When the rest of the world was struggling to find food, Bharat was progressed in Science. Sage Sushrut had found many types of treatments and surgeries.

The Suśruta-Saṃhitā (works of Sushruta) is one of the most important surviving ancient treatises on medicine and is considered a foundational text of Medicine.

The Suśruta-saṃhitā, in its 184 chapters contains descriptions of

◆ 1,120 illnesses

◆ 700 medicinal plants,

◆ 64 preparations from mineral sources 

◆ 57 preparations based on animal sources.

The text discusses surgical techniques of
​
● making incisions,
● probing,
● extraction of foreign bodies,
● alkali and thermal cauterization,
● tooth extraction,
● excisions, and
● trocars for draining abscess,
● draining hydrocele and ascitic fluid,
● removal of the prostate gland,
● urethral stricture dilatation,
● vesicolithotomy,
● hernia surgery,
● caesarian section,
● management of haemorrhoids,
● fistulae,
● laparotomy and
● management of intestinal obstruction,
● perforated intestines 
​
● accidental perforation of the abdomen with protrusion of omentum and
● the principles of fracture management, viz., traction, manipulation, apposition and stabilization including some measures of rehabilitation 

● fitting of prosthetic.

It enumerates six types of dislocations, twelve varieties of fractures, and classification of the bones and their reaction to the injuries, and gives a classification of eye diseases including cataract surgery.

How many Indians knew him??

India has a lot to be proud of, but the fear of being called communal makes us forget our own heritage.

A Comparative Hindu Materia Medica
By Chandra Chakraberty
First published in 1923
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Image:
Niepa Bark Tree (Quassia indica (Gaertner) Nooteb.): branch with flowers and fruit and separate sections of flowers, fruit and seed 
Coloured line engraving
By Hendrik van Reede tot Drakestein (1637-1691)
Date : 1686
A decoction of the leaves of the Niepa Bark Tree is used to treat biliousness, as an emetic and purgative and as an insecticide.
Image and text credit:
Wellcome Collection, London

​Credit to Rare Book Society on FB

The Susruta or System of Medicine - Volume 1

Taught by Dhanwantari and composed by his disciple Susruta
In Sanskrit
​
Edited by Madhusudan Gupta
Printed at The Education Press, Calcutta - 1835

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The Sushruta Samhita ("Suśruta's Compendium") is an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and surgery, and one of the most important such treatises on this subject to survive from the ancient world. The Compendium of Suśruta is one of the foundational texts of Ayurveda.

Modern translations

The first printed edition of the text was prepared by Madhusudan Gupta (2 vols, Calcutta 1835, 1836). A partial English translation by U. C. Datta appeared in 1883. The first complete English translation of the Sushruta Samhita was by Kaviraj Kunjalal Bhishagratna, who published it in three volumes between 1907 and 1916 (reprinted 1963, 2006).

- Wikipedia

The Susruta or System of Medicine - Volume 2

Taught by Dhanwantari and composed by his disciple Susruta
In Sanskrit

Edited by Madhusudan Gupta

Printed at The Education Press, Calcutta - 1836

Read book online:

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The Sushruta Samhita ("Suśruta's Compendium") is an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and surgery, and one of the most important such treatises on this subject to survive from the ancient world. The Compendium of Suśruta is one of the foundational texts of Ayurveda.
​
Modern translations

The first printed edition of the text was prepared by Madhusudan Gupta (2 vols, Calcutta 1835, 1836). A partial English translation by U. C. Datta appeared in 1883. The first complete English translation of the Sushruta Samhita was by Kaviraj Kunjalal Bhishagratna, who published it in three volumes between 1907 and 1916 (reprinted 1963, 2006).

Image:

Palm leaves of the Sushruta Samhita or Sahottara-Tantra stored at Los Angeles County Museum of Art, from Nepal, the text is dated 12th-13th century while the art is dated 18th-19th century.

