PREFACE

The Department of AYUSH, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India has granted an Extra Mural Research project 'Collection and Digitization of Medical Manuscripts (CDMM) from South India, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, as part of the priority area to develop a centralized repository of medical manuscripts at NIIMH, Hyderabad.

The Institute has visited Palaces, residences of Zamindars, temples, monasteries and families of priests, astrologers, traditional architects & more than 80 Institutions and approached traditional Vaidyas, many Individual collectors across the country. The team has acquainted to identify/ascertain a medical manuscript from a huge repository of manuscripts. It is experienced that the medical manuscripts are fond in a ratio of 500:1 to 1000:1. However the Institute has managed to digitize 2704 Medical Manuscripts and 1132 Rare Medical books, which focuses on Indian Systems of Medicine, in spite of so many restraints and obstacles.

The study has covered Ayurvedic, Siddha, Unani, Naturopathic and Homeopathic Manuscripts and Rare books. These Manuscripts and Rare books are composed in many languages: Sanskrit, Hindi. Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Urdu, Arabic, Persian, French etc. Manuscripts with various scripts like Devanagari, Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam. Bengali. Gujarati. Marathi, Urdu, Modi, Grantha, French etc are digitized under this project.

This Institute has taken up the pioneering work of preparation of a unique descriptive catalogue of the digitized collection, with elaborate information under 8 headings and 44 sub-headings for Manuscripts and 20 headings for rare books. They cover details such as: Introductory, Technical, Textual, Physical, Catalogue, Publication status, about the manuscript/ Book. Maximum efforts are put in to include critical remarks and description about the content of manuscript/ rare books for the benefit of the reader.

This catalogue is sure to kindle the interest to take a close look at the collection and enlighten the value of the collection to initialize further work by researchers and scholars.

My sincere thanks to all the heads of the Institute's/ individuals, those who were willfully supported the team in digitizing the valuable manuscripts for the cause of mankind.

I sincerely thank the guidance, critical appreciation received from the expert committee members: Dr. B. L. Gaur, Former Vice Chancellor, Rajasthan Ayurved University (R.A.U.), Jodhpur: Dr. B. Rama Rao, Former Director, Central Research Institute for Pancakarma (C.C.R.A.S), Cheruthuruthy., Dr. G. Velucharny, Former Director, Central Research Institute (Siddha) Chennai., Dr. Attaullab Shard, Director, Central Research Institute of Unani Medicine (C.C.R.U.M), Hyderabad, those who vetted and approved for publication.

My sincere gratitude to the Secretary AYUSH, Dr. Ramesh Babu Devalla, DG, CCRAS, Dr. G.S. Lavekar, former DG, CCRAS for their continuous patronage and encouragement to take up the work and sustain it.

I appreciate the efforts of my team members, who have put their tireless efforts in bringing out this protracted work.

ALA NARAYANA

DIRECTOR, NIIMH