A Hand Book of Dravyaguna Detailed (107 Colour Photographs of Various Herbs)

This book written by Dr Prasanth R Krishnan MD (Ay), PGDEP. PhD is a comprehensive textbook on the detailed drugs according to the new NCISM syllabus. It deals with the essential details of 107 detailed drugs along with respective photographs and local names which are arranged and grouped according to the Rasapanchaka of the drugs in a first of its kind. The book will help students to identify drugs easily and effectively and also to remember the properties of all drugs.

Dr Prasanth R Krishnan MD (Ay), P.G.D.E.P, Ph.D (Ay) is now working as the Professor and Head of Department at Department of Dravyagunavijnana, Parul Institute of Ayurved and Research, Parul University, Vadodara, Gujarat, India. He completed his undergraduate and post-graduation from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and Post Graduate Diploma in Ethno pharmacology (PGDEP) from Kerala Veterinary and Animal Science University, Wayanad, Kerala, India. He started his teaching career from Vishnu Ayurveda College, Shoranur, Kerala and has a teaching experience of 10 years in the subject. He has authored 2 other books on Dravyaguna namely, "Essential Pharmacology and Dravyaguna" and "A Hand book of dravyaguna non detailed" published in 2016 and 2019. He also has about a dozen national and international publications to his credit. His interest of research largely lies in the undiscovered medicinal flora of the country and in busting the controversies around Ayurved herbs. He is currently pursuing his Doctorate in the area of Vrukshaayurveda from Parul University.

For authentic practice of Ayurveda we are deliberately in need of a thorough knowledge in medicinal plants mainly in its identification and special properties.

It is also practically difficult to grow all the medicinal plants in the herbal garden effectively as most of them are from different habitat so the identification of all the detailed drugs from college herbal garden is also not possible. So, this is a humble effort to make the detailed drugs more familiar to the ayurvedic under graduate students along with its color photographs so that it will be easy for the students to identify the specific drugs effectively. The drugs in this book have been arranged according to its Rasapanchaka and grouped together to study together This will help students to remember and reproduce the properties of the drug during exams and also help them in their practice in preparing unique combinations of drugs for specific action after assessing doshas and vyadhi.

There is no letter without mantra, no roots without medicinal value, no person is absolutely useless, but person who can identify its utility are found rare.

I feel immense pleasure to go through this handbook on Dravyaguna. Dr Prasanth. author of this work is a sincere and a keen Dravyaguna learner and his knowledge on indigenous plants and its varieties is appreciable. Dravyaguna is a vast and versatile subject and generally students find it difficult to remember the properties of each drug. The author has discussed all detailed drugs of the syllabus in a first of its kind manner by grouping the drugs according to its Rasapanchaka. He has also tried to clear the ambiguity around different varieties of species used in the same Sanskrit name in different parts of the country. The book is a sincere contribution to the subject of Dravyaguna and will be equally useful for both Undergraduate and Postgraduate students of Dravyaguna.

I believe that this endeavor of Dr Prasanth shall help students to learn properties of herbs in easy way.

I wish the young author a bright future.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages