The Bower Manuscript

A birch-bark manuscript found near Kucha (Xinjiang) and now held in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the Bower Manuscript is among the oldest surviving Indian medical texts, covering materia medica and recipes including garlic preparations famed in Ayurvedic history.

Significance

Its discovery demonstrated that classical Ayurvedic pharmacy circulated far beyond the subcontinent along Central Asian routes by the early centuries CE.

Categories

Verification notes

• Audited against Wikipedia (September 2026).