Tibetan Medicine

Protected by the world’s highest mountain ranges, Tibetan medicine has preserved an unbroken tradition since it s introduction from India in the seventh century. The Venerable Rechung Rinpoche has here provided translations of the most important Tibetan medical texts, including indexes of plants, other medical texts and persons, and a brief history of Tibetan medicine, supplemented by a bibliography of western works on the subject. A major part of the volume is occupied by the biography of the Great Physician-Saint g Yu-thog the Elder (C.E..786-911), who spread medical science throughout Tibet. Poetic and imaginative features characteristic of Tibetan literature compose this narrative. The volume also includes translations from the Second and Forth Books of the rGyud-bzhi, a work that is thought to have been derived from Sanskrit sources, but survives only in Tibetan and Mongolian, the Mongolian version being clearly a translation from the Tibetan one. Illustrations, including a series of intricate Tibetan anatomy diagrams, lend further appeal to the volume.

The Venerable Rechung Rinpoche was born in Lhasa into an aristocratic family and was acknowledged at the age of thirteen as an Incarnation of former incumbent of Rechung Monastery South of Lhasa. He is thus recognized as he fourteenth Incarnation of Rechungpa, who told the story of the great Yogi Milarepa (C.E.1140-1223). He is also one of the most distinguished members of the Tibetan religious hierarchy and has been Director of the Sikkim Research Institute of Tibetology at Gangtok, Sikkim, until his retirement in 1994.