maggi 2003, ronald erik emmerick and the siddhasāra – khotanese, iranian and oriental studies

7/28/2019 MAGGI 2003, Ronald Erik Emmerick and the Siddhasra Khotanese, Iranian and Oriental Studies

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TRADITIONAL

SOUTH ASIAN

MEDICINE

Founded by Rahul Peter Das and Ronald Eric Emmerick (t)

Edited by Rahul Peter Das

VOLUME 7

2003


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Ronald Eric Emmerick and the Siddhasiira:

Khotanese, Iranian and Oriental Studies *

The chosen field of research of Ronald Eric Emmerick was Khotanese, the

Eastern M iddle Iranian language used in the first millennium in the Buddhist

kingdom ofKhotan on the southern branch of the Silk Route in the present-day

Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. He

had not yet heard of this language when in Sydney, at the age of22, he read the

inaugural lecture delivered in 1938 by the scholar who was to become his

teacher. The reading made him so enthusiastic that he decided to study Khotan-

ese with Harold W. Bailey at Cambridge University. ITo the elucidation of the

Khotanese language and texts Emm erick was to devote the best part ofhis life

and research activity.

After having been instructed in Imnian and Indian studies by Bailey, in the

years 1963-1965 he wrote his doctoral dissertation entitled Indo-Iranian Stud-

ies: SaIra Grammar, that was subsequently revised and enlarged, and published

under the title Saka Grammatical Studies, a milestone in Khotanese and Iranian

This is the revised version of a speech I delivered at the Akademische Gedenlrfeier zu Eh-

re n V01l Prof. Dr. Ronald E. Emmerick (9. Man 1937 - 31. August 2001), at the W arburg-Haus

in Hamburg on the 14th of December, 2001. It sc:cmcdappropriate to me to deal, on that occa-

sion, with the work devoted by Ronald Emmerick to the study of the SiddhaslIra and connec-

ted rcscaroh themes, not only because that work resulted in many ground-breaking publications

- three books ind some forty articles corresponding to more than four hundred printed pages

- but also because presenting Emmcrick's work on the SiddhaslIra and other medical texts

made itpossib le to give an idea of his way of doing things. - I am glad to have bee n able to

contribute to honouring the memory ofProfcssor Emmcrick and thus to return, in a small way,

the atIad:ioo and encouragement I received from him, as a teacher and friend, in the ten years

or so that have elapsed since we met for the first time in Venice in 1990 on the occasion of a

conference that I attended as a graduate student of the Istituto Universitario Orientale of

Na ples.

ISee p. 327 (with note 37) of Ronald Eric Emmerick, 'Harold Walter Bailey, 1899-1996',

Proceedings o/the British Academy 101 (=1998 Lectures an d Memoirs) (1999): 309-349.


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studies on account of its thoroughness.:ZT he work w as based on the reading of

a large number of Old and Late Khotanese texts including, in particular, a fresh

close study of the so-called Book ofZambasta, the largest extant Old Khotan-

ese text, which bad been edited and translated more than thirty years before by

Ernst Leumann.3 In fact, in order to provide a firm basis for the grammatical

study of the Khotanese language, the interpretat ion of the text needed to be

brou gh t up to da te an d co mpleted in the lig ht of the ad va nc es in the kn ow ledg e

of Khotanese and of the nineteen newly published folios and folio fragments

of the main manuscript of the Book ofZambasta.4 Research on this text was

carried out jointly by Emm erick and Bailey and their collaboration resulted in

Bailey's treatment of the vocabulary and in Emm erick's new edition and trans-

lation of the text 5

In subsequent years, Em merick was to edit and translate the extant portions

of the Old Khotanese Sarangamasamiidisutra, and two other substantial Old

Khotanese texts - the Suvan.za/Jhiisottamasutra and the Sanghiitasutra - were

to be inteIpreted in detail by Prods Oktor Skja:rvs and Giotto Canevascini res-

pe ctively, bo th of who m mad e fu ll use of su gg es tio ns mad e by Emmerick him-

2 RoE.Emmerick. SaIaJ Grammatical Studies. London: Oxford University Press 1968 (Lon-

don Oriental Series 20).

3 Ernst Leumann, Dos nordarische (saJrische)Lehrgedicht des Buddhismus. Text rmd Oberset-

zung. ADs dcm NacbJaB haausgegeben vo n Maou I .amwm Leipzig : F .A. Broc:kbaus 1933-1936

(reprint Ncndeln: Kraus Reprint (966) (Abbaodlungcn f iir die Kunde des Morgcnlandes 20).

4V.S. Vorob'ev-Desjatovskij and M. I. Vorob'eva-Desjatovskaja, Skaztmie 0Bhadre (Nov-

ye listy MlIrslroj rulropl3i 'E'). Fabimile td:rta, transkripcij40 penvod. prediJ/ovie. vstupitelna-

ja stat'j4oparij i prilo%enie.Moskva: Izdatel'stvo Nauka 1965 (pamjatniki pis'mennosti

Vostoka 1).

