Journal of - International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine

Ashfaq AHMAD & Ala NARAYANA
Procedure of Manuscript Study in Post Graduate Education of
Unani Medicine: A Reappraisal
Manuscriptology (Ilmul Makhtutat)
Definition: The word manuscript derives from the Latin
manuscriptum, literally, “written by hand”.
A manuscript is a recording of information that has
been manually created by someone or some people, such
as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or
reproduced. The term may also be used for information
that is hand-recorded in other ways than writing, for example
inscriptions that are chiselled upon a hard material
or scratched as with a knife point in plaster or with a stylus
on a waxed tablet, or in cuneiform writing, impressed with
a pointed stylus in a flat tablet of unbaked clay.
In publishing and academic contexts, a “manuscript”
is the text submitted to the publisher or printer in preparation
for publication, usually as a typescript prepared on
a typewriter, or today, a printout from a PC, prepared in
manuscript format. 4
Manuscripts may be in the form of scrolls or in book
form, or codex format. Illuminated manuscripts are enriched
with pictures, border decorations, elaborately engrossed
initial letters or full-page illustrations.
In the context of library science, a manuscript is defined
as any hand-written item in the collections of a library or
an archive; for example, a library’s collection of the letters
or a diary that some historical personage wrote.
The traditional abbreviations are MS for manuscript
and MSS for manuscripts; it doubles the last letter of the
abbreviation to express the plural, just as pp. means “pages”.
Education in Unani Tib
Medical education in the classical tradition of Unani
medicine followed a model common to the pre modern
eras. Students learned from a teacher, preferably a well renowned
physician. The physician might be a family member,
father, grand father or uncle and hence develop family
traditions of medicine and then madrasa became a centre
of learning throughout the country. The structure and direction
of Unani medical education has followed that of
biomedicine since the turn of last century. Now in 21 st century
a well recognized bachelor degree is offered by over
forty well established colleges of Unani medicine and post
graduate degree is granted by over ten Unani institutes in
specialties of not less than ten departments.
It is a matter of great concern and regrets that in post
graduate research schemes due attention and emphasis
is not given to the study of the vast manuscripts and rare
books scattered in Unani medicine across the Indian sub-
continents in various libraries and institutes. More than
hundred post graduate research scholars take admission
every year in Unani Colleges, but neither their guides nor
they themselves inspire postgraduate students to integrate
and co-relate manuscriptology with the post graduate studies
and take in their research program.
The colleges also don’t care about caring and preservation
of these precious treasures. Once we officers
of N.I.I.M.H., Hyderabad under the project of ‘Collection
and Digitization of Medical manuscripts’ from D/O
AUSH, GOI, visited a prestigious Unani College for digitizing
the manuscripts. We astonished to see that almost
all collections of manuscript were haphazardly kept in a
cornered dark room like a collection of waste paper. We
were shocked to see the pathetic treatment of these rare and
precious treasure of our yore, like great poet Iqbal when he
said after visiting Cordoba, Spain “magar wo ilm ke moti
kitabain apne aba ki, jo dekhen unko Europe me to dil hota
hai seepara”. We collected and digitized more than four
hundred Unani manuscripts. Even now our Unani patrons
intend firmly to engage the post graduate scholars in the
preparation and editing of various texts no manuscript
would be left untouched and great work will be done
History of Manuscript
Before the invention of woodblock printing in China or
by movable type printing press in Europe, all written documents
had to be both produced and reproduced by hand.
Historically, manuscripts were produced in form of scrolls
(volumen in Latin) or books (codex), on vellum and other
parchments, on papyrus, and on paper. In Russia (Betula
utilis) birch bark documents as old as from the 11th century
have survived. In India the Palm leaf manuscript, with
a distinctive long rectangular shape, was used from ancient
times until the 19th century. Paper spread from China via
the Islamic world to Europe by the 14th century, and by the
late 15th century had largely replaced parchment for many
purposes.
Originally, all books were in manuscript form. In China,
and later other parts of East Asia, Woodblock printing
was used for books from about the seventh century. In the
Islamic world and the West, all books were in manuscript
until the introduction of movable type printing in about
1450. Manuscript copying of books continued for a least a
century, as printing remained expensive. Private or government
documents remained hand-written until the invention
of the typewriter in the late nineteenth century. Because
of the likelihood of errors being introduced each time
a manuscript was copied, the filiation of different version of
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ISHIM 2011-2012