04-30-2007, 07:43 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-Hauma Hamiddha+Apr 29 2007, 10:54 PM-->QUOTE(Hauma Hamiddha @ Apr 29 2007, 10:54 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->There is a thread called itihAsa purANa for such issues. Kindly post such question there.
[right][snapback]68029[/snapback][/right]
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I did that, but while doing so I found a post that is valuable both to me personally, as well as to this thread in being indicative of how, through the fog of time, Hindu narrative has been forgotten or sidelined.
<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+Sep 2 2006, 09:38 PM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ Sep 2 2006, 09:38 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sushrut and heritage of plastic surgery
[right][snapback]56658[/snapback][/right]
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I quote from the link:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Ayurvedic literature is preserved almost exclusively in the Sanskrit language, and originally in the form of manuscripts written on birch bark , palm leaves or paper. India has, over the millennia, developed about a dozen different alphabets. The scribe who copied out the manuscripts would use the script that was local to the place of work. So it is quite normal to find Sanskrit medical manuscripts from Kerala in the Malayalam script, while a manuscript of the very same text copied in Bengal would be in the Bengali script. Both manuscripts would still be in the Sanskrit language and would be virtually indistinguishable if read aloud.
No systematic effort has been made to collect together all the known manuscripts of Susruta Samhita, let alone compare them all, try to classify them, to tease apart the historical strata in the texts, weed out scribal errors, and adjust the readings of the texts accordingly. The printed editions are vulgate texts, that is so say, they are books printed on the basis of small number of manuscripts from a local region, normally Bombay or Calcutta. And the decisions about what to print when the manuscripts disagree was made on the basis of general common sense but without the support which historical philology and textual criticism can offer. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
[right][snapback]68029[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I did that, but while doing so I found a post that is valuable both to me personally, as well as to this thread in being indicative of how, through the fog of time, Hindu narrative has been forgotten or sidelined.
<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+Sep 2 2006, 09:38 PM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ Sep 2 2006, 09:38 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Sushrut and heritage of plastic surgery
[right][snapback]56658[/snapback][/right]
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I quote from the link:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Ayurvedic literature is preserved almost exclusively in the Sanskrit language, and originally in the form of manuscripts written on birch bark , palm leaves or paper. India has, over the millennia, developed about a dozen different alphabets. The scribe who copied out the manuscripts would use the script that was local to the place of work. So it is quite normal to find Sanskrit medical manuscripts from Kerala in the Malayalam script, while a manuscript of the very same text copied in Bengal would be in the Bengali script. Both manuscripts would still be in the Sanskrit language and would be virtually indistinguishable if read aloud.
No systematic effort has been made to collect together all the known manuscripts of Susruta Samhita, let alone compare them all, try to classify them, to tease apart the historical strata in the texts, weed out scribal errors, and adjust the readings of the texts accordingly. The printed editions are vulgate texts, that is so say, they are books printed on the basis of small number of manuscripts from a local region, normally Bombay or Calcutta. And the decisions about what to print when the manuscripts disagree was made on the basis of general common sense but without the support which historical philology and textual criticism can offer. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->