Acharya Bhavamishra (आचार्य भावमिश्रः)

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Acharya Bhavmishra wrote Bhavpraksha Samhita which is one of the laghutrayees (lesser triad of Ayurveda treatises). Just as one part of it is Bhavaprakasha Nighantu a popular lexicon of Ayurveda pharmacopoeia and that is considered as the drug index of Ayurveda (consisting of various herbs, food sections, and minerals). His work represents the condensed form of knowledge of traditional Ayurvedic medicine. Acharya Bhavmishra was the first to write a description of “Phiranga Roga” which is correlated with certain STDs (sexually transmitted diseases). Bhavaprakasha samhita is thus an excellent addition to the golden era of writing Ayurvedic treatises which were and still are used as handbooks for the entire preceding generation of Ayurvedic scholars and physicians,

Period and history and pioneering work

Even though a well-known author and an excellent Samskrit scholar, not much is known about the author other than the information that he belonged to the 16^th Century CE.

• Acharya Bhavmishra was the son of Shree Latakan Mishra. (Mishra is a common suffix used in Hindu-Brahmin).
• He lived around the northern parts of Bharatvarsha, specifically he belonged to the Magadha region which is Bihar now.

Acharya Bhavapraksha was the pioneer of “pratinidhi dravyas” which means substitute drugs. He added certain new dravyas/herbs as well to the Nighantu(lexicon) which were not mentioned earlier anywhere. His work represents the action of the herb along with its properties, where it grows, how it looks and etc.

About Samhita

https://www.easyayurveda.com/2016/11/01/bhavaprakasha-bhavamishra/

Bhavpraksha Samhita consists of 10,268 verses. This is divided mainly into three sections and further 80 chapters.

Section	Parts	Chapters
Purva khanda	Prathama Bhaga and Dwitiya Bhaga.	7 chapters, 4307 verses
Madhyama Khanda	Four Bhaga (Pratham,Dwitiya,trutiya,chaturtha)	71 chapters,5886 verses
Uttara Khanda	-	2 chapters, 96 verses

Other treatises/works

Acharya Bhavmishra also wrote,

1. Gunaratnamala
2. Bhavprakasha Nighantu
3. And commentary on MadhavNidana and VaidyaNighantu.

Translations

Shri Kantha Murthy translated it into English.

And the most read translation of Bhavprakasha Nighantu in Hindi is by Prof. Chunekar.

Commentaries

There are two commentaries known on Bhavprakasha, one written by author Bhavmishra himself.

And another is “Sadvaidya Siddhanta Ratnakar” written by Jayadeva. This is placed in a library in Jammu, India.