Sushruta (c. Eighth Century BCE)
Sushruta was an Indian physician and surgeon, possibly descended from the legendary sage Vishvamitr.2 His compendium, the Sushruta Samhita, is one of the foundations of Ayurvedic medicine.
His specialism was surgery, amazingly advanced for the period, but the book also lists some 700 medicinal plants and their properties. It comprises 186 chapters in six main volumes. Volume 1 Chapter 46 covers food and drink; a long description of grains, meats from wild and domestic animals, fruits, vegetables, etc., is followed by a list of culinary herbs and spices including the relatively well-known sesame, white and red mustard seeds, long pepper, black pepper, ginger, asafoetida, cumin, coriander seed, holy basil, common basil, lemongrass, cassia, sweet basil, brown and black mustard, radish, garlic and onion, as well as more obscure types. Many of these are known to be used in herbal medicines – possibly spreading sneezeweed (Centipeda minima), drumstick plant (Moringa oleifera), Mullein (a species of Verbascum), Himalayan poplar (bark is a useful medicine), gandira (possibly Coleus forskohlii Briq., the dried mature roots of which are an aromatic herb), red sanders or pot herb Cleome gynandra, purnava (Boerhaavia diffusa Linn.), chitrak (the dried root of Plumbago zeylanica), and grass pea, Lathyrus sativus. The identification of some of the plants named and described in the treatise is not always clear!In addition to the above, there is a huge list of edible plants, trees, pot herbs, flowers and bulbs, together with descriptions of their taste, digestibility, heating/cooling effect, effect on the Ayurvedic forces (Vayu, Pittam and Kapham) and curative powers.
The book was a huge undertaking and very sophisticated for its era. It has gone through many redactions over its long history. The oldest surviving manuscript may be a palm leaf document that dates to 878 CE, preserved in a library in Nepal.
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