Image and text credit:

- Wikipedia

Rare Book Society

Biography:
Madhusudan Gupta

Pandit Madhusudan Gupta (1800 – 15 November 1856) was a Bengali Brahmin translator and Ayurvedic practitioner who was also trained in Western medicine and is credited with having performed India's first human dissection at Calcutta Medical College (CMC) in 1836, almost 3,000 years after Susruta.

Born into a Vaidya family, he studied Ayurvedic medicine at the Sanskrit College and progressed to teacher. Here, he began translations of a number of English texts into Sanskrit, including Hooper's Anatomists’ Ved-mecum. In addition, he attended anatomy and medicine lectures, becoming familiar with the developing clinical-anatomical medicine of Europe.

In 1835, he was transferred to the new CMC, where he was fundamental in gathering Indian support for practical anatomy and in breaking down Hindu taboos on touching the dead, consequently taking sole responsibility for the first human dissection, performed under the guidance of Professor Henry Goodeve and assisted by four other Hindu students. Controversies regarding the exact date of the first procedure, whether other students had performed it before and whether a military salute was given, remain. Despite any discrepancies, this singular act of dissection has become symbolic of the move of western medicine into India.

As a practitioner, he was successful and well regarded amongst his Indian contemporaries as well as by his European colleagues. In 1837, his involvement with the General Committee of the Fever Hospital and Municipal Improvements included recommendations for Kolkata's sanitation, a plead for better maternal care and a commendation to the smallpox vaccinators of Kolkata. His contributions to the research on puberty helped dismiss myths about the discrepancy of menarche between Indian and British women.

Gupta died from diabetic septicaemia in 1856, at the age of 56.

Early career

Sanskrit College

Gupta became a Sanskrit scholar and an Ayurvedic physician. In 1830, he was promoted from student to teacher at the Sanskrit College, a position he retained until January 1835. Initially, the promotion had caused an outcry among the students who boycotted his lessons

During his time at the Sanskrit College, Gupta attended anatomy and medicine lectures given by Tytler and John Grant. After five years of doing so, he became their assistant

Medical translations

It was also during his time at the Sanskrit College that he commenced his work on translations. Translating English into an ordinary Indian language or into a classical Indian language was not straightforward and caused much dilemma in how to transplant European science into India. Scholars were aware that it was impossible to simply wipe out what Indians had learnt over the centuries and swap them with Western theoretical structures. The most noted example of a debate on the subject was the dilemma around Hooper's book.

In 1834, Gupta was paid 1,000 rupees for translating Hooper's Anatomists’ Ved-mecum. It was completed under the title of Śärîravidyā ("Science of Things Relating to the Body")[8] and was taken up for publication by the Asiatic Society, but was abandoned after page thirty-six,[10] due to conflicting opinions on which language it was to be published in. It was following much discussion and the formation of a committee, that it was ultimately published in Sanskrit rather than Hindi

Calcutta Medical College

A committee set up by the East India Company (EIC) in 1833, regarded the training of Kolkata's medical staff as unsatisfactory. As a consequence, the Ayurvedic and Yunani courses taught at the Sanskrit College and the School for Native Doctors’, both originally established by the EIC, were abolished. The plan was to replace them with a fully equipped Medical College, to educate and train the natives in "the art of healing". Newly founded in March 1835, Gupta was transferred to the CMC, as a native teacher, where he became involved in the execution of the first entrance examinations and where he also assisted Henry Goodeve and William Brooke O'Shaughnessy.

Subsequently, the first cohort consisted of just under fifty students who passed and commenced the course. However, the issue of anatomy dissection posed a problem for the course organisers.

Introduction of anatomy

Background

The obstacles to the study of practical anatomy were not unique to India. England had its own qualms regarding acceptance of human dissection and difficulties in obtaining bodies. British anatomy students were increasingly looking to France for training and the emphasis on knowing the anatomy of the body, diseased or otherwise, on being a competent abled physician or surgeon was strongly felt by western medicine. This conviction, the 1834 report on the state of medical education in Bengal, along with the resulting formation of the CMC and its then affiliation with University College London, all played their part towards meeting the growing need of trained native doctors for a mounting British army. Adding to this, the persistence of Lord William Bentinck, Henry Goodeve and others and the surrounding abundant supply of dead bodies in Kolkata, created a passage for practical anatomy from Europe to India. All that was then needed was Indian acceptance.

