The Lohaliṅgādighr̥ta in the Sanskrit Jīvakapustaka

The āyurvedic medical treatise known as the Jīvakapustaka is preserved in an incomplete tenth-century manuscript from Dunhuang (Northwestern China) that alternates corrupt standard Sanskrit verse and Late Khotanese prose. The text consists of 93 prescriptions, only 29 of which have been identified elsewhere. The article sketches the history of the research on the text and offers a new critical edition and translation with commentary of the Sanskrit original of an unparalleled and previously misunderstood prescription for a medicated ghee against boils etc., the Lohaliṅgādighr̥ta (Jīvakapustaka 30). This builds upon the work of previous scholars and is meant as a model for the arrangement of a new edition of the entire text, which is badly transmitted and must be reconstructed by means of three fundamental tools: (1) careful observance of the metre, (2) awareness of the distorting effect of the spelling habits of the Late Khotanese copyist, and (3) due consideration of the lengthier and fairly accurate Khotanese version.