5 H.W. Bailey, lndo-Scythian Studies. Being Khotanese Tem. Volume VI: Prolexis to the

B oo k o/ Za m bo st a. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1967; RoE. Emmerick, The Booko/ZiurIIxMta . .4 Khotonese Poem on"Buddhism. London: Oxford University Press 1968 (Lon-

don Or ien ta l Series 21). Cf . RoE. Emmcrick , 'The Wme New Fragments f rom the Book of

lambesta', Asia Major N.S . 12,2 (1966): 148-178; R.E. Emmcrick , 'Notes on the ' 'Ta lc of

Bhadra"', BuJlin o/the School o/Oriental and African Studies 30 (1967): 83-94; RoE. Emmc-

r ick , 'Thelen New Folios ofKhotancse',biaMqiorN.S. 13,1-2 (1967): 147; R. E. Emmc-

rick, 'Notes on The Booko/Zambasta',JOU11IIlJ o/ the Royal Asiatic Society 1969: 5974.


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self.6But, at the time of his grammatical studies, those texts and such extensive

Late Khotanese texts as the MaiijuirinairatmyavatarasQtra and the medical

texts Siddhasiira and JlvalaJpustalaJ had still not been translated. Since the in-

terpretation of non-bilingual texts in Late Khotanese presents considerable

difficulty due to 'the ambiguity of the truncated words in Late Khotanese, the

tendency of the inflections to evaporate in the later stages of the language, the

wide variety of acceptable spellings, and the philological problems presented

by havin g to deal in many cases with hasti ly written copies contain ing omis-sions and repetitions as well as misreadings of earlier copies' .' the best starting

point were texts with know n originals, among which was the SiddhasiIra, the

nature of which also ensured an exceptionally large vocabulary content. Ac-

cordingly, Emmerick decided to provide a thorough investigation and interpre-

tation of the Khotanese Siddhasiira, a research work that - be it said parentheti-

cally -led him to follow the traces of this treatise even in Arabic literature.'

Khotanese medical texts - the SiddhasiIra, the so-called Jivakapustaka and

a number of fragmentary texts - all belong to the Indian i1yurvedic tradition.

The S8Dskrit original of the SiddhasiIra was composed by Ravigupta around

650 C.B. as has been suggested by Emmerlck.9

The Khotanese version of theSiddhasilra dates presumably from the tenth century. It is contained in 64 of tile

6 RoB. Emmerick, The Khotanese Silrangamasam4dhisiltrtJ. London: O xford Universi ty

PraIs 1970 (Loodon Oric:atal Series 23); Prods O ktor Skjavl/J, The Khotanese ~ot-

tIl1rItUQtra. Habilitation thesis in three parts, MaiDZ 1983 (to be published shortly); Giotto Ca-

DCVISCini, 77reKhotanese Saiagluffasatra. A Critical Edition. Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert

Verlag 1993 (Beitrige zur Iranistik 14).

7 R.E. Emmerick, 'The Confession of Acts ' , in: Varia 1976. Leiden: EJ. Bri ll 1971 (Acta

lranica 12), pp. 87-115; see p. 87.. R.B. Bmmerick, 'Ravigupta's Siddhasira in Arabic' , in: Hans R. Roemer and A lbrecht

Notb (eds.), Studlenzur Geschichte und KullUrdes Vorderen Orisnts. Festschrlftfi1r Bertold

Spuler zum siebzigsten Geburtstag. Leiden: E.l. Brill 1981, pp . 28-31.

9See LE. ~ck, 'Ravigupta 's Place in Indian M edical Tradi tion '. Ind%gica Taurl-

nensia 3-4 (1975-1976): 209-221; cf. D. Wujastyk. 'Ravigupta and Vlgbbata'. Bulletirt of the

School of Oriental GIldAfri ca n Studies 48 (1985): 74-78 (with 1 plate).


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65 folios forming a Dunhuang manuscript of the Bri tish Library (Cb i i 002; f.

100 contains a different medical text). A variant of if. 5-14 ( 1.25-2.32) is pr0-

vided by another Dunhuang manuscript that is kept in the Bibliotheque Nationale

de France (P 2892). Of the original tbirty-one chapters, ten chapters are entirely

extantandftvechapters are preserved in part (1, 2, 3.0-26.12,13.27-51,14,15.1

an d 15-23, 18.53-57, 19,20,21,22, 23,24,25,26.0-68 an d 75-90).

Though Emm erick's interest in the Siddhoslira, which dated from the time of

his grammatical studies, was directed chiefly towards the Khotanese version, it

was evident that 'the key to a proper understanding of the Khotanese version liesin large part in the con:ect intetpit:tation o f the Sanskrit original and of its Tibetan

rendering, both of which were used by the Khotanese translator' .10 Thus, work

on the Siddhosil:ra opened up for Emmerick a new research subject: Indian and

Tibetan medicine. By 1971, the year ofhis appointment at Hamburg University,

he 'had comple1ed a preliminaIy 1IaDS lationof the Khotanese version, a transcrip-

t ion of the complete Tibetan version on the basis of the Derge, Narthang, and

Peking editions, and a transcription of the whole of the Sanskrit text on the basis

of the two incomplete manuscripts A and B' knoWn at that time. 1 I The progress

made by him towinIs the understanding of the Sanskrit text corresponding to the

extant parts of the Khotanese version was presented by him in 1971 in a detailedarticle that he published in anticipation of the complete edition of the text and 'in

view of possible delays due to the discovery ofuseful ancillary inateriaI' .12 In the

same year Em merick also published an article on the second chapter of the Sid-

dhas6ra dealing with the groups of dmgs, which exemplified how the under-

standing of one iyurvedic text can be improved by a comparative approach that

takes into account the other Indian medical texts.13

10 R.E. Emmenck, The SidtJluuilra ofRaviguptll . Volume 1: The Sanskrit Text . Wiesbadcn:

FI'8DZSteiner V crIag 1980 (Verzeichnis dcr orientaliscben Handscbriften in Deutschland, Sup-

p lC ID C D tb an d 23,1), p . VIl.

