Study On Drangti Medical Family And Its Academic Thought

My research topic in this thesis is Drangti medical family and their academic thought.Drangti family is one of the most famous Tibetan medical families.The family started to practice medicine in the 8th century.Drangti Gyalye Kharphuk was a court physician of Tride Tsukten,who was 37th king of Tibetan Empire.Since then,the members of Drangti family had been court physicians of Tibetan Empire.After Tibetan Empire collapsed,many famous doctors appeared in this family.Especially,under the support of Sakya authority,Drangti medical family established Sakya Mendrong school from 13th-16th century.The doctors from the family composed medical texts and trained many physicians.In fact,the Northern School and Southern School were derived from Sakya Mendrong.Yuthog Yonten Gonpo the Younger,Zurkhar Lodro Gyalpo,Desi Sangye Gyatso,and other physicians admired the achievements of Drangti medical family.Those famous scholars encourage physicians to study and transmit the teaching of Drangti medical family.In the modern time,Tibetan medical historian paid very little attention to Drangti medical family.Famous Tibetan physician Champa Trile talked about Drangti medical family briefly.Other than that,there isn't comprehensive and systematic research on the family in the country and abroad.Drangti medical family is one of famous Tibetan medical families in the Tibetan history;thus,the family has played very important role in the development of Tibetan medicine.It is very important to do research on the lineage and academic thinking of Drangti medical family.The research methods include reading Tibetan medical literature,doing textual research,investigating the historical events,comparing different theories,doing field work,and collecting data.Having based on Dunhuang medical literature,medical texts of Tibetan Empire,and more than ten medical texts from Drangti medical family,I have done research on Drangti medical family and their special thoughts.As for the lineage,this thesis shows the origin of Drangti lineage and the course of development.I investigate the background of Drangti medical family,the history of the family from ancient to modern time,and the academic achievement of Drangti medical family.Through research,I discover that the family has developed the academic theory through summarizing medical experiences in Tibet,borrowing great ancient medical knowledge from India,and mainland China.The medical family was expert in the treatment of poison,inflectional diseases,and wounds.The period of formation,development,and height of development of the medical family is between 8th and 16th century.During the long history,under the support of Tibetan Empire and Sakya authority,Drangti medical family had been developed and developed to highest level.Many famous physicians,such as Jampal Sangpo,Gyalwa Sangpo,and Palden Tsoje were from the family.Golden Measuring Dish and Silver Measuring Dish were composed by scholars from the family.After 16th century,even though the texts of Drangti medical family still existed,the family had declined gradually because the lack of support from politicians.Later the descendants of Drangti family became Buddhist masters.I can see that development and medical practice of Drangti medical family have a closed connection with social and political changes.From academic aspect,this thesis analyzed the special academic thought of Drangti medical family.Firstly,by comparing Drangti medical family and other schools,I analyzed and investigated medical theory,clinical practice and pharmacology of Drangti medical family.Comparing to previous schools,Drangti medical family had better understanding of circulatory system.The Commentary of Pulse Diagnosis,which was composed by physician from Drangti medical family,is the most detailed commentary on the chapter of pulse diagnosis in the Four Treatises.The medical family also pointed out some unique viewpoints regard to external therapy and other topics.As for the pharmacology,the medical family drew Tibetan medical painting and invented more than fifty new formulas.They also had many unique viewpoints about recognizing medical materials and producing formulas.Secondly,through investigating five texts of Drangti medical family,including Golden Measuring Dish and Silver Measuring Dish,I analyzed and studied the characteristics of the family.The writing style of Golden Measuring Dish and Silver Measuring Dish is not like Astangahrdayasam.hita.These two texts borrowed medical knowledge from India,mainland China and other Tibetan medical traditions.Unorganized records about the treatment of difficult and complicated cases of illness can be found in these two texts.Records about treatment of animal diseases are special characteristics in these two texts.To conclude,as one of important medical families in Tibetan medical history,Drangti medical family served as court physicians for several Tibetan kings,established Sakya Mendrong school,composed about hundred medical texts,trained many physicians,and invented more than fifty formulas.They made a great contribution to the development of Tibetan medicine.Their unique viewpoints on Tibetan medical theory,clinical practice,pharmacology and composition of medical texts not only made contribution to the development of Tibetan medicine,but also have great values on modern development of Tibetan medicine.After field work,I discovered that descendants of Drangti family still lived in Tsang region of Tibet.In order to analyzing and examining their academic thoughts,and values of research and application,this thesis encourages medical scholars to do more research on Drangti medical family and establish research platform of various Tibetan medical traditions.I propose to do more research on different traditions of Tibetan medicine.I hope that studying on different traditions of Tibetan medicine become a scientific and effective research methods for transmitting clinical experiences of various Tibetan medical traditions.