The first human dissection

Widely acknowledged as the "first Hindu dissector of British India", Gupta has been frequently credited with the launch of modern medicine in India and breaking religious taboos. Hindu prejudice against touching the dead body was seen as a major obstacle in introducing practical anatomy to the College. In order for the influential Indian community to accept human dissection, Gupta was influenced by Drinkwater Bethune and requested by David Hare, who also sought advice from Radhakanta Deb, to produce the necessary supporting literary evidence from traditional Sanskrit Ayurvedic literature. Prior to human dissection, wax models were used as teaching aids. Gupta, as the principal native teacher, was instrumental in gathering support from traditional Sanskrit Ayurvedic literature in order to attain the approval to dissect a corpse.

Almost 3,000 years after Susruta, the appointed date of the landmark dissection epitomized the rising domination of western medicine. Although 10 January 1836 is frequently cited, this date is disputed and others have cited the date as 28 October 1836.

Following six months of preparation, persuasion by Bethune and with premeditated secrecy, Gupta followed Professor Goodeve to the Godown where, behind closed College gates the dead body of a child was prepared for dissection. He was assisted by four students, Umacharan Sett, Rajkrishna Dey, Dwarakanath Gupta and Nabin Chandra Mitra. Fourteen years later, Bethune described how "at the appointed hour, scalpel in hand, he [Madhusudan] followed Goodeve into the Godown" and after the first cut, "a long-gasping breath" came from the relieved on-lookers.

Response and controversy

To protect the students and the CMC authorities, Gupta took sole responsibility for the act which became hailed as a major victory for western civilisation, so far as to cite numerous doubtful references of a fifty-round salute from Calcutta's Fort William. Despite this, suspicion, reservation and resistance preoccupied western medicine in India and a deep aversion to dissection persisted amongst many Indians. Organised by the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal and Bethune, Gupta faced questions from an assembly of pundits, under the supervision of the Maharaja of Nabadwip. He was successful with his given evidence from Sanskrit scriptures and what followed was a steady progression of dissection at CMC over the coming years.

Indian entrepreneur, Dwarkanath Tagore, a firm supporter of Western medicine and the CMC, whilst a staunch believer against European prejudice to Indians, also actively encouraged the study of anatomy, being constantly present in the dissection rooms.[23] Mittra, in his memoirs, also recounts Tagore being witness to a dissection when the anatomy class for Indian youths was opened.[24] Original documents of the dissection, found at CMC in 2011, indicate that the influential Tagore may have had a hand in smuggling the corpse to the anatomy rooms.[15]

In 1838, as a result of the rising public and medical interest in dissection and anatomy, the 'Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge' was established by a group of Bengali youths.[2]

To keep the event in memory, Bethune commissioned S. C. Belnos to paint a portrait of Gupta, complete with a skull in his left hand, depicting his object of study and to be hung in the CMC.[12][25]

In 1848, Goodeve claimed that more 500 dissections had taken place at CMC in the previous year.[12]

The question of whether Gupta's dissection was the actual first has been debated. In the 1830s, there was enough evidence to suggest that many Hindu students were ready to overcome prejudice and pick up a scalpel and "touch a dead body for the study of anatomy".[12] In a personal statement in 1836, Gupta speaks of his major achievements, but does not mention the dissection.[12]

Bramley comments in 1836, that many Hindu students had been interested in and observed the "examination of bodies" and he described a human dissection performed by four Hindu students on 28 October 1836. He discloses his wish to praise those students, but for the adverse publicity they would receive, he regretfully refrained.[12]

An alternative account is given in 1899, when Professor of anatomy at CMC, Havelock Charles, wrote to the Lancet with regards to anatomy teaching at CMC. He described the credit and honour given to Gupta for the first dissection, despite

in 1835…the original class of eleven students who had the courage to break through the iron bonds of caste, and engage in the dissection of the human body. I think it but right to mention the names of the students of this first class that studied human anatomy in India…Umacharan Set, Dwarkanath Gupto, Rajkisto Dey, Gobind Chunder Goopto, Kallachand Dey, Gopalchander Gupto, Chummun Lal, Nobin Chunder Mitter, Nobin Chunder Mookerjee, Buddinchunder Chowdree, and James Pote.