IIIbid.

12 R.E. Emmerick, 'The Sanskrit Text oftbc SiddhasIra', Bullet in ojthe School ojOrienl lJ1

and A[riCQII Studies 34 (1971): 91-112; see p. 93.

13 R .E . Emmerick, '00 Ravigupta 'sg~t ,Bul le tin o f the School o jOr lenll J l and.4.frican


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As for the Khotanese Siddhas6ra, a short article dealing with 21.2 was

published by Em merick in the same year. It demonstrates , on the basis of a

careful consideration of the Sanskrit manuscript tradition and of the Tibetan

and Khotanese translations, that the corresponding Sanskrit passage is in need

of emendation, that the supposed Khotanese word agane is in reality a ghost-

word due to wrong division of words (aga 'limbs' and ne 'not'), and that the

Khotanese verb ahalj- does not mean 'to contract' , but 'to control' .14 This mas-

terful article evidenced the progress that was made possible by the joint study

of the three versions of the text. It may be mentioned that the subsequent dis-

covery by Emmerick, in 1973, of three further Nepalese manuscripts of the Sid-

dhasiJra as a result of the activities of the Nepal-German Manuscript Preserva-

tion Project lent some support to his suggested emendation of the Sanskrit pas-

sage," and that the emendation was eventually confirmed by the discovery,

some twenty years later, of two manuscripts of a Sinhalese commentary on the

Sanskrit text of the Siddhasiira by Jinadasa Liyanaratne.16

On the three new Sanskrit manuscripts (C, of which B is a direct copy, D

and E) Emmerick wrote a preliminary report in 1974.17 The discovery of those

manuscripts caused postponement of the edition of the Sanskrit Siddhasara,

Studies 34 (1971): 363-375; cf. also Emmerick, op.cit. in note 9, and Ronald E. Emmcrick,

'Some Emendations to the Text ofRavigupta's SiddJuu6ra', in: Wolfgang Morgenroth (cd.),

Sanskrit tu U 1 World Culture. Proceedings of the 4th W orld Sanskrit Conference of the Intona-

tional Association of Sanskrit Studies. Weimar. May 13-30, 1979. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag

1986 (Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur des Alten Orients 18), pp. 579-586.

14 R.E. Emmerick, 'Agane No More', Transactions of the Philological Society 1970

[1971]: 115-120; et: Emmerick in R.E. Emmerick and P.O. Sigave, Studies in the Vocabulary

o fKlwtanese, 1 . Wicn: Verlag dcr Ostemichiscbcn Akademie der Wissenschaftcn 1982 (Vcr-

61fcnt1ichungcn dcr iranischcn Kommission 12), pp. 25-27.

IS See R.E. Emmerick, 'Tetanus', Transactions of the Philological Society 1974: 93-97.

16 Jinadasa Liyanarable, 'Ravigupta's Siddhas6ra: New Light from the Sinhala Version',

Jo ur na l o/ th e Eu ro pe an Ay ru ve di c So ci et y 1 (1990): 69-84; see p. 75.

17 R.E. Emmerick, 'New Light on the Siddhas5ra'. Bulletin o/the School of Oriental and

Af ri ca n St ud ies 37 (1974): 628-654.


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bu t, at last , th e pub lica tion of th e cr it ic al ed it io n of th e San sk rit te xt in 198 0

and of the critical edition and translation of the Tibetan text in 1982 as supple-

mentary volumes of the series Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschrif ten in

D eu tsch la nd crowned his wmk on the Sanskrit original and on the Tibetan ver-

sion.11 Emmerick's edition of the Sanskrit text could also make use of a manu-

script from South India (M ) that he received when the 'edition based on the five

N ep ales e M SS ha d bee n su bmit te d fo r pu blica tion, .1 9 The tw o volum es w ere

most aptly descnDed by Dominik Wujastyk as 'one of the most exciting recent

developments in the study of Indian m edicine'.20 The identification of a furtherSanskrit manuscript (F) in Kyoto in 1983 bad no consequences on the established

text, since it is a copy of the N epalese manuscript 8 a1readyused for the edition,21

whereas independent evidence concerning the textual tradition was eventually

pro vi de d by th e afor em en tion ed disco very of th e Si nh ales e co m men tary .2 2

In an article that appeared only in 1986 but was written before the publica-

tion of the critical edition of the Sanskrit text, Emm erick enW lciated the prin-

ciples that should ideally inspire research on Indian medical literature that he

regarded as 'the reflection of a coherent tradition of medical lore so that no one

text should be studied in isolation from the rest of the tradition'. 23He under-

lined the need to have recourse to the manuscripts, and for reliable text editionsprepared ac co rd in g to th e ca no ns of textu al cr it ic is m, as w el l as fo r in de xe s en -

abling quick comparison of lyurvedic texts. He did not state such principles

\IEmmerick, op.ciL in note 10; R.E. Emmerick, The Slddhasllra ofRJZvigupta. Volume II:

The TibetaIl Version with Facing ElIgli3h Tran.rltmoll. Wiesbadcn: Franz Steiner Verlag 1982

(Verzeicbnis dcr oricntalischcn Handschriftcn in Deutscbland, Supplcmcntband 23,2).

