Vāgbhaṭa's Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayam: A Full English Translation

For the first time in a single volume, Renay Oshop presents Vāgbhaṭa's Aṣṭāṅgahṛdayasaṃhitā — the "Heart of the Eight Limbs" of Āyurveda — together with its two most consequential medieval commentaries, fully and faithfully rendered into modern English. Composed in the seventh century CE, the Aṣṭāṅgahṛdaya is the most influential single text in Indian classical medicine. It distills the older encyclopedias of Caraka and Suśruta into a tight, memorizable, deeply systematic treatise covering the entire breadth of Āyurvedic practice: the foundations of physiology and pathology, daily and seasonal regimen, dietetics, diagnosis, pharmacology, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, eye and ear medicine, toxicology, geriatric rejuvenation, and aphrodisiacs. For more than a millennium it has been the working bedside companion of South Asian physicians, and today it remains the principal teaching text in the Āyurvedic colleges throughout the world. This translation does not stop at the root text. It also includes, in full, the two greatest classical commentaries of the medieval era. This is the first English edition that gives the practising Āyurvedic clinician, the Sanskritist, and the serious student of Indian medical history all three texts in one place, in continuous, readable prose. It is intended as a working reference — the kind of book that lives on the consulting-room shelf and is opened in the middle of a case, alongside the Sanskrit edition for those who can read it, and on its own for those who cannot.—Note that this title is often romanized to the Ashtanga Hridayam by Vagbhat.Also, the paperback does not have the two medieval commentaries due to physical constraints. Only the Kindle edition does.The Kindle version is fully searchable, bookmarkable, and takes annotation. Read more