A Map to Explore Traditional Tibetan Medicine (Sowa-Rigpa) Allegorical Tree of the Four Tantras [Men-Tsee-Khang-སྨན་རྩིས་ཁང་།]

Book excerpt: PREFACE The famous Tibetan doctor and physician to His Holiness the 13th Dalai Lama, Ven. Dr. Khenrab Norbu (1883-1962 A.D.)1, in one of his compositions, illustrated the First Tantra -The Root Tantra- in a tree form, dividing the content into roots, trunks, branches, leaves and fruits of a tree, using the essential concepts of Traditional Tibetan Medicine- The Four Tantras- in a simple way. With the aim to help his students quickly adapt to the theoretical concepts of Tibetan Medicine in a minimum time, the allegorical tree featuring the gist and overview of Traditional Tibetan medicine was illustrated. Darmo Menrampa Lobsang Choedak (1638-1711 A.D.)2 reasoned out in his commentary of the Explanatory Tantra, legs shes gser gyi thurma3, that “It has the significance of widening one’s own wisdom at large and inspire and attract other fellow students to learn the methods of understanding the medical knowledge through an allegorical tree”. Kempa Tsewang (15th century)4 stated “The root holds the foundation of the entire text, the trunk summarizes the meaning of the text, the branches elaborate on the particular meaning, the leaves expound on the details of the meaning. On them blossoms the flower of health and longevity that bears the three fruits of spiritual life, prosperity and happiness.” Having thus been stated, it has been a curriculum in Tibetan Medical Institutes, such as Chakpori Medical College and Lhasa Men Tsee Khang in Tibet, to memorize the allegorical text and to give oral examination of the same. Manually arranging the roots, trunks, branches and leaves was a part of the traditional exam, along with the oral examination. This tradition still continues to these days in many Tibetan Medical Institutes around the world. Similarly, the sole reason to publish this book is to disseminate and promote the comprehensive knowledge of Traditional Tibetan Medicine (Sowa-Rigpa)5, in an easier and a simpler way, and to benefit those non-Tibetans who are keen to learn the ancient medical science, but are unable to read and understand Tibetan language. Hence, this publication will serve as material for those seeking an English version of the Tibetan medical text. Since this book on the allegorical tree of the Four Tantras is the first of its kind to be published in English, I indeed hope that it will serve as a small contribution from my part towards the dissemination of our traditional healing science. In this book, the medical terms used are extracted from or are uniformly based on the books “The Root Tantra and The Explanatory Tantra from the Quintessential Instructions on the Eight Branches of the Ambrosia Essence Tantra” and “The Subsequent Tantra from the Secret Quintessential Instructions on the Eight Branches of the Ambrosia Essence Tantra”, translated into English by Men-Tsee-Khang6. Priority has been given to directly translate as much Tibetan terms into English as possible, but in certain cases where direct translation has been a challenge such as loong, tripa, baekan, maevel, surya,etc. the Tibetan terms have been written in Tibetan phonetics and italicized to avoid mistranslation. The reason for keeping those terms in Tibetan phonetics is to enhance readability and provide the right pronunciation of the terms. Meanings for the Tibetan phonetics that appear very often throughout the book, Tibetan phonetics of medicinal compounds and the equivalent scientific terms for the Tibetan medicinal ingredients are given in the glossary section at the end of this book. Equivalent transliterated terms for the phonetics have also been included. The Tibetan terms whose meaning relates only to specific chapters are put as footnotes in their respective places.