19 Emmerick, op.ciL in note 10, p. 5.

20 Wujastyk, op.ciL in note 9, p. 75.

21 Ronald E. Etmncrick, 'A Note on the Kyoto Siddhasira Manuscript ', Studien zur Indolo-

gie und Iralli3ti1c IS (1989): 147-149.

22 See LiyaDaratne, op.ciL in note 16; cf. Jinadasa Liyauaratne, 'The Literary Heritage of

Sri Lanka (A Case for the Preservation of Palm-lcaf Manuscripts)' , Studie7l zur Indolo~ ulld

Irani3 ti1c IS (1989): 119-127; see pp. 123f., with note 22.

23 ~erick, 'Some Emendat ions . .. ' (op.ciL in note 13), p. 580.


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vaguely, but listed succinctly and neatly three operations that summarised the

large amount of work to be done: ' I. collect ion and cataloguing of al l extant

Sanskrit medical M SS; 2. indexation of all texts based on preliminary editions;

3. editions of individual texts prepared with the help of the tools provided by

the first two operations'. 24 In that article, continuing the exemplifi.cation he had

be gu n with the ar tic le 'O n Rav igup ta 's g a r .uzs ' , he then discussed passages of

the SiddhlIsara where the text could be definitely established with the help of

corresponding passages of the main ayurvedic authorities.

These principles he applied not only to the identification of items of the In-dian materia medica25 or to the discussion of single themes,26 but also put into

prac tic e on a gran d sc ale. Thu s, as a re su lt of a re se ar ch proj ec t fu nd ed from

1982 to 1992 by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and carried out with the

assistance ofRahul Peter Das (and other researchers), a consolidated database

was produced, which provides a cumulative line index to the three main ayur-

vedic authorities - the SuaTUtostl1!'hita, th e Cara1lsa",Jrita, and Vigbhata 's AI-

fDilgah fdayasQ 1! Jh ita an d Allii1igasmigraha - as well as to Ravigupta's Siddha-

s6ra. From this 'it is possible to prepare individual line indexes for each of the

texts, from.these again individual word indexes, reverse word indexes, and re-

constituted texts, and, final ly, a cumulative word index and a cumulative re-verse word index'.27 In 1998, the romanised text ofa preliminary edit ion of

24 /bid.

2S Se e RE. Emmerick, 'A propos Sanskrit malakanda', Journal of the Royal Asiatic Soci-

et y 1974: 42f .; Ronald E. Emmcrick, 'Arsenic and Sida' , in: G. M azars (eel.), Les mblecines

tradltioneUes de I 'Asie. Acta du colloque de Paris. 11-12ju in 1979. Strasbourg: Universit6

Louis Pasteur 1981, pp. 93-99.

26 R.E. Emmerick, 'Some Remarks on the History O f Leprosy in India' , Indologica Taun-

nensia 12 (- Proceedings of the Scandinavian Confenmce-Seminar of Indological Studies

(Stockholm. June Isf-5th. 1982)(1984): 93-105; Roua ldE. Emmcrick , 'Die Lcpra in Indico ',

in : Jam Henning Wolf (ed.), Aussatz. Lepra. Hansen-Krtmlr:heit. Em Menschheitsproblem 1m

WandeL Tell 0: Auftatze. Wtbzburg: Dcutschcs Aussitzigcn-Hilfswcrk 1986, pp. 185-199.

27 Rabul Peter Das and Ronald Eric Emmcrick. Vilgbha{a's ~(6iagahrdayas"",hitil. The

romanised text accompanied by line and word indexes. Groningcn: Egbert Forsten 1998 (Oro-


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Vigbhata's ~1angahrdayasil1{lhitii accompanied by line and word indexes was

pu bl ishe d in bo ok fo rm by Das an d Em mer ick. 28

In the sixti~, the need for historical information on Khotan prompted Emm e-

rick's research on the available Tibetan chronicles dealing with the history of

Khotan, a work w hich, paradoxically enough, resulted in a Tibetoiogical work

be ing the fi rs t pu bl ishe d bo ok , an d on e of the firs t pu bl icat io ns al toge ther , of the

then young scholar of Iranian. 29 In the light of this beginning and ofhis subse-

quent research, it is not surprising that Ernmerick was not satisfied with devoting

a couple of articles to problem words occurring in the Tibetan Siddhasiira,3Obu tinvested some solid worlcin the study and interpretation of the Rgyud bzhi ('The

Four Tantras'), the classical handbook of Tibetan medicine that, as Emmerick has

shown, has Vlgbhata's ~1Qrigahrdayasil1{lhitii among its sources.31 Thus, he

translated some excerpts32 and three whole chapters from the Rgyud bzhi,33 an d

Dingen Oriental Studies 13), p. ix .

28 Op.ciL in note 27.

29 R.E. Emmcrick, Tibetan Texts Concerning Khotan. London: Oxford U niversity Press

1967 (London Oriental Series 19).

