to the work. Some extracts from his preface are painful and moving at the same time.
The… reason for neglect in its study by the Vaidyas, was its enormous size and high price, which a few could afford to pay.
It was possible therefore that this grantha, one of the best researches into the state of Indian medicines, must have remained in obscurity for a still longer period, but for the attempt to bring it into the present form, as it lies before the readers. It was one of the several sources of information to scrutinise the fact that how such a valuable literature of our ancient ancestors went into decay…
The main object of the present work is to furnish the Vaidyas with useful Ayurvedic work of ārṣa formulae and the way in which they were prevalent in the olden times…
This work is produced…with no other motive of self-interest but with a view to make it accessible to all interested in Ayurvedic science. [Emphasis added]
Sri Balwant Mohan’s volume was published in January 1925 by Mehar Chand Lachman Das, Proprietor of the Sanskrit Book Depot in Said Mittha Bazaar, Lahore.
Colonel Bower, who had purchased the original manuscript of Navanītakaṁ from a Turkic Muslim treasure-hunter, sold it to the Bodleian Library. It still lies there.
Series Concluded