Later career

Following the first dissection, the College authorities requested that Gupta should complete formal medical qualifications to avoid any future student objections to being taught by a "mere kaviraja" or non-doctor. He received a medical degree in 1840.

General Committee of the Fever Hospital and Municipal Improvements

As a successful practitioner, well regarded amongst his Indian contemporaries as well as by his European colleagues, Gupta was called before the General Committee of the Fever Hospital and Municipal Improvements on 3 June 1836. Set up to improve the health situation of Kolkata, he gave evidence over four days.

He attributed the high maternal and neonatal mortality due to fever as owing to the dire state of the labour rooms. He therefore, appealed for better qualified affordable Hindu midwives and a well equipped lying-in hospital.

In addition, he became part of a smallpox commission set up in March 1850. Both variolation and vaccination against smallpox were used in India until 1850, when vaccination became the approved method by the smallpox commission. Gupta stated that an initial prejudice against vaccination had been overcome over the years and commended the Native vaccinators.

More translations

He translated the London pharmacopoeia of 1836 in Bengali, the Aushadh Kalpabali. This book gave "with the English, Latin and names the mode of preparation of Acids, Alkalis, Confections, Decoctions, Plasters, Infusions, Linimentts, Metals, Pills, Powders, Syrups, Tinctures, Ointments".

His skill and comprehension of the medical Shastras and familiarity and knowledge of Western science rendered him a reliable and invaluable aid when translating Hindu medical text.[28] T. A. Wise was one such medical officer and translator who was guided by Gupta.[29] Wise had translated Susruta's account of the types and usages of leeches. Gupta had, in addition, contributed a note on the medical uses of leeches in the Bengal Dispensatory.[30]

Death

He developed diabetes mellitus and following a dissection, contracted an infection which led to gangrene of his hands. He subsequently died of septicaemia on 15 November 1856.

Selected publications

Anatomy arthat Sharir Vidya in Bengali
Translated London Pharmacopoeia in Bengali
Translated Anatomist Vade Mecum in Sanskrit
Chikista Sangraha.
First printed edition of the Sushruta Samhita (2 vols, Calcutta 1835, 1836)

Source: Wikipedia

Image:
Madhusudhan Gupta
Oil painting by S.C. Belnos, wife of Jean Jacques Belnos, presented to Medical College by Drinkwater Bethune in 1850.

The Susruta Samhita or The Hindu System of Medicine according to Susruta

Translated from the original in Sanskrit by Dr. A.F.R. Hoernle
Published by The Asiatice Society, Calcutta -1897
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The Sushruta Samhita is one of the most important surviving ancient treatises on medicine and is considered a foundational text of Ayurveda.The treatise addresses all aspects of general medicine, but the translator G. D. Singhal dubbed Suśruta "the father of surgery" on account of the detailed accounts of surgery to be found in the work.
The Compendium of Suśruta locates its author in Varanasi.
The early scholar Rudolf Hoernle proposed that some concepts from the Suśruta-saṃhitā could be found in the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa, which he dates to the sixth century BCE, and this dating is still often repeated. However, during the last century, scholarship on the history of Indian medical literature has advanced substantially, and firm evidence has accumulated that the Suśruta-saṃhitā is a work of several historical layers.

Its composition may have begun in the last centuries BCE and it was completed in its present form by another author who redacted its first five chapters and added the long, final chapter, the "Uttaratantra." It is likely that the Suśruta-saṃhitā was known to the scholar Dṛḍhabala (fl. 300–500 CE), which gives the latest date for the version of the work that has come down to us today. It has also become clear through historical research that there are several ancient authors called "Suśruta" who might be conflated.
The Mahābhārata lists Suśruta amongst the sons of Viśvāmitra, the legendary sage. The same connection with Viśvāmitra is also made in the Suśruta-saṃhitā itself. The name Suśruta appears in later literature in the Bower Manuscript (sixth century CE), where Suśruta is listed as one of the ten sages residing in the Himalayas.
The Suśruta-saṃhitā, in its extant form, in 184 chapters contains descriptions of 1,120 illnesses, 700 medicinal plants, 64 preparations from mineral sources and 57 preparations based on animal sources.