30 RoE. Emmcrick, 'Some Lexical I tems from the SiddhaslJra' , in: Ernst Steinkellner and

Helmut Tauscher (ed.), Proceedings o/the Csoma de KtirOs Symposium held at Velm- Y"Je1I1UJ,

AI I8 tr lIJ. 13-19 September 1981. Vol. 1: Contributions on Tibetan Language, History tmd Cul-

ture. Wien: Arbeits laeis fUrTibetologie und Buddhistiscbe Studien 1983 (Wiener Studien zur

Tibetologie unc i Buddbismuskundc 10), pp. 61-68; RoE. Emmerick, 'Tibetan Lexical N otes' ,

in: Louis Ligeti (eel.), TIbetan and Buddhist Studies Commemorating the 200th Anniversary

o/the Birth of Alextmtler Csoma de K6iis. YoL 1, Budapest: A kadimiai KiadO 1984 (Bibliothe-

ca Oricntalis Hungarica 29,1), pp. 207-210.

31 RoE. Emmerick, 'Sources of the Rgyud-bZi', in: Wolfgang Voigt (ed.), XIX. Deutscher

OrientalistenttJg vom 28. September bis 4. Olctober 1975 in Frelburg in Breisgau. Vortrtige.

Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag 1977 (Zeitscbrift der Dcutschen M orgenIindischen GeseU-

schaft. Supplement 3,2), pp. 1135-1142.

32 RoE.Emm erick, 'M i-chos ', in: Ludwilc Sternbach Felicitation Volume. Lucknow: Akhila

Bharatiya Sanskrit Parishad 1981, pp. 883-885; R.E. Emmerick, 'Some Remarks on Tibetan

Sphygmology ', in : G. lan M eulenbcld (ed.), Panels of the YIIth World Sanskrit Conference,

Kern Institute, Leiden. AUgust 23-29, 1987. Vo L v m . MediJ:aI Literature from India, SrI Lanhz


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wrote two further lexicological articles on words occurring in the work, 34 as well

as an article on some Tibetan medical tankas dlat illustrate it.35

In the case ofKhotanese medical texts too, Emmerick did not confine him-

self to the Siddhasfira but paid attention also to the other largely extant Late

Khotanese medical text, the so-called Jivalcapusta1ca. This is preserved in one

Dunhuang manuscript of the British Library (Ch ii 003) presumably dating

from the tenth century, and is said to be the teaching of the Buddha to the phy-

sician Jivaka. T he work is an otherwise unknown collection of prescriptions

taken from various texts and organised by type of preparations in four comple-

mentary chapters introduced by the Sanskrit auspicious formula siddham 'suc-

cess'. The text is bilingual and alternates Sanskrit and Khotanese sentence by

sentence in the first chapter, and paragraph by paragraph in the three other

chapters. Emmerick succeeded in identifying, in other Indian medical texts,

twenty-nine of the ninety-three prescriptions the text contains - fifteen of which

are taken from the Siddhasara -, and in determining the relative value of meas-

ures occurring in it.36 He also rediscovered the work already done by August

and Tibet. Leiden etc.: EJ. Brill 1991, pp. 66-72.

33 R.E. Emm erick, 'AChapter from the Rgyud-bZi', Asia Major 19,2 (1975): 141-162; RE.

Emmcrick, 'Epilepsy according to the Rgyud-bii', in: G. Jan Mculcnbcld and Dominik Wujas-

tyk (cds.), Studies on Indian Medical KlStory. Papenpr es en ted at th e In tern at iona l JlYo rlr :3h op

on the Study of Indian Medicine held at the Wellcome Instl tutefor the History of Medicine. 2-4

September 1985. Groningcn: Egbert Forsten 1987 (Groningco Oriental Studies 2), pp. 63-90;

RE. Emmcrick, 'Rgas-pa gso-ba', in: Tadcusz Skorupski (cd.), Indo-Tibetan Studies. Papers

in Ho1lOU1'and Appreciation of Professor David L. Snellgrove:S Contribution to Indo-Tlbetlm

Studies. Tring: Institute of Buddhist Studies 1990 (Buddhica Britannica, Series Continua 2),

pp. 89- 99.

34 RoE.Emmcrick, 'Some Lcxicalltems from the Rgyud-bii', in: Louis Ligcti (cd.), Pr0-

ceedings o f the Csoma de K6iis Memorial Symposium held at MIltra}iired. HlUlgary. 24-30September 1976. Budapest: AkadmUai Kiad6 1978, pp. 101-108; RE. Emmcrick, 'Tibetan

nor-ra-re', Bulletin of the School ofOrlenttl l and A.frican Studies SI (1988): S37-539.

35 RoE. Emmcrick, 'Some Tibetan Medical Tankas', Bulletin ofTibet%gy 1993: 56-78

(with 12 platcs).

3 1 5 R.B. Emmcrick, 'Contributions to the Study of the J1valra-pustalal ', Bulletin of the


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Friedrich RudolfHoemle on the .hvakapustaka, digging out a forgotten article

of his ftom an Indian Festschrift of 1917,37 as well as locating, in the Oriental

and India Office Collections of the British Library, Hoernle's manuscript (Eur

D 723) of a study on the ,rzvalcapustaka he had intended to publish as the second

volume of his Manuscript Remains of Buddhist Literature found in Eastern

Turkestan (Oxford 1916). In three articles, Emmerick reinterpreted and provided

a reconstruction of the corrupt Sanskrit of the first c~ and of the prescrip-

tion for the Mahasauvarcaliidi gh~ that had already been studied by Hoerole.

