Kasyapa-Samhita or Vrddha Jivakiya Tantra, the only source book of ancient period, of kaumarabhrtya, one of the eight branches of ayurveda hitherto available only with one Hindi commentary done by Rajguru Pt. Hema Raja Sharma of Nepal, though is an incomplete book, however, it provides deep insight about the knowledge and practice of pediatrics during ancient period. Besides kaumarabhrtya i.e. pediatrics including neonatology, the importance of wet-nurse including her preventive, promotive and curative therapies are discussed in very scientific manner. The barrier of language has been a great hinderence in propogation of this book amongst non-Hindi speaking people.
Now the book has been transtated in english almost in verbatim, without disturbing the basic idea of the author by authorities of the subject. The commentaries made in the book provide sufficient scope of understanding the subject of Kasyapa-Samhita in relation to four top most books i.e. Brhattrayi (Caraka Samhita, Susruta Samhita and Astanga Hrdaya) alongwith Astanga Samgraha, thus, the reader can get almost all the references of these four books also about the topics dealt in Kasyapa-Samhita. Translation of the book has been done in internationally accepted diacritical Marks. |