The text discusses surgical techniques of making: 
incisions,
probing,
extraction of foreign bodies,
alkali and thermal cauterization,
tooth extraction,
excisions,
and trocars for draining abscess,
draining hydrocele and ascitic fluid,
removal of the prostate gland, urethral stricture dilatation, vesicolithotomy,
hernia surgery,
caesarian section,
management of haemorrhoids,
fistulae, laparotomy and management of intestinal obstruction, perforated intestines and accidental perforation of the abdomen with protrusion of omentum and the principles of fracture management, viz., traction,
manipulation,
apposition and stabilization including some measures of rehabilitation and fitting of prosthetic.

It enumerates six types of dislocations, twelve varieties of fractures, and classification of the bones and their reaction to the injuries, and gives a classification of eye diseases including cataract surgery.
- Wikipedia
Rare Book Society 

Hatha Yoga or Yogi Philosophy of Physical Well-Being 
By Yogi Ramacharaka
​
Published by Yogi Publication Society, Chicago - 1904

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WHO WAS YOGI RAMACHARAKA?:
William Walker Atkinson (1862-1932)

And in the home of the novelist 
There is a satin-like bow on an harp. 
You enter and pass hall after hall, 
Conservatory follows conservatory, 
Lilies lift their white symbolical cups, 
Whence their symbolical pollen has been excerpted, 
Near them I noticed an harp 
And the blue satin ribbon, 
And the copy of “Hatha Yoga.” 

–Ezra Pound, from “Moeurs Contemporaines V” (1919) 

Hatha Yoga is an actual book, not a product of the poet’s imagination. I can say this with confidence because I have a copy, bought at a used book store for $15. Sub-titled The Yogi Philosophy of Physical Well-Being, it was first published, remarkably enough, in 1904, one of the first–if not the first–books written about Hatha Yoga in English for a popular audience.

The title page attributes the work to a Yogi Ramacharaka who, from 1903 and 1909, churned out 14 books, all of which are still available either in print or on line–on subjects ranging from Hindu philosophy and yoga to Oriental occultism, mystic Christianity, life after death and reincarnation, and the “science of psychic healing.”

Who was Yogi Ramacharaka? His publisher, the Yogi Publication Society (YPS), which in the early 1900s was headquartered in Chicago, tells the following story about him. Born in India around 1799, YR like several of the seekers in this book ventured out early in life to hunt for the Truth.

He spent many years trudging back and forth across “the East,” fasting, meditating, and digging through the libraries of countless lamaseries and monasteries. Around 1865, after having passed what must have been a good 40 years on his quest, YR finally discovered the unnamed “basis for his philosophy.” At about the same time, he acquired a student, the eight-year-old son of a Brahmin family, who we know as Baba Bharata. YR then resumed his peripatetic ways, retracing the steps of his life’s journey, this time with little Baba in tow. 

We next hear about the wanderers almost 30 years later, in 1893. Now 94, and sensing that he would soon shuffle off his mortal coil, YR deputized Baba to spread his teaching near and far. You may recall that in that year, the WPR convened in Chicago as part of the World’s Fair.

Baba realized that such a gathering would make the perfect bully pulpit, so off he went to the US. His appearance at the Parliament was, according to the YPS, an “instant success.” He lectured before enthusiastic audiences from all parts of the world who were visiting the Fair, attracting a considerable following in the process. Many wished him to start a new religion–but he felt only the urge to write about YR and his teaching.

While he might have been an effective, even charismatic speaker, Baba wasn’t much of a writer. Fortunately he met one William Walker Atkinson, described as an “English author,” and despite their divergent backgrounds, they apparently recognized in each other a fellow traveler. They agreed to pool their talents and write books, Baba contributing his guru’s hard-earned wisdom, Atkinson his talent with words. It seemed only proper that they signed their joint efforts “YR.”