Some other Khotanese medical ftagments have an even more chequered his-

tory. Over a period of many years, Emmerick had made repeated enquiries con-

cerning the whereabouts of a collection of manuscripts from Khotan deposited

by Oscar Terry Crosb y in the Library of Congress, Wa shington.4O When the

Crosby collection finally turned up in 1984 and a microfilm was sent to Emme-

rick in 1985,he immediately recognised four Khotanese fragments as belonging

to a single medical text and referring to needles and cauterisation.41 Further ftag-

Scllool of Oriental aruJAfrican Studies 42 (1979): 235-243.

37 R.E. Emmaick, 'Hoemle and the JilHlka-Pustalca', RuUeti1Jof the School of Oriental aNiA .fri ctm Studies 45 (1982): 343; cf. A.F. Rudo1fHoemle, 'An Ancient M edical Manuscript

fiom Eastmu TurkCstan' , in: CommDnora ttve Essays Presen ted to S ir Ramlcrish lUl Gopa /

BIuuu:ltuIcar. Poona: BhandarkarOriental Research Institute 1917, pp. 415-432.

31 Ronald E. Emmerick, 'The Svastika Antidote', Jou11Ul1of the European Ayurvedic

Society 2 (1992): 60-81.

39 Ronald E. Emmerick, 'The Mahisauvan:alldi Ghee', in: KIaus Rohrbom and Wolfgang

Veenker (eels.),MDn or iae mr muscu lu m: Ged Dlld xm df iir A1 J1 Je mar iev . Gab ai 1J . Wiesbaden:

Harrusowitz Verlag 1994 (Veroffentlichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica 39), pp. 29-42;

Ronald Eric Emmerick, 'The Mabisauvan:alid ghfta in Hoemle's unpublished edition of the

.lfvakapustalaJ ,, Jou11Ul1of the European Ayurvedic Society 5 (1997): 76-81.

40 R.E. Emmerick, 'The Historical Importance ofKhotanese Manuscripts', in: J. Harma1ta

(ed.), Prolegome1Ul to the Sources on the Irutory o f Pre-Is lamic Cen tra l Asia . Budapest:

Akad6miai K.iad6 1979, pp. 167-177; see pp. 175-177.

41 R.E. Emmerick, 'The Crosby Collection', in: Albrecht Wezler and Ernst Hammer-

schmidt (cds.), Proceedings of the XXXlJ IlJler1ultiolUllCongress for Asian and North A.frictl1l

Studies. Hamburg, 25th-30th A.ugust 1986. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag 1992 (Zcitschrift


12/15

ments of Khotanese medical texts were dealt with by him in his and Margarita

Iosipovna Vorob1eva-Desjatovskaja's edition of the St. Petersburg collections.42

It was only to be expected that Emmerick, an Iranianist and a comparative

philo logis t by education, would have investigated the concepts of disease and

cure and the way they were expressed in Indo-Iranian. This he did in a detailed

article he published in the festschrift for Genit Ian M eulenbeld.43

But Emmerick:'s activity was also devoted to the promotion of research. In

the case ofiyurvedic medicine, this resulted in the launch, together with Rahul

Peter Das, in 1990 of a new journal, the Journal of the European AyurvedicSociety. that he co-edited from the first to the sixth volume, the latter published

in 200 I under the new journal title Traditional South Asian Medicine. He also

reviewed a number of books on Indian and Tibetan medicine, and his keen in-

terest in this subject is evident from the fact that, from 1990 onwards, he re-

viewed exclusively works on medicine.44 It may also be mentioned here that

dcr Deulschen M orgenJinctischen Gescllschaft, Supplement 9), pp. 672-674 (see p. 673); R.E.

Emmcrick, 'Notes on the Crosby Collection', in: Wojciech Skalmowski and Alois van Tonger-

loo (eds.), MedioiranictL Proceedings o/the Intentati01llJ1Colloquium Organized by the Ka-

tholieiz UniversiteitLeuvenfrom the 21st to the 23rd 0/Ma y 1990. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters1993 (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analec::ta48), pp. 57-64 (see p. S9); Ronald E. Emmcrick, 'Cr0s-

by, 0IK:ar Terry', in: Ehsan Yarshater (cd.), Encyclopaedia lranica. Volume VI. Costa M esa:

M azda Publishers 1993, pp. 402b-403b (see p. 403a).

