Aushadha bheshajiyam of kashyapa indriya sthana - an explorative study

Background: Kashyapa Samhita (KS) is a very well known ancient Ayurvedic manuscript considered as the hand book of Kaumarabhritya (paediatrics).KS consists of 120 chapters divided among 8 Sthanas' (sections) with one additional part known as Khila Sthana which consists of 80 chapters.Kashyapa Samhita Indriya Sthana (KSIS) consists of 12 chapters and it deals with prognostic aspects.Only the last chapter (12 th chapter) of KSIS is completely available.Aushadha Bheshajiyam Indriyam (ABI) is the 12 th chapter of KSIS which consists of 36 verses.Most of the verses of ABI chapter deal with different types of dreams along with their prognostic importance.Purpose: The contents of ABI chapter are unique and require further exploration.No works have been conducted on ABI chapter of KSIS till date.The present study is aimed to evaluate the prognostic importance of the contents of ABI chapter with the help of contemporary medical literature.

Methods: Various databases have been searched to collect relevant data regardingAyurvedic and contemporary medical literature by using appropriate keywords.Only full text articles published in English language were considered.Results: Different types of dreams and their prognostic significance is the main theme of ABI chapter.Description of dreams of children is the unique contribution of ABI chapter to Ayurveda.Failure of pharmacological and non-pharmacological interventions in the management of end-of-life stages is documented in ABI chapter.Dreams of misfortunes and their prognostic significance are highlighted.Description of demonic dreaming or dreams with evil presence or dreams with supernatural agents is available in ABI chapter.Bala Grahas and their influences on dream content of children have been explained in ABI chapter.Concepts like dreams and odours, dream speech interpretations, animals in dreams and their meaning, significance of colours in dreams, dream symbolism, effects of dreams on waking life, classification of dreams based on their significance, various auspicious and inauspicious dreams, bad dreams and nightmares, various positive dreams objects, characters, images and situations, therapeutic benefits of dreams, Homa therapy and it role in neutralizing the negative consequences of bad dreams or nightmares and medical etiquette needs to be adopted by the physician while treating poor prognostic conditions or end-of-life stages have been explained in ABI chapter.Conclusion: Various dreams, their interpretation along with prognostic importance described in ABI chapter of KSIS seems to be promising and further research works are required to substantiate these claims.