It’s a touching tale but with a big hole that’s hard to plug: there’s absolutely no record that a Baba Bharata addressed the Parliament, though as we know Baba Premananda Bharati with-a-final-“i” arrived in New York City around 1902.

Some people have jumped to the conclusion that, just because the story doesn’t exactly add up, Baba was only a figment of someone’s vivid imagination. Though we can’t say for sure this is the case, it does seem likely, and this in turn leads us to surmise that, lacking any concrete evidence to the contrary, YR was a made-up character too. So if these two gentlemen were fictitious, who wrote those 14 books? 

The only name left standing from the YPS story is the ghost writer, “English author” William Walker Atkinson, who was both a real person and an author. But why the YPS called him English is a mystery–maybe what they meant is that he wrote in English–because Atkinson was born and raised in Baltimore.

Around 1890 he’d become a successful businessman and lawyer, but success as it still often does today took a toll. In his late 20s or early 30s (it’s not clear exactly when), he experienced some kind of debilitating breakdown (what exactly happened isn’t spelled out, but it seems he suffered what we would call “professional burnout”) and financial ruination. 

In those far-off days before the ready availability of sympathetic though pricey therapists and mood-altering drugs, Atkinson decided to take the proverbial bull by the horns.

He pulled himself out of his funk with the help of techniques he learned from a popular self-help movement known variously as New Thought, Mental Science, Mind Cure, the Boston Craze, and Practical Christianity. Eager to join and help promote the vehicle of his miraculously restored physical, psychic, and financial health, Atkinson moved to the ground zero of NT activity, Chicago, sometime in the late 1890s. 

It didn’t take long for him to hop aboard the bandwagon. By 1900 he was an associate editor of a NT magazine, Suggestion, and had published his first book, Thought-Force in Business and Everyday Life. Technically Atkinson was responsible for nearly 40 books (he also co-wrote another 20), which nowadays would be shelved in the self-help, New Age or occult, or business sections of the bigger national chain stores, probably with a packaged CD or video.

His interests were eclectic, to say the least, and most of us would agree somewhat out of the ordinary, unless your usual reading fare includes books about personal magnetism and the “magnetic gaze,” telepathy, “practical” mental influence and mind reading, “practical” psychic training–an umbrella term that covers psychometry (the technique of divining information about people or events related to an object solely by touching or being close to it), intuition, clairvoyance, psychomancy (divination with the help of spirits), and crystal gazing–the “science of observing, remembering and recalling,” self-healing by “thought force,” the “art” of logical thinking and the psychology of salesmanship, and the ever popular reincarnation and the “law of karma.”

Incidentally, Atkinson’s 1906 book, Thought Vibration or The Law of Attraction in the Thought World, was a major inspiration for the 2006 movie, The Secret. 

I used the word “technically” above because Atkinson also wrote another 40 or so books disguised, in some cases effectively, in others poorly, with one of a half-dozen pseudonyms (that we know about). He wrote about a dozen books, for example, as the renowned master of the art and science of Personal Magnetism, Parisian Theron Q. Dumont.

The story here is that Theron wrote in “stilted guidebook English,” which he humbly admits in the opening chapter to The Art and Science of Personal Magnetism (1913), and gratefully acknowledges an American student, identified only as Mr. L. N. D., for transforming his work into idiomatic, American “man on the street” English.

But Theron was no one-trick pony: he also wrote about developing concentration and mental power and efficiency, memory training, mental therapeutics, or “Just How to Heal Oneself and Others,” the theory and practice of “character reading,” successful salesmanship, and most interesting for yogis, The Solar Plexus or Abdominal Brain, one of four brains–and you thought we only have one–in the human body. 

By now you’ve probably guessed that Atkinson was our mysterious Yogi Ramacharaka. We then might wonder: Why go through all the trouble to pretend to be writing for a non-existent person?