42 Fngments SI P 45.1-3 and SI P 102b4-IS: see Ronald E. Emmcrick and M argari ta I . Vo-

rob'eva-Desjatovskaja, SaIallJocuments YO . TIle St. Petersburg CoUections. London: School of

Oriental and African Studies 1993 (Corpus InscripIionum Innicarurn 2: Inscript ions of the

Seleucid and Parthian Periods and ofEastem Inm and Central Asia S: Saka), pp. 23-2S and 105;

Ronald E. Emmerick and M argarita I. Vorob'av&-Desjatovsbja, SaIal Documents. Text volume

O J. The $I. Petersburg Collections. With contributions by H. KIIIDIlIIIOlo et aI. London: School

of Oriental and Afiican Studies 1995 (Corpus Inscript ionum IranicanJm 2: Inscriptions of the

Seleucid and Parthian Periods and ofEastem Iran and Central Asia S : Saka), pp. 36 and 134

43 Ronald E. Emmcrick, 'Indo-Iranian Concepts of Disease and Cure', Journal of the Euro-

pea n Ayurvedjc Society 3(=Studies in H01lOU1' o/Gerrlt Jan Meulenbeld presented byfriends

and colleagues on the occasion o/his 65th birthday on 28 Ma y 1993) (1993): 72-93.

44 Reviews of: Anne-M arie Blondcau (cd. and tr.), Matirima pour I 'etude de I'hippologie

et de I'hippilltrle tibetaines (apa rti r de s ma nu sc rit s de To ue n-ho ua ng ). Geneve: Librairie Droz


13/15

Emmerick wrote the entry 'Caraka' for the Encyclopaedia Iranica;5 for which

he was consulting editor for philology, and on the advisory committee of which

he sat from the eighth volume onwards after having been consulting editor for

linguistics for the first seven volumes.

It is a well-known fact that Ronald Emmerick mastered computers perfectly.

Already in the sixties, he initiated a project in Cambridge for a concordance of

the Khotanese texts.46 When, in the eighties, personal computers became afford-

able and powerful enough, Emmerick switched to them and began writing for

himself the programmes he needed. Thus, he wrote the now well-known pro-

1972 (Bulktin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 36 (1973): 698-7(0); G. J. Meu-

lenbeld (tr.), The Mlldhavanid6na and its Chief Commentary, Chapters 1-10. Leidcn: B.]. Brill

1974 (Bu lle tin a / the Schoo l a /Orien ta l and A fr ican S tud ies 38 (1975): 649); Alix Raison

(ed. and tr.), La HllrilJJ-stllfIhit6.texte mMlcal sans/rrlt, avec un inde%de nomenclature ciyrlm:?-

dique. Ponc:licbay: IDstitut F~ d'Indologie 1974 (BuJ let in o /the Schoo l o /Orien ta l and

A fr ic an St ud ie s 38 (1975): 65 If.; P. Ray, H. Gupta and M. Roy, Srdruta Smtrhit6 (A Scientific

Synopsis). New Delhi: Indian National Science Academy 1980 (Bulletin of the School ofOri-

ental and African Studies 45 (1982): 377f.); Byams-pa 'Pbrin-las, Wang L ei (translator and

compiler of the origiDal edition) and Cai JiDgf'eng(English translator and annotator), nbetan

M ed lc al 17 rt m gk a of th e Fou r M ed ic al Tan tras . Lhasa: People's Publishing House of Tibet

1988 (Joumal of the EuropetJ1lAyurvedic Society 1 (990): 179); Yorl Parfionovitch, Gyur-

me Dorje and Fernand Meyer (eds.), Tibetan Medical Paintings: Illustrations to the Blue Beryl

Treatise ofSangye Gyamt80 (1653-1705). 2 vols. London: Serindia Publications 1992 (Bulletin

of the School ofOrlental and A.frican Studies 58 (1995): 403-4(6); Jinadasa Liyanaratne (ed.),

Bha qj ja mai lj fi si l. Chapten 1-18. Oxford: The Pali Text Society 1996 (Traditional South Asian

M ed ic in e 6 (2001): 184-189); Dominik Wujastyk, The Roots of Ayurveda. Selectionsfrom

Sanskrit Medical Writings. New Delhi: Penguin Books India 1998 (Traditional South Asian

M ed ic in e 6 (2001): 158-163).

45 Ronald B. Bmmerick, Caraka', in: Bhsan Yarshater (ed.), Encyclopaed ia Iran lca. Vo l-

um e IJ'. London: Routledge and Kegan Paull990, p. 792b.

46 Listed as .L 260 A concordance of Khotanese' in Computers and the Hunranities 3,5

(1969): 300 (cf. R.B. Bmmerick, 'Rcsearchon Khotanese: A Survey (1979-1982)', in: Wojci-

cch Skalmowski and Alois van Tongerloo (eels.), Middle Irania" S tudies. Proceed ings o f the

I" te m at io lU Jl Sym pos iu m O rg an ized by the Katholieke Universileil Leuven from lhe 17th to

th e 20t1tof May 1982. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters 1984 (Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta 16),

pp. 127-1 45; p. 134).


14/15

grammes Bhela.exe and Caraka.exe for Sanskrit databank management that

were used for the aforementioned consolidated iyurvedic database and the in-

dexes in the ~filiagahfdayasm"hitiivolume, as well as programmes for Tibetan

and Khotanese databank management and a BlOber of ancillary programmes.

In 2000 he also began developing a database programme for a dictionary of

Khotanese that we were planning together. His expertise he made generously

available to other colleagues by collaborating with several institutions and re-

search projects to comply with their computing needs. In this field, he has done

much more than he bas published: t\W articles on Sanskrit computing and oneon Tibetan computing.47

But it is time now to return to the Khotanese Siddhasllra, which provided the

first impulse to Emmerick's wide-ranging research activity on the history ofli-

yurvedic literature over a period of almost forty years. Unfortunately, only few

results ofbis efforts on the Khotanese version have been published when com-

pared with the huge wm k he has don e on it He has dealt with the metrical intro-

duction to the Khotanese Siddhasllra in an article on the translation techniques

of the Khotanese,48 and, in a series of seven lexicological articles, has discussed

.7RoDald E. Emmerick, '00 the Indexation of Sanskrit M edical Verses and PR :scriptioDs',

in : Etudes sur la medicine indienne. Strasbourg: UDiversite Louis Pasteur 1979 (Seientia Ori-

entalis . Cabiers do Seminaire sur les sciences et lea tccbniques co Asie 16), pp. 3-8; RE. Em-

merick,'ne Indexation of Sanskrit M edical Texts: Progress and Prospects ', in: G. Jan M eu-

leobeld (eeL), Proceedings o f the In tematioNJI Workshop on Pr ior it ia in the Study oflnditm

Med ic in e he ld at th e St at e UIIiveniJy ofGromngen, 23-27 October 1983. Groningen: Institute

of Indian Studies 1984 (Publikaties van bet Instituut voor Indische Talco en Culturen 4), pp.

147-154; Ronald E. Emmerick, 'Tibetan Databank M anagement with Personal Computers ' ,

in: IbaIa Sh6ren and Yamaguchi ZUihfi(cds.), Trbettm Studies. ProceeJings of the 5th SemiNJr

of the International Assodation for Tibetan Studies, Narlta 1989. II: Language, HUlory an d

Culture. Narita-shi: Naritasan Shinshoji 1992 (M onograph Series ofNaritasan Institute for Buddhist Studies. Occasional Papers 2), pp. 439-443.

48 RoDaId E. Emmerick, 'Some Rcm aIb on Translation Techniques of the Khotanese ', in:

Klaus R61ubom and Wolfgang Veenker (cds.), Sprachen des Buddhumus in Zentralasien. Yor-

triige des Hamburger SymposiOIlS yo m 2. Juli bu 5. Ju/i 1981. Wiesbaden: Otto Hamssowitz

1983 (VcrM fendichungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica 16), pp. 17-26.


15/15

a number of problem words and clarified the passages where they occur.49 The

reinterpretations of these words were subsequently 1akenup in the three volumes

of Studies in the Vocabulary ofKhotanese that he published with Prods Oldor

Sijavs.50 These three volumes contain many further entries by Emmerick on the

vocabulary of the SiddhasiJra. Unfortunately, the fact that many passages from

the SiddhosiIra are quoted with incorrect intelpretations in Bailey's Dictio1lll1'J"1

resulted in postponement of the publication of the Khotanese Siddhasiira, be-

cause Emmerick did not want to load his edition with a heavy commentary cor-

recting the many misinteIpretatioDS of Siddhasiira passages. 52

Emmerick attached the utmost importance to the Khotanese SiddhasiIra and

continued working on it until the last days, laying aside several other works he

had already brought to an advanced stage of preparation. Thus, he has left a vir-

tually finished edition and translation of the whole text, including an appendix

that contains the variants that are found in the Jivakapustaka. As for the glossa-

ry, however, though he was able to do all the preliminary work and to prepare

a complete concordance, he had to leave it unfinished: only the vowels and the

letter Ir a are virtually complete.

49 RE. Emm erick, 'Kbotaoese byiIiiQ', Zeitschrift fiir vergleiclletrM Sprachjorschung 94,1-2

(1980): 282-288; RE. Emmerick, 'e/ai. ~,Miindrener StudlenZU T Sprochwissenschaft40

(1981): 27-33; RoDaId E. Emmcrick, 'Khotanese ham8iiuna-'. Studien ZU T /ruJologie WId /ranistilc

7 (1981): 71-75; R.E. Emmerick, 'KhotaneseIDlV6la', in: LA. Hercus et aL (eds.)./ndologiCtJI

and Buddhist Studies. Volume in Honour of Professor J. w . : de Jong on h is 60th Birthday.

Canberra: A ustralian NatioDal University Press 1982, pp. 137-147; RE. Emmcrick, 'Some more

Loanwon:ls in Khotanese', Die Spraclre 29.1 (1983): 43-49; RE. Emmcrick, 'Khotanese vrItir,

in : OrlentIZ/iQ J.Du ch e.m e-G ull lem in Em erito Oblata. Leiden: EJ. Brill 1984 (Acta Iranica 23),

pp . 151-155; RE. Emmcrick, 'Two more Khotanesc Ghostwords ', in: /rtlIIia:l Varia. Papers in

Ho no r ofPr oje ssor Eh sa n Ya nh aJer . Leideo: EJ. BriIll990 (Acta Iranica 30). pp. 80-82.

50 RE. Emmericlc and P.O. Skja:rvs, Studies in the VocabulaTy ofKhotanese. Wien: Verlagdcr Osterreichischen Akademie der WisseDschaften 1982 (1), 1987 (11); 1997 (llI (eel. R E . E m -

merick, comnDutcd by G. Canevascini et a1.})(Ver6ffentlichUDgeD der Kommission fi1r Irani-

stilt 12. 17. 27).

51 H.W. Bailey, Dictionary ofKhotan Salaz.Cambridge: cambridge University Press 1979.

52 Cf. op.cit. in note 18: Vlfi.