One possible reason is that Atkinson felt books ostensibly about Indian philosophy and yoga would gain credence with his readers if they thought they were written by a yogi. The strange thing is that several of his later books had almost nothing to do with yoga.

The Science of Psychic Healing (1909), for example, an odd “sequel” to the earlier Hatha Yoga, is a “plain, simple, practical presenation of the various forms of Psychic Healing,” [9] including Pranic Healing, Thought-Force Healing, and Spiritual Healing.

Then there’s Mystic Christianity or The Inner Teachings of the Master (1908), a re-telling of the Jesus legend and an account of the occult teachings of the early Christian church. , it’s only connection to yoga being its advocacy of the Jesus-goes-to-India hypothesis to account for the so-called “lost years.” 

This latter book and several others started out as monthly instalments or lessons of a correspondence course which, after a year, were collected and issued in a single volume. So we find titles like Fourteen Lessons in Yogi Philosophy and Oriental Occultism (1903), its Advanced Course (1904) companion, and A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga (1906), the same in Gnani Yoga (1906).

It appears that Atkinson acquired a taste for Indian philosophy around the time he moved to Chicago, undoubtedly through his association with New Thought, which was heavily influenced by what today is called Neo-Vedanta.

Some YR aficionados believe Atkinson was tutored in the finer points of Indian philosophy by Baba Bharati, or that he traveled to India and studied with YR, neither of which seems likely. Others believe that Atkinson’s “Baba” was Swami Vivekananda, and while the two might have been in the same general vicinity in Chicago or Baltimore, there’s no concrete evidence that the two ever met or corresponded.

One other possible teacher who I’ve never seen mentioned before is an Indian scholar by the name of Manilal Dvivedi who, like Vivekananda was a delegate to the 1893 World Parliament.

In the Preface to The Spirit of the Upanishads (1907) YR “acknowledges his appreciation of the work of Dr. Manil N. Dvivedi ... the original translator” [5] of many of the approximately 420 aphorisms.

​ I wasn’t able to find out anything more about this relationship, if that’s the right word, and we probably will never know if Atkinson had a live tutor. 

Read more: https://bit.ly/2VIV59x

Image:

A Hindu Yogi - mid 19th century
Watercolour
Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Rare Book Society

An Interpretation Of Ancient Hindu Medicine 

By Chandra Chakraberty 
​
Published by Ramachandra Chakraberty, Calcutta - 1923
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Book Summary:
Chandra Chakraberty, an acknowledged authority of Ayurveda or Hindu medicine, offers in this well writen and well-researched treatise an interpretation of the salient principles of, Hindu medicine, based upon Charaka and Sushruta in modern terminology.

A modern student of Hindu medicine has no other choice but to depend on books that are written in English. To such students Chakraberty's book is addressed. An Interpretation of Ancient Hindu Medicine is a complete book about Hindu Medicine is a complete book about Hindu medicine.

Organized into five chapters, each chapter discusses and explains one particular branch of Hindu medicine. A reader can acquire all that he should know about Hindu medicine from this single book.

Image:

Vaidyas Mixing Ayurvedic Herbs

Source: https://bit.ly/2Vq7e4x
​Rare Book Society

Some Notes on Indian Artistic Anatomy
By Abanindranath Tagore (1871-1951)
Published by Indian Society of Oriental Art - 1914
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"Originally appeared in Bengali in the 'Prabasi' (Pous and Magh 1320) and has now been translated by Mr. Sukumar Ray and is reprinted from The Modern Review."
Image:
The artist's family
1905-15
Painted by Abanindranath Tagore
Bengal, India 1871 – 1951
Bengal School of Art
Abanindranath Tagore established the Indian Society of Oriental Art 1907. Considered the founder of the Bengal school of art, he sought to modernise Indian painting and counter the influence of Western art. Following the visit by a group of Japanese artists to India, Tagore became interested in the contemporary ideals of Japanese art and experimented with traditional Japanese techniques. The artist’s family synthesises the compositional structure of Mughal miniature painting with Japanese woodblock printing and colour-wash techniques.
Image and text credit:
© National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

​Rare Book Society